Profane Sacred Architecture in Vienna since 1960
Heidemarie Seblatnig
The architects responsible for this kind of architecture since 1960, justify their works claiming the spirit of Vatican II were speaking through their architecture. It is however a fact that no specific passage of the texts of the Vatican II Council requires the installation of a so-called “popular altar”.
Cardinal Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- said already in 1966: “Who could furthermore deny the existence of irritating and unnecessary exaggerations and lacks of equilibrium? Does really every mass need to be celebrated versus populum? Is it truly important to be able to look the priest into the face, or is it not often quite more HEILSAM to remember that he is a Christian with and like the others, and that he thus has a good reason to turn towards God together with them, joining them in saying ‘Our Father'?”
Since the 1960s church buildings, judged from the outside, appear rather to be flight hangars, bank offices, supermarkets, copy shops, storage halls, garden pavilions, or concrete bunkers, unless marked timidly by a cross placed as discretely as possible on the surface of the structure. But within it is not better. The inside seeks to connect to modernity by light effects like the ones used in dance clubs, bars, or cinemas.
For Catholics, the church is a place of mystery, where bread and wine truly become body and blood of Christ; it is also a place of Marian devotion; a place where one lays open one's sins in confession; and a place where one can pray the saints for their intercession for one's needs, for the saints have the function of models for the life of a Catholic. All this needs to be considered when designing a Catholic place of worship.
