Architecture of Brockton Church Rings With Spirit

Banker & Tradesman, December 1996, by Jonathan Hale
(reprinted with permission from The Warren Group)

Modernist church architecture attempts to stay fresh by expressing new materials: walls of plate glass and aluminum, spires of stainless steel. At Christ Congregational Church, however, Boston's Donham & Sweeney generally take a different tack. They hold to tradition, both religious and regional; they use many old materials, details and shapes, notably a cruciform floor plan, and then they play with these elements in new ways.

From the street, you approach what appears to be a one-story building at the top of a rise. Drive around to the parking area in the rear, though, and you see a two-story building set into the hillside. On the street side, in the evening light, the windows of the lantern, and the cross-shaped window of the chapel glow warmly; the building is calm and friendly. On the opposite site, where most people enter, a large gabled end-wall rises almost windowless. The arrangement of its few elements-a round vent near the top, the textures of the siding, the few openings at the bottom-saves it by a hairsbreadth from ugliness. It is just this play of harshness against gentleness that makes this the building's most lively side. The roof has multiple angles, gables, hips, cornices at three different levels.

If the exterior is quietly severe, the interior is a knockout. The sanctuary skews 45 degrees at the intersection of the building's cruciform plan, creating a wealth of interesting planes and spaces. A system of steel box-beam trusses soars over the sanctuary, picking up the light from the big lantern at the center, showing us the space of the room, making a drama of holding up the roof. The excitement of those beams flying overhead, and the visual richness of the 45-degree floor plan rotation, are more reminiscent of Victorian than colonial churches. A big Austin pipe organ is excellently placed in the choir bay at the left: magnificent, but not overwhelming.