Scottish Catholic Observer

A research project at the Glasgow School of Art (above) hopes to shed new light on the recent history of Catholic architecture in Britain.

Dr Robert Proctor, a lecturer in history of architecture at the Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh School of Architecture, has been awarded funding for a project on Catholic Church architecture in Britain from 1955 to 1975.

A grant of £135,000 has been awarded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) towards the costs of a research assistant, publication and exhibition costs and research travel for this project, beginning this September. The project will produce a book attempting to understand modern Church architecture in relation to changes in liturgy around the time of the Second Vatican Council and in its context of the architectural movement in Modernism after World War II. The study of church buildings in a social and urban context at a time of huge transformations in the modern city is also an important feature of this project.

Accompanying the book will be an exhibition designed for unconventional viewing spaces such as church vestibules, and writing for non-academic readerships intended to convey the research to church members and the architectural profession. At a time of continuing liturgical change and decline in the need for church buildings, this research is needed to evaluate and understand the rich but little-known heritage of modern British Catholic church architecture, and to bring it to wider attention.

For this research, Dr Proctor is keen to hear from parishes that may have a suitable building for inclusion in the project alongside architects who have worked on relevant churches of particular note or interest.