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St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Seattle (courtesy Olson Sundberg) |
| St. Mark's is an exercise in clarity and rationality, but not
without a transcendent dimension of its own. by John Pastier Construction of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle--halted in midstream by the Depression--has now taken a less grandiose and more interesting form than the one originally envisioned. The centerpiece of Olson Sundberg Architects' sensitive completion involves light and a collaboration with two glass artists. A west-facing great window and a 57-foot-high reredos (altar screen) provide an understated focus for the impressively spartan space. The great window is a 21-foot, rose-toned circle, which forms a three-dimensional composition with the glass reredos. The altar screen is made of inch-thick slabs of rough, fused glass, fabricated by artist Doug Hansen, and its milky-gray color complements the dominant structural material of the cathedral (a grand cubical volume primarily finished in vintage 1929 board-formed concrete). The glass slabs float within a steel grid, and depending on lighting conditions, exhibit different degrees of materiality and evanescence. The architects call the screen "a translucent veil--music flows through it, light and space flow through and around it." The top part of the screen is crowned by a 28-foot-diameter circular glass sculpture that aligns visually with the great window. Created by Portland artist Edward Carpenter (the stepson of architect Robert Alexander, a onetime partner of L.A. modernist Richard Neutra), it comprises hundreds of glass plates arranged radially in three concentric rings. The inner two contain ordinary glass plates set on edge, but the outermost is made up of pieces of dichroic glass that produce diverse colors through refraction. Seen head-on, pale blues, golds, pinks, and light bronzes dominate, but viewed from directly underneath, deeper blues, blue-greens, oranges, and occasional reds emerge. These coloristic effects occur under both natural and artificial lighting, creating the impression of a muted rose window. Olson Sundberg was also the associate architect for Steven Holl's St. Ignatius Chapel. In contrast to the mystical complexity of that structure, St. Mark's is an exercise in clarity and rationality, but not without a transcendent dimension of its own. |
Keywords:
St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, Olson Sundberg Architects, glass
