Church conversions

lostexpectation

There is an interesting article on the feb 12 edition of newsweek about church conversions, ah here it is http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16959621/site/newsweek/

about they are being turned into restaurants and nightclubs and climbing gyms...or even mosques like church on the south circular road the article also mentions St Marys church opposite jervis SC.
what do you think of this, I think buildings are better used then left to rot but these guys don't think so http://cathcon.blogspot.com/ some suggest they should be destroyed rather the desecrated?

I personlly would be only concerned about the architecture and seen plenty of examples of that being destroyed here too, hey refer to a church being used a strip joint would I be uncomfortable about althought less so a nightclub althought you could probably have similar things going on in both.

I think big unused churches can be use as communty halls even creches if there isn't one next door anyway.

whaddya reckon?

the editor siad he had great trouble finding people from both religious and non religious groups who were concerned or opposed to it.

BrianCalgary

Thanks for the article. I am saddened by the fact that so few people are attending services and how God has become so irrelevant in their lives.

As for the buildings, keep them. I live in a city where th eoldest building must be at least 130 years old. One of the things I love about going to Europe is visiting old churches adn other buildings and experiencing the rich history.
Personally I'd prefer to see the buildings remain standing.

The church is afterall more than a building, but a gathering of believers for the purpose of worshipping a saviour.

robindch

Well, unsurprisingly unlike Brian, I'm quite happy that churches are falling into disuse all over the continent and I look forward to the day when something similar happens to the mall churches in the USA (though as long as they're tax-free and unaccountable, I can't imagine that happening any time soon!)

Personally, I'd like to see the smaller and less architecturally important ones turned into community centers, so that the buildings might give back something to the communities that built them and paid for their upkeep. The bigger and better ones should be supported by the state firstly as remarkable architectural pearls and then, perhaps too, as Ozymandias-like monuments to human pride -- the one in Beauvais being the most egregious example. And the majority which are simply too expensive to maintain? Well, I can't see any alternative to selling them, or knocking them down and building something like sheltered accommodation, as happened to one church a mile or so from where I live.

That's an interesting blog, by the way

lostexpectation

robindch wrote:

Well, I can't see any alternative to selling them, or knocking them down and building something like sheltered accommodation, as happened to one church a mile or so from where I live.

That's an interesting blog, by the way

to be fair church still use alot of their land for hospitals and shetered or old folks accommodation I guess we just never see it.

Did they knock down a big church?

Juza1973

I read the article and I absolutely think that churches that are not anymore used for cult should be destroyed. After all they have a too high ceiling for a normal building, so unless they are a masterwork it would be best if they were destroyed.

The good thing about this use of churches is that it made me substain my own church (even if it's not a church to my architectural tastes!)

robindch

> to be fair church still use alot of their land for hospitals and
> sheltered or old folks accommodation I guess we just never see it.

Yes, I suppose we probably won't, but I'd like to see some stats on it all the same. The church is the country's second-largest property owner after the state itself, and the jewel of its portfolio must be the twenty acres it owns in Drumcondra. How many community centers could you build from the proceeds of the sale of that?

> Did they knock down a big church?

No, it was fairly small, though the amount of high-pressure steam let off by some of the locals would've suggested they were trying to turn Notre Dame into a knocking shop. The church itself wouldn't have sat more than a hundred or so people and I don't recall it being in great nick. It was Methodist too, AFAIR, and just across the road from the bigger (and slightly higher up) local catholic church.

Scofflaw

I'd be glad to see them taken into state care, and preserved as spaces for thinking/praying/contemplation. I'm always sorry to see the loss of the non-utilitarian.

cordially,
Scofflaw