Abstract

This project originated in my research on three modernist churches commissioned by the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis from 1948-54 which was then under the progressive leadership of Archbishop (later Cardinal) Joseph E. Ritter. What factors accounted for these unprecedented forms for sacred architecture? The architectural partnership of Murphy and Mackey designed the churches in accordance with the new liturgical reform protocols that were embedded in the designs of the German architect, Rudolf Schwarz and his colleagues and disseminated through Catholic pastors of German origin in the St. Louis parishes. Other strands of modernism were also implicated in Murphy and Mackey’s church designs, for example from their direct encounter with the celebrated German émigré architect, Eric Mendelsohn during the construction of B’nai Amoona Synagogue in St. Louis. Murphy and Mackey were also exposed to Eliel Saarinen’s design ideas through a web of connections with the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit, Michigan. The postwar Catholic Church was faced with the challenge of modernizing in order to remain relevant in the lives of the Catholic faithful, including accepting new ideas about design of the modern church. I explore Archbishop Ritter’s willingness to embrace modern architecture within the larger sphere of his moral and ethical stance on social justice issues, in particular his early integration of St. Louis’s parochial schools. I argue that the completion of three modernist churches before the immediate postwar decade ended made religious architecture a leader in the adoption of modernism in St. Louis. At the same time, Ritter saw in modernist design the potential to turn the Church’s attention to the future. This project addresses and accounts for the convergence of extraordinarily rich strands of architectural thinking in St. Louis in the immediate postwar decade including the thinking of the leading international modernist Le Corbusier and Eero Saarinen. I characterize the architectural context around Murphy and Mackey’s St. Louis churches by taking their parabolic plan for Resurrection Church as a point of departure for examining the notable incidence of curvilinear form in St. Louis architecture in the period, the leading example being Saarinen’s Gateway Arch. The advent of the parabola-based Arch as the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (renamed Gateway Arch National Park in 2018) and designed in collaboration with the landscape architect Dan Kiley, coincided with curvilinear experimentation that resounded throughout St. Louis’s postwar architectural landscape.

Committee Chair

Angela Miller

Committee Members

Elizabeth Childs; Eric Mumford; John Klein; William Wallace

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Author's Department

Art History & Archaeology

Author's School

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

12-17-2025

Language

English (en)

Author's ORCID

0009-0002-7785-0962

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