Abbey Church
The Abbey Church was constructed in 1962. It is also known as the Church of St. Mary and St. Louis and the Priory Chapel. It was designed by Gyo Obata of Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum. The church's circular facade consists of three tiers of whitewashed, thin-shell concrete parabolic arches, the top one forming a bell-tower. The arches appear to float upwards from their grassy base. They are faced with dark insulated-fiberglass polyester window walls which create a meditative translucency when viewed from within. The church holds a 14th-century sculpture of the Madonna and Christ child, a 17th-century holy font in the Della Robbia style, and modern sacred art by artists from the United States, Great Britain, Spain, and France. The 2007 AIA|CPC Design Committee bestowed its Twenty-five Year Award on the Abbey Church/Priory Chapel.
On the grounds outside the church sit life-size sculptures of the abbey's patron saints, Saint Benedict, by Lithuanian-born artist Wiktor Szostalo, and the Holy Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, Our Lady of Grace, by American Philip Howie. The Abbey Church also serves as the home church for the Saint Louis Archdiocese parish of Saint Anselm.
Read more about this topic: Saint Louis Priory School
Famous quotes containing the words abbey and/or church:
“The Abbey always reminds me of that old toast, “Above lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there.””
—Garrett Fort (1900–1945)
“He prayed more deeply for simple selflessness than he had ever prayed before—and, feeling an uprush of grace in the very intention, shed the night in his heart and called it light. And walking out of the little church he felt confirmed in not only the worth of his whispered prayer but in the realization, as well, that Christ had become man and not some bell-shaped Corinthian column with volutes for veins and a mandala of stone foliage for a heart.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)