Architecture
Early Presbyterians were careful to distinguish between the "church," which referred the members, and the "meeting house," which was the building in which the church met. Until the late 19th century, very few Presbyterians ever referred to their buildings as "churches." Presbyterians believed that meeting-houses (now called churches) are buildings to support the worship of God. The decor in some instances was austere so as not to detract from worship. Early Presbyterian meeting-houses were extremely plain. No stained glass, no elaborate furnishings, and no images were to be found in the meeting-house. The pulpit, often raised so as only to be accessible by a staircase, was the centerpiece of the building. In the late 19th century a gradual shift began to occur. Prosperous congregations built imposing churches, such as Fourth Presbyterian in Chicago, Madison Avenue Presbyterian and Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City, Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA, First Presbyterian in Dallas, House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota and many others. Usually a Presbyterian church will not have statues of saints, nor the ornate altar more typical of a Roman Catholic church. In a Presbyterian (Reformed Church) one will not usually find a Crucifix hanging behind the Chancel. However, one may find stained glass windows that depict the crucifixion, behind a chancel.
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Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)