Consider any piece of stone or wooden furniture in your home: the chair no one ever sits in, the step before your front door, or the coffee table standing guard beside your couch. These elements often provide warmth, stability, and comfort and contribute to the unique space that is yours. In a church, wood and stone elements offer the same benefits through their utility, strength, and beauty and contribute to the overall atmosphere in ways often left overlooked.
The Strength of Stone
Stone offers obvious advantages in addition to a slew of hidden benefits, which is why it remains so popular today. As we saw last month, the entrances to churches often provide an overture to the interior at least in classical and Gothic designs. As technology progressed past the 18th century, the creative potential for interiors only grew, leaving stone and marble as cumbersome and expensive materials. But the pros far outweigh the cons when you consider the hidden benefits.
Let’s start with two senses: sight and sound. Carved stone looks simultaneously immovable and weightless, reflecting the duality of sacred spaces as both firm and transcendental. Masterfully carved capitals flower and bloom atop solid pillars; ribbed vaults splay onto the ceiling and walls and break the surrounding flat surfaces; and statues are poised quietly but immovably in their niches. Beyond the structure of the church, the sight of statues and stone furniture is timeless. Solid stone altars have no echo and hearken back to simple altars of old, hewn from one mass of rock. The varieties that exist offer a range of precious materials to choose from that aid a designer in separating the sanctuary from the nave.
Stone altar of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and stonework in the Luzerne County Courthouse
The ambience stone creates is an unsung beauty. In addition to its durability, stepping onto marble, terrazzo, or even stone tile creates an echo, making the space sound lofty. Sometimes this can make us wary of being too noisy and rightfully so; entering the house of God should be done with utmost reverence and humility.
Finally, there is an aspect of heritage to this material. Stone and marbles are quite literally unique slices in time depending on where they were sourced and often reflect the region from which they came. Onyx, granite, travertine, and marble all come in a range of colors depending on the conditions under which they formed and are often cut as slabs from the earth, providing a cross-section of the elements that created them. This is where the veins and mottles in stone come from and what makes each piece so unique. Carrara marble, named for its place of origin in Italy, is one of the most famous marbles being white and dappled grey and the main marble of choice for famous sculptures. Carrara, like many other varieties of marble and stone, can tie a project to the Old World or to the region around it, like New York quarries providing stone for church in the city. By intentionally choosing a local material or a foreign one, we can choose the best variation for a design scheme that endures.
Carrara marble quarry in Italy | Credit to Mykle Hoban
The Utility of Wood
Wood, as your own furniture and home interior would suggest, possesses a plethora of qualities that make it useful and desirable for church interiors. Depending on the species, it is easily carved, colored, and combined to make any conceivable form. Like stone, wood is very durable and not so easily damaged as its modern knockoffs. Wood possesses its own aesthetic benefits in architectural and free-standing elements. Pews and wooden frames of the stations of the cross are some of the most common wooden ecclesiastical elements, with some lesser acknowledged elements being a missal stand and wainscoting. No matter the use, beautiful craftsmanship inspires awe and a desire to better understand it.
A missal stand is a simple but useful thing clad in beauty. The missal stand is an artifact at the Priory of the Immaculate Conception was as meaningful and old as most of the chapel interior since it blended perfectly with the reredos and the rest of the woodwork. Restoration of the uncial script and gilding made all the difference and proved that beauty is in the details. Ensuring that something as simple as a book stand is well cared-for and lovely ensures the entire space is warm and inviting.
Missal stand of the Priory of the Immaculate Conception before restoration.
A useful architectural element, wainscot, provides warmth and sound absorption. Wainscoting effectively divides the room into horizontal layers, grounding the furniture and overall composition. Just as different stone floors can delineate sacred and profane spaces in a church, wood wainscoting separates the earth from the heavens above.
Master craftsman, Renato Tavecchio, often finds these Vitruvian principles in his own work. His main passion, restoring antique furniture, requires an understanding and appreciation of all three:
“I always try to be less invasive and keep the originality as much as possible, but I also think that antiques furniture or architectural jobs need to be repaired to a full strength for a comfortable daily use. I think antiques have to be incorporated in the modern houses decor but also have a utility and have to be used for their purposes. So, first the strength, then the utility and the beauty that it will show even more within a modern ambience. I hope that people are going to appreciate more the craftsmanship, the styles, the character, the beauty of the woodworks from the past.”
Renato’s work repairing Stations of the Cross and all manner of antique woodwork has given the work that Canning does a finishing touch. Just as caring for something as humble as a bookstand, his work shows the intentionality and attention to detail that a true craftsman brings and without which, no restoration could be complete. Indeed, the church furniture and architectural decoration go hand-in-hand and one without the other looks empty.
Renato’s process of re-carving missing foliage on the cresting of the Gothic wooden frame for the Station of the Cross
The Beauty of It All
As Tavecchio points out, “you can’t appreciate something you don’t understand” – as we come to understand the utility and strength of a thing, its beauty becomes all the more brilliant. Every craftsman knows this and knows the thrill of seeing someone finally understand the beauty and interest of their craft. One of the many joys of restoration is that no project is exactly the same, so we always have to leave our comfort zone and learn more about other trades. By doing so, we are always learning, always appreciating, more and more about the built world around us and its hidden beauty. In hopes that more people reignite these fields, Tavecchio concludes:
“I hope that people are going to appreciate more the craftsmanship, the styles, the character, the beauty of the woodworks from the past. It always come down to knowledge, more you learn and discover, more you appreciate and get passionate about it. When you the get the antique bug, you are never going to lose it.”
