Thursday, March 01, 2012

Orthodox Bad Architecture



more pictures here
Interestingly, here is a Russian Orthodox church that might be destined to win a bad architecture award. It is to built in the shadow of the Eifel Tower on the Seine. It is a rather normal looking Russian church, complete with golden domes but it is linked to a Russian spiritual and cultural centre by a pretentious glass roof.
Paris Mayor Bernard Delanoe has described a Russian Orthodox church to be built along the River Seine as an example of “hodgepodge architecture” not worthy to be on display near the Eiffel Tower. Delanoe said the project – a gleaming white church with five traditional golden domes topped by an wavy glass roof linking it to a nearby Russian spiritual and cultural centre – was “mediocre architecture conceived in haste.”
The project, whose design was chosen in an international architectural competition, was agreed in 2010 by Presidents Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia. Moscow has already purchased a plot of land for it on the left bank of the Seine, just across the river from the tunnel where Britain’s Princess Diana died in a car crash in 1997.
“I want to express my very firm opposition to this project conceived by the French and Russian states without the agreement of the city of Paris,” Delanoe said in a statement this week. “I would like UNESCO, the guardian of the banks of the Seine, to get involved so no permission can be given without the endorsement of international experts,” he said.

5 comments:

Delia said...

Looks a bit like what they're doing to the Cutty Sark.

Could be worse, I guess - could be a mosque!

YRC said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xDXQv-IyQA

Here is some GOOD architecture!

Thanks for coming yesterday father!

YRC said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xDXQv-IyQA

Here is some good architecture!
Thanks for coming yesterday father!

Yianni said...

Father Ray, I'm an Orthodox Christian and I agree with you whole-heartedly. Usually we do a pretty decent job with church architecture, though we've had a few disappointments here in the USA. This looks to me as if the Moscow Patriarchate was trying a little too hard to 1)draw a clumsily-expressed connection between Church and Russian culture 2)play on the same field with the artsy Parisians "Ve not borink - ve cool and excitink, like you!" At least the temple itself is recognizable as such. And I predict the interior will be beautiful.

gemoftheocean said...

Where is Stalin when you need him?

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