Churches of the West: What happened to St. Anthony's Alter Rail (and others) and where is it (and they) today?

Churches of the West: What happened to St. Anthony's Alter Rail (and oth...: I want the alter rail from St. Anthony's Church in Casper Wyoming put back in. I'm not part of any movement, or organization, or any...

What happened to St. Anthony's Alter Rail (and others) and where is it (and they) today?

I want the alter rail from St. Anthony's Church in Casper Wyoming put back in.

I'm not part of any movement, or organization, or anything.  I'm just a parishioner, albeit one who normally goes to Our Lady of Fatima, who remembers it.

And, frankly, the fact that the beautiful marble alter rail came out for no real reason angers me.

I have an older post on this topic here:

Churches of the West: Stop! Don't change that Church!: A theme, if not always an obvious one, of this blog is architecture. And  nothing does more violence to traditional, serviceable, and b...

Here's part of it:

Stop! Don't change that Church!

A theme, if not always an obvious one, of this blog is architecture.

And  nothing does more violence to traditional, serviceable, and beautiful architecture, than "updating" it for any reason.

Just don't.

A case in point.

The photograph above, unfortunately not entirely in focus and in black and white, dates from November 1958.  It depicts St. Anthony's of Padua Church in Casper Wyoming on the occasion of my parents wedding.

Now, St. Anthony's remains a beautiful church today, but if we had a picture of the interior (which I don't from this angle) and if we had this picture in sharper focus (which it isn't) and in color (which it is not), we'd notice some changes right away.

And they aren't good ones.

The altarpiece and the altar are all still there.  The cross painted on the wall behind the altarpiece is also still there.  But many other things have changed.

Most obvious, the beautiful marble altar rail in this photograph, a gift of the Schulte family when the church was built, is gone.  I was told that a part of it can be found now in a local restaurant, which I hope is not true.  If it is true, I've never seen it, so it must be some place I don't go to.  It's not clear here, but the gate for the altar rail was marble with heavy brass hinges.  A true work of art in every sense.

The heavy brass lanterns hanging from the ceiling are also gone.

What appears to be a marble ambo is gone as well, replaced by a very nice wooden (walnut?) one.

The statute of St. Patrick moved across town to St. Patrick's, which sort of makes sense. The funds to build St. Patrick's came from St. Anthony's donors, many of whom were Irish, to that we'd ultimately send the statute of the Patron Saint of Ireland over there, which we did only fairly recently, does square with the general them there.. The statute of St. Anthony has been moved to a different spot, but it looks good where it is.

I'm not certain what sort of floor covering we're looking at here, probably carpet, and of course we have new carpet.  But what would strike anyone looking at this photo about what is next to the carpet, the pews, is that the pews are now cantered to face towards the center of the alter.

Okay, what's up with all of that, and was it an improvement?

Well, I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder, as all such things are, but in my view, the answer is a very distinct "no".

It's funny how these things work.  I can remember all of the features depicted here, including the altar rail, even though I was very young when at least that feature came out.  But, at the time, I don't think I thought much about it, if I thought about it all.  I don't remember the Mass being in Latin at all, although when I was very, very young, it must have been.  Anyhow, while these things didn't bother me at the time, or the one change that I recall from when I was a bit older, the cantering of the pews, didn't bother me much, now they do.

That may be because I now have a greater appreciation for history and tradition than I did when I was just a boy, although I had a sense of that at the time.

The cocked angle of the pews, remnants of a decision made by a Priest in the 1970s or perhaps early 80s,  has been something I've never liked, even if I understand the intent behind it.  Not visible in this photograph, a row of pews that were in the middle of the church were taken out to facilitate twice as many Communion servers.  It's awkward and always has been and should not have been done.  Indeed, as this was the only Catholic Church in town with it was built, it was probably jam packed nearly every Mass and they seemed to manage to get by just fine. For that matter, I've been in plenty of packed Catholic churches where everyone came up to the front of the church and it always worked just fine as well.  Having said that, changing the angle of the pews didn't do a great disservice to the church even if it didn't really help it any.

Another matter, however, is the altar rail.

Now altar rails turn out to be a surprisingly hot button item to people not familiar with them.

All Latin Rite Catholic Churches and Anglican Churches had altar rails. Chances are very high that other churches close in form to the Catholic Church also had them, I just don't know. Their purposes was to provide a place for communicants to kneel when receiving communion.  Prior to Vatican II (1962 to 1965) all Latin Catholic in modern times received communion on the tongue.  Communicants would kneel at the altar rail and receive communion.

You'd think that finding a public domain photograph of communicants receiving communion at an altar rail would b easy, but it isn't.  This almost illustrates it in a better fashion, however.  British solders lined up, as if there is an altar rail, and receiving communion in teh field in North Africa.  Off hand, I suspect that this is an Anglican service.

Now, before we get too far down this road it should be noted that people can get really up in arms about this in all sorts of ways and some traditionalist will insist that communion can only properly be received kneeling and on the tongue.  This doesn't seem to be true and certainly wasn't universally the case.  Indeed, originally, the very first Christians, received communion in the hand and you can find very early writings that effect.  However, traditionalist will hotly dispute what those writings and the other evidence actually means. Given as I'm not getting into that debate, I'm not going there and that isn't the point of this entry.

What is the point is that altar rails were an integral part of the design of churches for an extremely long time. Take anything out of a well designed building and you risk subtracting from its design. That's exactly what I think occurred here.

Which isn't to say that I feel that St. Anthony's is a bad looking Church now, far from it. It's still a beautiful church. But it was more beautiful before the marble altar rail was taken out.

Indeed, the problem with making alterations to these well designed structures is that any time that this is done it risks giving into a temporary view in favor of a more traditional element that was integral in the design of the structure while doing damage to its appearance.  All Catholic churches up until the id 1960s were designed to have altar rails.  Taking them out may have served what was, and perhaps is, the view of the day in regards to worship, but it also means that a major feature of the interior of the building, to which careful consideration had been given, was now missing.

And it turns out that, contrary to widely held belief, they did not have to be removed.

Most people believe that the altar rails were taken out as it was somehow required post Vatican II.  It wasn't.  Rather, for whatever reason changes in the Mass now allowed them to be.  They didn't have to be.  Theoretically it was apparently up to individual Pastors on whether they thought an altar rail should be removed, but given as in Wyoming they are nearly all missing, it might have been the case that the decision to remove them was made at the Diocesan level.  The motivating thought here was that the altar rail served to act as a sort of barrier to connection between the people and the Offering of the Mass, and those who supported altar rail removal often felt fairly strongly about that (as we'll see below).  This was, I think, part of an overall change in the Mass at that time, when it went from Latin to the local vernacular, as the Celebrant had faced Ad Oreintum while offering the Mass.  That is, the Priest faced his altar, as a rule, with his back to the Congregation.  

Now all of this gets into some fairly complicated symbolic matters.  There's some truth to the view held by those who argued for the new position and removing the altar rails, in at he "we're all one together sense". There a counter point, however, that maybe the Ad Oreintum orientation actually served that better, as the Priest was facing the same direction for significant portions of the Mass that the parishioners were.   That is, by way of a poor example, if somebody faced you in a large group they're more likely to have some elevated authority over you than if somebody has their back to you, in which case they can be argued to be working with you.  Interestingly in recent years there's been a slow return in some areas to the Ad Oreintum orientation, particularly following Cardinal Sarah's suggestion that this was a better form. The Cardinal occupies a high position at the Vatican and therefore his views cannot be easily discounted.  As has been noted in regards to this there's actually never been an official position on which orientation is better, and in some ancient and modern churches the Ad Orientum position is actually impossible.

In any event, what that did was in part to remove an item that was closely connected to the church and hence the parish and the parishioners.  In this case, the altar rail itself had been a gift from a family early in the parish's history.  In Catholic parishes the pastor is usually there for about seven years and bishops can be in office for long or short periods. However, as the parishioners are often there for decades, that means the traditional in which they participated was removed by individuals who were there on a more temporary basis.  It was certainly "legal", if you will, but it might not have been well advised.

The same is true of most, but not all, of the interior changes to the church. A person can debate the aesthetics of the heavy brass lighting, but the church was built with it in mind and the features that once decorated where it attached to the building remain there to this day.  The removal of one confessional, the relocation, in an awkward fashion, of a place for "music ministers" to stand that resulted, and all of that, were done in a heartfelt fashion, but often to the ascetic detriment of the church which was not built with remodels in mind.

This touches, moreover, on the larger topic of church architecture itself, which as been addressed in another one of our rare commentary threads here.  These older churches are better looking as the architecture and design that came in during the 1970s was not as good as earlier architecture, and according to some focused more on the congregation than on the Divine.  This blog was at one time going to avoid all such churches in general, but as time has gone on its put up posts of quite a few.  Many of these churches are just not good looking. By the same token, many alterations to older churches are not good looking either.

As I noted when I started off, a lot of this stuff did not bother me when I was a child and experiencing it, but it does now.  Indeed, the removal of the altar rail in this church frankly makes me mad when I think of it.  I wish it could go back in.  It won't, of course, but the whole thing upsets me.  I'm not alone, I think, on this sort of thinking and I think it reflects a generational befuddlement with the generations immediately preceding us which seems to have had, in many instances, low respect for tradition in general.  In civil society, in terms of structures, this is probably why we now see all sorts of effort to restore the appearance of old buildings whose owners in the 50s, 60s, and 70s didn't give a second thought about making them ugly through renovation. A prime example of that is the Wyoming National Bank building in Casper Wyoming which was made to look hideous by the additional of a weird steel grating in the 1950s to its exterior which was supposed to make it look modern.  It mostly served to house pigeons and was removed in the 2000s when the building was redone and converted to apartments.

Now, not every one feels this way, I should note.  Particularly in regards to churches.  When I posted this same photograph on Facebook, a friend of mine with a few years on me posted this reply (I hadn't commented on the altar rails in my original post):

So happy that the railings have come down and the hats came off! The church is still so beautiful.

I agree that the church remains beautiful, and I agree that the women wearing head coverings is a tradition that I don't miss, but I don't feel that way about the altar rail at all.

I suspect my friends comment goes to a "spirit of Vatican II" feeling that she's old enough to have experienced and which I not only am not, but which I don't really share enthusiasm for.  It's important to note that Vatican II and "the spirit of Vatican II" are not the same thing.  "The spirit" thing was a zeitgeist of the times which took a decidedly more liberal and less traditional view of things, no doubt an "open the windows and doors and let some fresh air in". Some of that was likely needed but as is often the case with people who are in a "let in the fresh air" movement the realization that cold winds high winds can come in through the same windows and doors and do damage is rarely appreciated. 

And its all too easy when traditions which are simply traditions are tossed to begin to toss out with them things that are more than tradition.  I'm not saying that occurred here with altar rails but I will be frankly that the 1970s saw a lot of innovations, some of them very local poorly thought out that were, in some cases, quite problematic. The generation that thought removing the altar rails was a good idea proved willing to entertain a lot of things in this area that turned out to be big problems for everyone else.

Part of that is because traditions are anchors in a way; moorings to the the past.  People of a "fresh air" bent will claim that a person shouldn't be bound by the past. That's true, but tradition is also in some cases the vote, or the expression of experience, of the dead and should not be lightly discounted.  Not only does casting out traditions tend to sever anchors, but all too often the severing simply puts people adrift in seas that they're not well prepared to handle. At its worst, the severing of traditions is a rejection of the long and carefully thought out in favor of the temporarily current and the poorly thought out.

Which is why, for many people of the post Vatican II generation the "Spirit of Vatican II" generation, when moored in their own changes, can seem now old fashioned.  Ironically younger generations have been busy for some time "reforming the reform", which means in the mainstream keeping the reforms that proved worthwhile and reversing those that did not.  Tradition has, in some instances, come back in the opened door after having been swept out it, but with a younger generation.

All of which is well off point on what this thread started out being about.  And I'm not going to start a "restore the altar rail" movement, locally or on the internet.  But I feel it was a shame that it was taken out, and to the extent that alterations that should not have taken place for ascetic reasons in regards to older structures can be repaired, they ought to be.

Okay, why am I reviving that post?

It's because I want the alter rail back.

Contrary to widespread popular belief, there were never any Vatican II directive that alter rails be removed.  It was a "spirit of Vatican II" type of thing.

Alter rails weren't in the very first churches, as they were houses.  They evolved over a period of time.  They came to demarcate three distinct worship spaces, the nave, the sanctuary and the altar.  Vatican II emphasized the laity coming into the celebration of the Mass and from there Church officials determined that the rails separated the Priest from the people, as did the ad orientum worship of the Mass.

I'll try to be gentle in my criticism here, but I'd suggest that the directive of laity participation wsa somewhat misunderstood in the US in general.  Indeed, Fr. Joseph Krupp maintains that much of Vatican II was as translation of the official documents was not a priority for the Church, as most Catholics do not use English as their primary language.

Be that as it may, the Church of the 1970s in the US really went to town with such changes.  Parishioners, who had grown up in an era when they largely did not question their Priests, simply endured it.  The clergy thought it was doing something that would really make everyone come closer together, but for the most part, their parishioners simply silently endured it, and the flood of other changes that came in at the same time.

Many of the changes were good one, most particularly the new form of the Mass in the vernacular.  But changes simply went to far.  Architectural changes were really a bad thing in structures that were built before Vatican II.  And frankly, the Baby Boom generation aside, most people actually like some formal distinctions in society, something pretty clear when you see the post Baby Boom generations at Mass.

The alter rail at St. Anthony's was made of marble, with brass hinges, and beautiful.  Even now, the church looks like it is missing something.  

This is less the case with the other two Catholic churches in Casper, Our Lady of Fatima and St. Patrick's.  St. Patrick's is the newest of the three, having been built in the 1960s.  It's an expansive church and the absence of an alter rail does not seem to hinder its appearance.  Our Lady of Fatima was  built as an Air Base chapel during World War Two and no doubt was built without an alter rail originally.  Having said that, perhaps because of reconstruction, which has happened more than once, it looks like it should have one.

St. Anthony's has been substantially restored in recent years.  Not 100%, but substantially.  Restoring the alter rail would go a long ways towards restoring the full original beauty of the church.

When it was taken out, something happened to it. But what?  Is it stored somewhere on the grounds?  If it was, I've never seen it.  I've heard rumors that part of it is in a Casper restaurant.

And what about the alter rails from the other churches?

Much of what was in St. Anthony's before the post Vatican II changes was provided for by way of donations from parishioners.  I've thought that the alter rail was, but I don't really know that.  Donations are a funny thing in that sometimes they bind the recipient, and other times they do not.  This probably did not.

Well, at any rate, taking the alter rail(s) out was a mistake.  The alter rail, indeed the alter rails, should be put back in.  Somebody has the St. Anthony's one, perhaps more than one somebody. They should give it back.

Put the alter rail back in.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition, part three. The Ty D Bol Presidency.

Of course! 

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 12...: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition. Monum... :   Geez, this is stupid. Harrison Design, you should be ashamed of ...

Where have I seen that shade of water before?

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition, part two. Monumental Stupidity Edition.

Well now, that is appropriate.

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition, part two. Monumental Stupidity Edition.

Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition. Monum...:   Geez, this is stupid. Harrison Design, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Last edition: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 124th Edition. On ...

Something really weird is going on with Donald Trump and Washington D.C. architecture.

First he started putting up gold crap all over the White House.  Then he ripped down part of the White House in order to build a ballroom.  After that, there was the paver application to the Rose Garden.  Now he wants to put up a Triumphal Arch.  This past week he had this done:

And now we're learning that fountains at Lafayette Park, which the Biden administration estimated would take about $3M to repair, have been repaired at over $15M in a no bid contract.

Of all of these projects, only the fountain really should have been done, and it shouldn't have been done on a no bid contract.  Everything else shows Trump to be just what he is, an old demented hotelier with abysmally bad taste.

Why is he doing this?  

The longer this goes on, of course, the harder it will be to undo. The fountain, fortunately, won't need to be undone.  The gold crap can be tossed into a dumpster.  The paver taken to Home Depo and sold as second.  

Human instinct will mitigate against tearing the ballroom, if it gets build, and the arch, if it does, down.*  It's wasteful.  But it will need to be done as a symbol that is a democracy, not a hotel.  The reflecting pool will have to be addressed, but that will be expensive.

To the extent that any of this was done illegally, the next administration should file suit and seek the costs of restoration as damages from whomever benefitted.  Harrison design should never get another public contract, which is the same for both architectural firms that worked on the ballroom.  Not much can be done about the recipients of no bid contracts, and the work on the fountains, seems well done, if very expensive.  The contract that turned so expensive needs to be looked at.

Frankly, at this point, if we manage to survive another couple of years of the reign of this demented vandal, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

By the way, the damage to the reflecting pool is permanent, as a practical matter.  The industrial-grade, "American flag blue" swimming pool coating bonds to granite and is designed to last fifty years.  It'll take over a century for the effects to wear off.

Unless its reconstructed, of course, which a lawsuit to cause Trump to pay for should be contemplated, if possible.

Footnotes:

*The arch will not be solid, so there's one legitimate reason to leave it up, and that's a tomb for those killed in Trump's wars.  Both sides.

But not for Trump.

But that won't be done, so it'll just need to come down.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition. Monumental Stupidity

 

Geez, this is stupid.

Harrison Design, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 125th Edition. Monumental Stupidity

 

Geez, this is stupid.

Harrison Design, you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 124th Edition. On the Road with J. D. Vance. Avignon Papacy in the news. The Slovenian woman speaks. Men behaving badly towards women. Teens not having babies not a good thing? Staying too long.

Labels: Hungary, J. D. Vance, King Donald's War, National Conservatism, Péter Magyar, Pope Leo XIV, Viktor Orbán, Yeoman's First Law of Behavior, Yeoman's Twentieth Law of Behavior, Zeitgeist

Gilded Age Brothel School of Interior Design

Nuclear weapons should not be entrusted to anyone pleased by Trump’s Gilded Age Brothel school of interior design.

George F. Will.

Arches.

Sigh. . . 

White House fires arts commission expected to review Trump construction projects

The move comes as President Donald Trump pursues efforts to build a White House ballroom and a triumphal arch in Washington.

So, if you've been distracted or are just sick of reading stories about the toddler in the White House, here's what this is about:

What we know about White House plans for an 'Arc de Trump'

The BBC article discounts Trump's ability to get this thing built, but that was penned before Trump showed that he'll just ignore the law in this area, as with everything else.

The United States needs a triumphal arch about as much as it needs to build its own version fo the Brandenburg Gate, which we should have blown to bit at the end of World War Two.  At least its not as butt ugly as McCreery's gigantic garden shed that will be a temporary "ballroom" attached to the White House.  That will get partially constructed and then ripped down, to be followed soon after by:

Did you work on illegal White House construction projects?  You were likely exposed to asbestos and should sue the ass of off Donald Trump, call . . . 

Anyhow, Triumphal Arches date back at least to the Romans, and they're particularly associated with them.  The gigantic one in Paris, the Arch de Triomphe, we can blame on Napoleon whom, we should remember was deposed by a coalition of non wacky powers in the 19th Century and sent to die on Elba, where he was likely poisoned.

Triumphal Arches have been emulated ever since the Romans built them, and they appear in many countries.  They are particularly associated with autocratic powers, which suffer from knowing they aren't worthy and therefore try to monument themselves into worthiness, but there are some in democratic states including in the U.S.

There's probably a smaller chance that construction gets started on this before Trump leaves office or collapse in his Happy Meal while babbling, but again, getting it rolling wouldn't be too surprising.  Keeping it up? That's another matter.

I give the White House Garden Shed about an 80% chance of being torn down.  If an arch goes up, I'd give it about a 40% chance.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?

It occurs to me that something is really odd about Trump rushing to start his vandalization project on the White House, and then expanding it to destroy the entire East Wing. . . . it's almost like he fears not being around to enjoy it.

Maybe he knows he's not going to be.

Maybe he fears that if he's not around the ugly garden shed won't be built.

Maybe he fears that's going to be so soon, he had to actually take steps that try to force its completion.

Why would that be?

Maybe Trump knows that he's on death's door, or maybe its something else.  Let's look at the possibilities.

Trump knows he's not long for the world.

There's been some speculation on this for other reasons.  

One could say he's acting weird, but he acted weird in his first term too.  He's been acting extra weird.  He's been talking a fair amount and expressing fears that he's going to Hell.  And well he should fear it.  For one thing:

Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” 

He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good.* If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack? 

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. 

When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” 

Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

Based on the difficulty that implies, and it is not intended to be metaphorical, Trump should fear Hell.  He's been far from perfect.  He's a serial polygamist for one thing, and genuinely a bad person.  It appears to some extent he's trying to buy his way into Heaven with the thought that if he can secure peace in some war somewhere God will credit that and allow him to otherwise get a pass on his sins.  He keep seeking reassurance from those around him that will work.

That obsession suggests that he knows he's running out of time.

Trump wants to be remembered for amount to something.  He knows that much of his Presidency will be regarded as a fart in a windstorm.  So he's building his own monumental mausoleum, maybe.

And in doing so, time is short.  Either he'll be out of office in three years, and this is a project that for American construction would take longer than that, or he'll die before its built  He well knows that if a Democrat comes into office after him, under the original plan, no ballroom would be built.  He's taking steps, by destroying the entire wing, to make sure it has to be.

But even that won't.  It'll just assure that something has to be done.  

Trump knows that there's next to no chance of getting this monstrosity done in time.

I touched on that above, but there's every chance in the world that Trump leaves office, either at the expiration of his term, or being lead out while babbling in full dementia, and this project stops.  As he departs his last glimpse of the ballroom will be of a construction project with workmen likely picking up debris.

There's a good chance that the week thereafter the construction company has cleared out and the trackhoe is back with the same operator demolishing this worthless monument.

It's a natural instinct in most people to complete a project.

And it's a natural instinct to keep and use something, once it's built. . . except for Americans.

Trump's spent a lot of time in the orbit of the high and the mighty his whole life. Since his first legitimate term in office, and now in his second illegitimate one, he's had the opportunity to see monumental public buildings that are really old, quite frankly frequently gaudy.  He's not that smart of guy and he probably doesn't realize that the regimes that built such structures aren't always admired in later years, but he probably does appreciate that things Louis XIV built, or the Czars, are still being used.

The American track record isn't quite so good.  We take down buildings all the time, including our athletic civil temples that were constructed at great expense.  We usually get around to morning them long after they're gone.

Trump probably feels that if he can get this built, particular if the East Wing gets destroyed with it, it'll have to be built, and it'll have to stay when its built.  Like Justice Kennedy, he probably naively assumes that after he's out of office, and after he's dead and gone, people will forget that he was a putz, and love him.

People aren't going to love him.  He'll be remembered as the worst human being to ever occupy the Oval Office, and the building will come down.  A future Democratic President will take it down to make a point, if not out of spite.

Trump is banking on nobody tearing it down (which I suspect is a pretty bad bet).

See above.

Another view of the hideous monstrosity.

An interesting aspect of this is the NatCon one that was circulating before this piece of shit project started to advance.  

As we've noted before, Trump's real backers are members of the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, but within the NatCons are Catholic and Orthodox intellectuals who have become Illiberal Democrats.  Not too surprisingly, this same group has pretty strong architectural views.

They like architect James McCrery.

Some of these folks hang out at website called Rorate Caeli, which is actually a type of Mass, but which means "drop down, ye Heavens."  They really like James McCrery, and for good reason.  Here's their post on his getting the job of being garden shed architect:

McCrery, Architects of Catholic Beauty, chosen to renovate the White House

McCrery Architects, New Carmel, Wyoming

Those familiar with the architectural work of James McCrery know he is among the greats of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

McCrery Architects, St. Mary Help of Christians, North Carolina

Based on the Senate side of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, he has designed, restored and enhanced numerous churches, schools, homes and other buildings — all in a classical style where the average man, woman and child responds “beautiful” upon seeing his work.

Now, Jim McCrery has designed what will be his legacy for generations of Americans: a new White House ballroom. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday $200 million in private funding (including Trump’s own money) will fund a ballroom next to the east wing of the White House that can accommodate 650 guests. This is needed, as the East Room of the White House (the largest for gatherings) seats around 200 people, so the custom has been to put up tents outside when a large dinner or event is hosted.

See the designs for yourself to appreciate them.

McCrery, who is celebrating his 60th birthday, completed a restoration and enhancement of Saint Mary Mother of God church near his DC studio, where the TLM existed from the mid-1980s until its suppression three years ago. From the cathedrals in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Raleigh, North Carolina, to Corpus Christi in the Diocese of Arlington, to the Newman Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Carmelite monastery in Wyoming, the churches he designed are spectacular — no easy task in an age of modern codes, budget limitations and senior officials often advocating bland over beauty. McCrery’s name is synonymous with beauty.

Rorate congratulates Jim McCrery on this achievement and looks forward to the next three years of his project’s construction. And we commend President Trump for choosing traditional architecture, and developing a great relationship with such a fine architect. Who knows what others would have chosen to dump on the White House lawn! It is a time to be thankful for the partnership of McCrery and Trump on this project that will stand tall long after all of us depart this earth.

Rorate Caeli.

This is, quite frankly, part of what upsets me.  This thing is ugly and stupid.

It'd be ugly and stupid anywhere, but it'd make more sense in some places.  In Georgian England, for example, or in 18th Century France.  If you went back, an were honest with yourself, you'd think "well. . . this is ugly and stupid, but looks like belongs here" and then you'd go on to tell everyone, "wow, that's impressive.

The top two buildings are in fact impressive.  Why did they take this assignment?

Well, . . . on this, I'll be frank that I"m not so sure about the top building.

Wyoming isn't Medieval France or pre King Henry VIII the Vandal England, and I'm not really too sure that this fits the state too well.  There's been a fair amount of murmuring about it, which is slightly embarrassing for Wyoming Catholics.  We know we don't live in Medieval France.

I guess, however, that this is religious architecture and they are free to build what they wish.

Monumental public architecture belongs to the public, however.  The public doesn't want a gigantic gilded garden shed.

Worthless Democrats

One thing this has served to do is to illustrate how completely worthless the Democratic Party is.

If this was the party of 1975, or 1985, it would have rushed out on day one and filed an action for an injunction, which would have included a request for a TRO.  They would have gotten it.

More particularly, what they would have asked for is an injunction returning the White House to the status quo ante until the architectural commission in charge of these things had a chance to consider the matter.  That would have meant that Donny would have had to stop the construction and the structure repaired, on his dime, until the body could meet and make a ruling.

Yes, that body is going to say "go ahead", but that would have burned through about $10M of the vandalization money in advance, and delayed the project by at least a year.  Mobilization costs would have gone up, and Democrats would likely be back in power.  The thing would never have been built.

Instead they sat around and did nothing.

This all points to an existential crisis within the Democratic Party.  Most Democrats are actually center left, politically, but over the last fifteen or so years the party has been captured by its hardcore left wingers that will not compromise on anything, and so the party has glaciated.  The left wingers in the Democratic Party are every bit as nutty, if not more so, than the hard right of the Republican Party.

We need new parties.

McCrery

I noted earlier that I had placed some home in the design in that James McCrery was responsible for it.

I've lost that hope.  

The more I look at it, it's just flat out gaudy and ugly.  It's interesting to note that McCrery, who was one of the people that Donny did the roof top tour with recently, has been taking some flak. 

Apparently McCrery wasn't always a classicist.  And people interviewed about him recently haven't been all that kind.  For example, Robert Livesey, who was chair of the Ohio State architecture department from 1983 to 1991 when McCrery was a student wrote recently in an email that “to be honest, I do not have a real memory of Jim. My sense was that he was a good design student which is why Eisenman hired him,  Unfortunately, his work does not have the presence of real classical architecture, or even of people who were also after the classical, like Palladio, or later Hawksmoor.”

Eisenman refers to Peter Eisenman, who was a professor at Ohio State and who took McCrery under his wing and later employed him.  Eisenman is not a classicist and has called his former underlings design "bonkers", adding "putting a portico at the end of a long facade and not in the center is what one might say is untutored.”

Pretty harsh.  In fairness, Eisenman and McCrery seem to have had a falling out some time ago, and McCrery seems to have become very identified with his Faith in regard to his architectural projects, which leads a person to wonder why he'd want to take on a giant civil structure like this.  Frankly, Eisenman's criticism seems pretty valid to me.

Rats

One potentially good thing about this is that it might make a lot of rats homeless.  Apparently the White House is full of them, in the walls.

No big surprise.

Rats being rats, however, they're probably just moving into the house itself.

What should reconstruction look like?

One thing that this brings up is what should reconstruction look like.  The White House grounds are already pretty crowded without this monstrosity. Frankly, a pretty good argument can be made that the East and West Wings detract from the original appearance of the structure.  Maybe this presents an opportunity just to take them out, although apparently that would create an office space problem.

The donors

Here's who is paying for this abomination:

Altria Group, Inc.

Amazon

Apple

Booz Allen Hamilton

Caterpillar, Inc.

Coinbase

Comcast Corporation

J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul

Hard Rock International

Google

HP Inc.

Lockheed Martin

Meta Platforms

Micron Technology

Microsoft

NextEra Energy, Inc.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Ripple

Reynolds American

T-Mobile

Tether America

Union Pacific Railroad

Adelson Family Foundation

Stefan E. Brodie

Betty Wold Johnson Foundation

Charles and Marissa Cascarilla

Edward and Shari Glazer

Harold Hamm

Benjamin Leon Jr.

The Lutnick Family

The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Konstantin Sokolov

Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher

Paolo Tiramani

Cameron Winklevoss

Tyler Winklevoss

Some of these you know, and some of their products you use everyday.  Microsoft, for example, is pretty hard to avoid. 

Some can be easily avoided.  I'll never eat in another Hard Rock Cafe again, ever, which of course will be an easy thing for me to do.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th Edition. Mike Johnson, toady, and other matters.

Labels: 2010s, 2019, 2020s, 2025, 2025 Off Year U.S. Elections, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, New York, North Korea, Socialism, Special Forces, The Madness of King Donald, Trump Derangement Syndrome, U.S. Navy, Zeitgeist

The Vandals.

American democracy has several great weaknesses, the primary one being that Americans believe that we have a "two party system".

We don't.  We've just allowed two parties to take over and even fund their party elections, the primaries, with government funds, and tolerate the creation of bogus Congressional roles, such "Senate Majority Leader".

That needs reform desperately.

Amongst other weaknesses, however, is that Americans believe that we have a free enterprise economic system. We don't. We have corporate capitalism which allows businesses to escape the implications of their actions through the corporate business form.

Americans believe so strongly in "free enterprise" that they basically never vote with their wallets.  They'll let businesses absolutely screw them and keep supporting them.  On the rare occasions in which they actually will vote with their wallets and boycott a product it's when its something trivial and otherwise readily available, as in when sales of Bud Light dropped off over a transgender personality advertising it.

Lots of companies brew beer.

I note this as the illegitimate occupant of the White House, who has no real authority, is having the East Wing of the  White House destroyed for on oversized garden shed, aka, a ballroom.

The White House doesn't need a ballroom.  This isn't 1875.  What Donald Trump wants is something overblown and gaudy, which is his brand, so that hopefully people remember him after he departs this Earth for his final reward. It's much the same motivation that has him angling for the Nobel Peace Prize.  He's hoping to be remembered as a serious person, rather than as a real estate developer/serial polygamist.

Before we move on, we should note that the White House was originally designed as a house, and its been modified continually.  Frankly, it ought to flat out stop. The constant monkeying with the structure only encourages this sort of baloney, and the building isn't getting any better looking over time.  The East Wing only dates back to 1942 and to some degree was built as a cover for the construction of a bomb shelter underneath it.  I suppose you can argue the bomb shelter was a good addition, but this just goes on and on.

The West Wing has been modified a great deal over time, but basically dates back to 1902.  Theodore Roosevelt was President then, and his large family was busting at the seams of the White House.

This is different, however.

The West Wing was built as office space.  Basically it's an office space annexation. The East Wing, as noted, was originally added to cover the construction of a bomb shelter.  In later years, offices for correspondence, calligraphers and the social secretary were placed in the East Wing. It became the offices of the First Lady, with the First Lady requiring offices a fairly dubious proposition, quite frankly.

Trump wasn't supposed to really touch the East Wing Structure but a Volvo bucket is out destroying part of the facade now. The new structure will be, of course, a garden shed. . .um a ballroom.

Adding offices made sense.  Adding a bomb shelter in 1942 made sense, after all, German rocket technology brought the ICBM within reach during  World War Two and submarine launched aircraft actually did made land strikes on the West Coast during the war.

A ballroom, however, is a superficial structure for somebody who likes to entertain.

Trump is a superficial person who has been spending a lot of his time at the golf course.

Trump can't molest the structure unless the forces of capitalism dutifully line up to give him his dream. There was never any doubt that they would.  So, have you wondered who the Vandal hired by the illegitimate occupant of the White House/Real Estate Developer/Serial Polygamist to design and construct a giant garden shed is?

Well, wonder no more:

President Trump Hires National Civic Art Society Board Member to Design New White House Ballroom

James McCrery, a classical architect who is a co-founder of the National Civic Art Society and a member of our Board of Directors, has been chosen by President Donald Trump to design a new ballroom at the White House.

According to the administration, “The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of ornately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people — a significant increase from the 200-person seated capacity in the East Room of the White House.”

McCrery, who is principal and founder of McCrery Architects in Washington, D.C., is associate professor at the Catholic University of America's School of Architecture. He was a commissioner on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, appointed by President Trump during his first term. McCrery served alongside NCAS President Justin Shubow, who was chairman of the Commission.

According  to Shubow, “The National Civic Art Society is ecstatic that President Trump selected James McCrery to design the new White  House ballroom. McCrery is one of the best architects in America, and he will  honor and respect one of the most beloved classical buildings in the United  States. Our organization has no doubt he’ll design a beautiful, fitting  addition. It was President Theodore Roosevelt who personally chose Beaux-Arts architect Charles  McKim to renovate the White House in his time. President Trump has made an  equally wise decision in hiring McCrery.”

Announcement from the National Civil Art Society.

The National Civil Art Society is an organization that sponsors the view that public buildings should be in a classic style.  It's a worthwhile goal, as there sure are a lot of ugly public buildings around.  And the architects firm, McCrery Architects, based on their website, designs a lot of nice classical buildings.  Frankly, choosing them was a really good move for a really bad building.  Things could have been a lot worse.

So should we rejoice?

Well, no, 

McCrery clearly has a lot of talent, as do the people on his staff, but this is still a huge oversized shed that looks ugly.  No matter, it'll go down on his resume, unless it turns out to be a national embarrassment, in which case it will be removed from his resume.

He's designed some beautiful buildings, including the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, TN.  To go from that, to this . . what a waste.

The contractor for the abomination is heavy contractor Clark Construction, whose website declares "Building What Matters".

M'eh.

This structure doesn't matter.

It is, however, no doubt a major contract.  Nobody could blame them for bidding on it, as that's what they do.

Engineering was done by AECOM, whose website declares; "AECOM is the trusted global infrastructure leader committed to delivering a better world.".  

Well, this structure and the project makes the world just a little bit worse.  No matter, it's probably a big contract.

Funding for the project is not public.  The $200,000,000 to $250,000,0000 vandalization will cost is going to be born by Real Estate Developer Donald Trump and donors.  Donors include Google, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, and NextEra Energy, but there are a lot more.  Lockheed Martin is chipping in $10,000,000.

And there's the real question.  

Blogger, which this is published on, is a Google thing.  Google itself is darned near impossible to avoid, so even though I think they're chipping in is inexcusable, I'll continue to use Google's products, making me just as hypocritical as can be.  I don't buy anything from Lockheed, and I'm not a shareholder, but if I was I'd write in and complain.  

Why would outfits like these chip in?  Well, they're making a bet that King Donald will love them, or at least not hate them.  That's why.  And frankly, if some future administration wanted to build to whack it down, which will occur, and put up a Trump Hall of Shame, they'd contribute to that.

The overall shame, however, is that this is public property.  It's being vandalized.  And nobody can apparently do anything about it.

When this era is over, the country needs major reform.  Part of that reform needs to be an effort to reign the Oval Office into reason.  Another part needs to be to kick the dead asses in Congress back to work and require them to do their actual jobs.

As a final note, Hitler was fond of monumental projects too, planning on building a monumental Berlin after the Second World War.  Franco had the monumental Valley of the Fallen built, which at least commemorates something.  Fascist Italy had a bunch of monumental structures built, and of course Mussolini was in power for quite some time.  The Soviets had Lenin stuff in a mausoleum, the latter of which provides an idea.

Seeing as a modern White House doesn't need a ballroom, and given that Trump is really old and will pass from natural causes in the foreseeable future anyhow, perhaps AECOM can design this structure with hydraulic jacks and wheels so when that day comes this can just be jacked up, hooked up, and wheeled down the highway to Mar A Lago, which it can serve as the Trump Mausoleum and library (I serious doubt Trump has very many books that he's actually read, so the size won't be a problem).  Probably Google, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, and NextEra Energy will be willing to pay for it.