Behind the altar in the recently restored chapel at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland hangs a new mural of the Virgin Mary that is strikingly different from conventional depictions.
The young woman in the painting is surrounded by traditional religious symbols: scrolls represent the word of God, sunlight streams through stained-glass windows, an angel hovers overhead. But the figure itself is thoroughly contemporary in character, a strong, young woman with a modern hair style and stance.
This prominent mural, clearly designed to be accessible to Notre Dame students, can be seen as a metaphor for the way the chapel itself has been changed in the past two years.
Built in 1896, the Romanesque sanctuary began as a serene space with elegant proportions and a beauty derived from simplicity. It was marred in 1968 by a misguided modernization. As a result of the latest renovation, the space feels new again, with colors that make it warm and inviting. Yet it also imparts a strong sense of tradition that reflects the chapel's role as a center of worship. In many ways it has reclaimed its rightful place as heart and soul of the Notre Dame campus.
The $2.5 million transformation underscores Notre Dame's "vitality and identity as a Catholic college in the 21st century," said president Mary Pat Seurkamp. "At the same time, the attention given to the project as a 'restoration' honors the tradition and legacy of the college."
Momentous occasion
The 300-seat chapel will be dedicated at 5 p.m. Saturday at a Mass presided over by Cardinal William H. Keeler. It's a momentous occasion for Notre Dame, the first Catholic women's college in the United States to offer a baccalaureate degree and, as of September 2003, the only women's college remaining in Maryland.
The sanctuary has been renamed the Marikle Chapel of the Annunciation, after Wanda and Henry Marikle. They're the parents of 1969 graduate Helen Marikle Passano, who along with her family donated $2 million for the restoration. The new name sounds a lot like 'miracle chapel' -- and that's pretty much what it has been for this campus. It's nothing short of a miracle that the college had such a hidden treasure, knew enough to restore it and marshaled the resources to complete the work as quickly and expertly as it did.
This restoration is part of a national trend in which institutions of all types are restoring historic spaces to their former grandeur by stripping away drop ceilings, wood paneling and worn carpet installed during the 1960s and 1970s.
Marikle Chapel is one of the first instances locally in which a place of worship has been "re-renovated" to address architectural sins committed during an earlier renovation. Even before the recent construction was complete, it was cited in a book about ecclesiastical design as a positive example of ways to restore beauty and tradition to today's churches.
"The innovative forms used by church architects in the '60s and '70s look not only outdated at the dawn of the new century; they look ugly," author Michael Rose argues in his 2001 book Ugly As Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches From Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces -- and How We Can Change Them Back Again.
"The non-churches of the '80s and '90s that can pass for libraries, post offices, or nursing homes are so uninspiring and banal that they fail to attract, to evangelize, or to raise the hearts and minds of man to God," Rose continued. "Simi-larly, the insensitive renovation of traditional churches... not only denuded a physical place, but also altered the worship and beliefs of the people."
Chapel renovations
Notre Dame's chapel occupies the second floor of Theresa Hall, a five-story building designed by noted Baltimore architects E. Francis Baldwin and Josias Pennington. It originally featured a high vaulted ceiling, round arches, carved wood wainscoting and pews, and finely crafted ornamentation, including eight stained-glass windows made in Munich, Germany.
The space was brutally altered in the late 1960s, when much of the original detail was covered up or removed during an unsympathetic renovation designed to add air conditioning and seats and provide a more contemporary space for students to celebrate Mass. The renovation was launched shortly after the Second Vatican Council recommended that every Catholic church become more of a communal space, with priests facing worshippers instead of turning away from them. It also reflected Modernist attitudes about design, wiping away historical finishes rather than saving them.
As part of the 1968 alterations, contractors installed a flat ceiling to conceal air conditioning ducts; cut down the stained-glass windows to fit within the lower ceiling, hid the pine floor with mustard-colored carpeting, replaced the marble altar with a wood one, and removed the old communion rails, choir loft and organ. The once bright and soaring space became dark and austere -- more like a club basement than a worship space.
The goal of the 2002 renovation was to recapture the historic space while accommodating contemporary needs. The college hired Murphy & Dittenhafer of Baltimore to guide the work, with Michael Murphy as principal in charge and James Suttner as project architect. They recommended restoring many original features, including the stained-glass windows, and replicating others based on historical photographs and drawings. They took the chapel back to its original proportions by removing the drop ceiling and closing in one side that had been opened up.
But the architects did not simply turn back the clock. The college's goal of accommodating contemporary services and events called for a combination of restoration and renovation. Besides the straightforward restoration work, the architects' big moves included designing a new altar, pulpit and sanctuary platform that project farther into the nave. Ductwork was threaded through the vaulted ceiling to diffusers that appear at first glance to be part of the ceiling.
One of the architects' best contributions was developing a 22-color paint treatment that enhances the space and brings out the details. Side walls are yellow, and the semicircular apse is green. Certain accent colors were inspired by the stained-glass windows; others are earth tones that invite quiet meditation. The architects instructed the painters to lighten the shades progressively as they moved toward the ceiling, to accentuate the room's verticality. Suttner has a knack for selecting just the right colors; his choices make the chapel at once contemplative, joyful and uplifting.
The architects also made a concerted effort to use regional craftspeople, including John Gutierrez to fabricate bronze and glass pendant lights, Neal Schlage to build the new oval altar, and Washington artist Danielle Dawson for the central mural. When a graduate let it be known that she had bought the original communion rails for $10 and stored them in her basement, the architects used them to create a podium for the new tabernacle and a replacement for the original choir loft.
An enlightened view
It's too simplistic to say all modern design is bad for churches, and all traditional design is good, as Rose implies in Ugly As Sin. Even if architects routinely peeled away alterations made during the '60s and '70s, they'd have no guarantee of always finding the sort of treasure Murphy & Dittenhafer uncovered in Theresa Hall, nor would they necessarily find it in such good condition.
Yet Marikle Chapel offers valuable lessons for others. Even though the same space was renovated twice within 35 years, two very different value systems were at play. The 1968 treatment was not so much about permanence and Vatican II reforms as it was about cost effectiveness and expediency. The designers were so concerned about cramming in more seats and installing air ducts that they ruined the chapel itself -- and compromised the worship experience for a generation of students.
The latest restoration reflects a more enlightened view. Technological issues had to be solved, of course, and they were. But the architects focused on a more important goal: creating an enduring place of worship.
"To build and rebuild a house of prayer is to make something beautiful," says Seurkamp. "To make something beautiful is the effort of every life. It is the essential hunger of our souls. It is the desire for God."
Murphy & Dittenhafer took the chapel back to what it was meant to be -- to its essence -- then figured out how to make it work not only for today but for years to come. As a result, one gets the sense that Marikle Chapel won't have to be rethought or redone in another 35 years. Like all good architecture, it was built for the ages, not until the next design trend comes along. This time, they got it right.