42
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Ten churches around the world that have been repurposed in interesting and creative ways
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- Title
- 10 churches around the world given amazing new life
- Authors
- Clare Dowdy
- Word count
- 634 words
These are just gorgeous. I’ve always loved old church architecture; I’m not religious at all but still enjoy visiting them to have a look around. Friends of mine converted an old chapel into a suite of holiday apartments which are lovely.
There was an old church for sale up the road from me and I had fantasies of winning the lottery to have the money to buy and convert it
I live in a slightly older part of North America and there's always abandoned church buildings up for sale for next to no money. Really good acoustics and wood floors.
A Church (like Asgard...) is a people, not a building. Whatever community gave that space life has moved on elsewhere, and so the property capital being passed into the hands of the greater community would be the best use of it as a last gift to one's neighbors.
St Phocus the Gardener spent the last night of his life distributing all his money to pegan neighbors, and digging his own grave so it would be less trouble for his executioners. I hope that new Christians can take up a space generation by generation of course, but if we can't, then I hope we have the good sense to plan the building's passing and make it a gift to the community, instead of it being a boarded up rotting place or an eye sore / fire hazard.
My local food bank meets at an old church. That is its proper use and I'm glad people could still find nourishment from the husk.
Skatepark looks amazing. Restaurant makes sense. Art gallery is perhaps the most we can hope for esthetically. Art hive for the young would be amazing: rip out the boards and see what you can make of it!
I do have one objections though: use of previously culturally significant spaces to specifically (literally) shit on that culture publicly. If you hate us and enjoy the desecration of our memory, I would rather you do so privately. But to use someone else's cultural building for specifically horrifying ways and to invite others to join in specifically to revel in it for "edginess" sake seems..... detrimental to your own soul. The Christian life is gone from it: you can do us no harm, but I would argue that it does harm to those whose intentions are to despoil something previously holy and beautiful. Like messing with the corpse of a small animal or tearing up a nest and smashing the eggs for kicks.
Another user mentioned confessionals as single stall bathrooms. I noted that ironically that's now cleaner than the spewing and purging of sins deep in man's heart, and represents a sort of continuity. But the intent was to literally shit on, I think, and not a respectful extension of prior use.
A gold coloured altar where folks come up and get drunk, instead of where one obtains nourishment and clarity, is too bad.
Monastery cells where previously others have used to strive for self control over lust and addiction and excess, to be used as sex dungeon....maybe tear the place down first and build whatever you want might be far more comfortable.
Christians have done a lot of evil and I supposed we had it coming, and that whatever curses are heaped upon the community is justified, I guess, but that kind of use does make me feel sad overall.
You contradict yourself with comments like:
followed by...
By your own definition, once the people are gone it is no longer their cultural building. If I chose to defecate in the confessional of an active church it'd be one thing, but the place is no longer a church nor the previous group's cultural building. Not that I'm saying that converting a confessional to a bathroom is in good taste (screams look-how-edgy-I-am), but you can't have it both ways.
Moving on:
This might happen when christians, buy and large, learn to do the same. I'm well aware that the religion states its followers to spread the word and attempt to convert others, but it also states to take 'no' for an answer and move on, love all despite their sins (not protest or threaten those they disagree with), follow the gospel (not pick and choose what's convenient), and a myriad of other rules taken from a myriad of other religions to bring as many people under a single oppressing thumb as possible.
In short, christians should practice what they preach.
As with most groups, the assholes are loudest and most noticeable, especially online. But yes. Christians should practice what they preach and not preach hate.
Absolutely, we are not practicing what we teach, and that's exactly why we don't seen Mosques and Sikh or Buddhist temples being turned into profitable dive bars and some such: because it feels good to level the justice playing field and stick a middle finger up to abusers and oppressors. Edginess sometimes comes from a sense of wanting to make things right, and some small portion of it stems from a decent place.
I do agree that once a place is just a shell it shouldn't mean anything. But obviously even to the new tenants it still means something. There'd be no buzz and no edge if it truly means nothing.
So, you're right, I can't have it both ways, so I am still being a hypocrite about the "it's just a building" nature of it.
But the new tenants don't hold onto the same beliefs that a church is the people and not a place. To them it is an architecturally distinct symbol of oppression.
If christians truly held to their credo that a church is the people and not the place, then the buildings they create to be a place where they gather to become a church would be nondescript. Instead they, more often than not, use money that would be better spent carrying out their god's teachings in the community to help others on monuments to their own defiance of those teachings. A nondescript building being turned into a burlesque revue is a non-story, a church being used for anything other than religious gatherings becomes a story specifically because churches have elected to go down that design pathway.
No different than a Pizza Hut being repurposed, still obviously a symbol of mass marketed oppression.
Does anyone have more examples to share?
It’s probably not architecturally significant, but the Internet Archive is housed in a former church. Always found that an interesting tidbit.
Where words of the ancients are shared with the youth. I love this.
Local Relic Brewing in Colorado Springs is a craft brewery with food and art exhibits in a beautiful church from, if I recall, the 1870s.
The International Church of Cannabis in Denver, CO, is a stoner space with laser shows in a former Lutheran church. The skate park one in the article you linked looks like a similar visual style. You don’t have to be a stoner to go (which seems like an odd but possibly necessary thing to say?).
The one that sticks in my mind was converted into a club and gig venue - sadly looks to have closed in 2019 after being open for about 15 years, which is a shame. There's something incredible about taking a beautiful century old building like that and cramming it full of life again in a completely different way.
There's an echo of the same feeling in venues that use converted Victorian theatres like Koko or Brixton Academy, but the juxtaposition just isn't there in the same way.
The MareNostrum supercomputer in Barcelona is housed in a former chapel.
There are dozens of converted churches in France, but unfortunately most articles with info are in French. A few examples:
A church converted into a cinema in Cancale.
A chapel in Paris converted into a climbing gym
A chapel in Nantes turned into a coworking space
A huge church in Rouen turned into a brewery/pub
A chapel in Caen turned into a gym
A chapel in Angers converted into a bar/nightclub
Thank you.
Selexyz dominicanen is a former church that now houses a book shop and cafe. You can tour the shop virtually. 🙂
There is a bar/restaurant in Stratford, Ontario called the Revival House that's inside a converted church. The interior is absolutely gorgeous, and every time I've eaten there the food was incredible too.
The promo video from their site shows off the lovely interior:
https://vimeo.com/520331042
A notable one near me is the Church Brew Works, a bar built into the disused St. John the Baptist Church. The link is to a detailed history write up including the evolution of Lawrenceville, the borough of Pittsburgh where the church us located.
In the Church Brew Works the bar is placed where the altar would be (the actual altar and the building were properly deconsecrated by the church). Some people find this to be a little too on the nose, but the fact that they have preserved such a historic building seems to balance things out.
Over the last few years there has been a surge in local breweries. I myself am not into beer, so I have no idea where CBW ranks overall, but it's a neat place to visit if you're coming to in Pittsburgh.
I found the location intriguing for sure. The beers are decent, they will occasionally have some in "hand pump" casks which is interesting. Food is "ok;" nothing spectacular, average and good pub/beer food.
I haven't been in a couple years but I agree it should be on the checklist if you'll be in the Pittsburgh area.
one of my favorite bars here in Seattle is Pine Box:
pictures from google maps that capture the ambience well: 1 2 3 4
I love when “religion” is replaced by community unity. That is true religion.
If I may presume to extend?
Religion isn't a church, it's a by-product of "church".
As my sometimes-Anglican, sometimes-Baptist, sometimes Messianic-Judaism, confusing but liberal-leaning upbringing taught me, church is not a building, it's a meeting of people coming together (congregating) for a shared interest/collective purpose that provides mutual enjoyment, edification, and as you said, community. The interests in, and purposes for, congregating are as varied as are the people.
To congregate, people must occupy proximate space/time. Their emotions of the moment(s) in that space/time get yoked to the locus, and BOOM! reverence is tagged in memory to the space in which the emotions of the moment occurred.
That's how you get "holy ground" upon which is erected "churches", the sanctity of cemeteries (sanctity? come on, this whole planet is a graveyard), and the idea of consecrating/deconsecrating edifices (the hubris of claiming/releasing some dirt from its ownership of an almighty Origin is celestial-level colonial thinking!)
I don’t mean that to be dismissive of anyone, or anything held emotionally important. Rather, it's on par, a shared experience to anyone who's lost a favourite dance club, pub, restaurant, hell, maybe even a cancelled bus route.
Religion is a curse. Finding your own chuch can be a blessing. Making that church your religion is a curse.
A couple purchased a church and turned it into a place for all types of shows, including burlesque. My favorite part of the place was that they turned the confessionals into single person bathrooms.
Burlesque aside. confessionals are the place where a person gets rid of the filth inside and become clean and healthy again. I don't hate that particular use of the space. In fact it's become a cleaner space, since it isn't what goes in and out our tracts that make us the most soiled.