CHURCH OF THE MOST SACRED HEART

I think I have uncovered the origins of post-modernism.  This revelation occurred while standing before the Church Of The Most Sacred Heart Of Our Lord, in Prague.  Actually, my “revelation” occurred via these two insights.  1) So THIS is what the post modernists were looking at, and 2) How can this building NOT be included in any of the architectural history books?

This catholic church was designed by the architect Jože Plečnik  and completed in 1930.  It stands in a city square / park named Jiřího z Poděbrad Square.  The building is arresting, fascinating, and extremely well done.  I walked all the way around it taking my photos.  The building was locked;  apparently services that day were at 6 AM and 8 PM.  Still, I was able to see inside via the glass in the door.

All the rest of that day, I walked around Prague, wondering why this building is not part of our commonly understood history.  This building has just about every post modernist move that was ever done by the likes of Graves, Moore, Venturi, etc.  Had I missed it somehow?  So when I got back to the apartment that day, I started searching the web for anything I could find.   Below are the results that I found, starting with what was at the top of the first search results page:

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There is this reference at the site Prague Stay.  They state that the church was inspired by both Egyptian and Early Christian influences.  It says that the form and exterior expression were inspired by Noah’s Arc.

At the site New Church Architecture, they list the influences of the building as Gothic.  The author of the site, states:

” The dark brickwork with light projecting quarry stones is intended to suggest a royal ermine robe, symbol of Christ the King, while the upper part of the church representing the white linen is decorated with stylized garlands, Secessionist frames as well as Classical and Oriental elements.”

At the site Czech Rebublic, they state that the building “reminiscent of the mystical structures of Ancient Egypt.”

At this link, is a page from the book Prague by Richard Burton in which the building is tagged as “pre post modern.”  This shows up on a Google Books Result, in which pages of the book are scanned and presented on the web.

At this Google Books Result, in Richard Weston’s book Plans, Sections and Elevations:  Key Buildings of the Twentieth Century, we are given the most inclusive description of the building.  This result was displayed nearly at the bottom of the second search page.  The author states:

“Long neglected by mainstream architectural history, Plečnik was eagerly appropriated by post-modernists as a precursor.  His immersion in tradition was, however, of a different order to theirs…his designs were rooted in the unpretentious craft of building and had nothing in common with the “cult of personality” (which characterized the vast majority of the post modernist works.)

This site states that he was a “first proponent of post modernism.”  Yet that is not quite right.  Post modernism, of course, did not exist in 1930.  So to call him a first proponent is sloppy.

A book was published in 2017 titled Eternal architect: the life and art of Jože Plečnik, modernist mystic.  I do not have the book as I write this, but a snippet from the text at this site states that his work is “an organic post-modern stimmung.”

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I compiled all of the above while in Prague, basically immediately after I saw this building.  As you can see, while the obvious connection to post modernism is irrefutable, only now is this connection being uncovered and revealed.  I just think that most editors and writers of architectural history must think of us as idiots.  Why this building is not shown at the very beginning of any chapter on post modernism only proves, yes proves, the complicit nature of those who control the story and thus the history.

When I was in architectural school, post modernism was hot.  I somehow thought that the post modernist architects were, for lack of a better term, abstracting classicism as a mode of working.  It now becomes clear that they had a fully developed working model which their pastiche sprang from.  We all should have been shown this connection, both in lectures from our professors, as well as in chapters of architectural history books that are distributed around the world.

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And then what does the building mean?  It’s stated purpose is a church.  So why is there a clock in the tower?  And note that there is a circulation ramp inside the tower:  you can just see the ramp thru the clock.  You can go up that ramp, past the transparent clock, onto an observation area.  This is something out of the surrealists.  Time.  Walk thru time.  Time for church?  A sacred ramp to God?  The train of the Lord is leaving the station and you better not miss it?  Thru time we are uplifted to God?  I have no idea.  All I know is that this building should be in every architectural flash card deck.

In my continuing fascination with this ramp and clock interface as part of the elements of a church, I would have dearly loved to have experienced what this ramp experience is like.  So that desire prompted the drawing directly above, which tries to understand how the ramp must work.  If indeed this is a ramp to God, it still looks like your view at the top is horizontal.  Might there have been a glass roof so that at the top, you can look up to God, where we assume he “is”?  Or maybe, as it turns out, God’s view is more like that from an observation platform?  Basically horizontal?  Sorta like ours?