Cram and Ferguson: Selected Sacred Architecture (2000-2018)

Selected Sacred Architecture · 2000-2018

CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM

HOUSTON, TEXAS

New 300 Church

Completed 2004

BEGUN in a storefront in 1984, Our Lady of Walsingham serves now as the cathedral for the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, a unique body within the Roman Catholic Church largely composed of converts from the Anglican tradition. In 1999, a sizable donation allowed this convert community to construct a new church that would visibly manifest both their English and Catholic roots, with design beginning in 2000. Inspired by the flint-walled churches of Norfolk in England, home of their namesake shrine of Our Lady, its main entry is marked by a sturdy Gothic tower with gargoyles at each corner. Within, a light-filled nave leads to the crossing and a deep chancel with choir

stalls, its entry marked by the traditional rood beam. While based on medieval aesthetics, the building is informed by modern technology. The limestone veeneer and the cast stone arches bear their own weight, with the steel frame only holding the wind load. Not only is this true to the spirit of Gothic structural rinciples, it also saves on cost. The tower not only holds a peal of new French bells, but the air conditioning cooling towers.

Traditionalcraftsmanshipnonethelessabounds. Hand-forged hardware is used throughout the church. A mahogany pulpit and handrail were made to our designs in South America, along with the wainscoting of the replica of the Holy House of Walsingham that occupies one transept and serves as an intimate space for prayer and weekday mass.

Our Lady of Walsingham was dedicated in 2004, raised to the status of principal church of the Ordinariate in 2012, and cathedral in 2014.

SYON ABBEY

BENEDICTINE ABBEY, COPPER HILL, VA

New Monastery and Chapel

Completed 2007

THE monks of Syon Abbey approached Cram and Ferguson before they had even selected a site for their new monastery. Together, we developed with them a design inspired by the austere, meditative simplicity of Cistercian Gothic architecture, and laid out on traditional Benedictine lines. As we began work, they found their ideal site, a tranquil, beautiful tract of farmland along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The abbey courtyard is ringed by a cloister connecting chapel and dormitory. While the other buildings are finished in stucco, the chapel is clad within and without with Spanish limestone and roofed with a structural wooden truss. Designed for twelve monks, it is oriented to the east. Other portions of the complex include refectory, kitchen, library and reading room, all on the main cloister level, with the cells above. The structure is carefully oriented on the site, with the southeastern exposure of the dormitory

shielded from prevailing winds while catching the warmth of the sun. The monks themselves served as contractors, embodying their charism of ora et labora. Everything embodies a simple, hand-crafted perfection suited to monastic life, with details sparse but thoughtful: a rose window depicting the lives of English saints, a carved lion’s-head drainage scupper in the courtyard, a simple stone column capital, the crockets and pinnacles of the tower with its ring of bells.

Syon Abbey was completed in 2007.

SAINT JOHN NEUMANN CATHOLIC CHURCH FARRAGUT, TENNESSEE

New 1,000-seat church

Completed 2008

CRAM and Ferguson Architects competed with seven other firms for the commision to design this new 1,000-seat church outside Knoxville, Tennessee. Designed in a rugged Romanesque style, its exterior is clad in split Texas limestone and roofed in American-made terra cotta. Cast-stone reliefs of Christ the Teacher embellish the main arch of the entry door.

Built on a traditional cruciform plan, the church’s interior maintains a sense of procession while still keeping a third of the seating close to the altar, in the transepts. The crossing is marked by a vast dome capped by a lantern, high above the marble-paved floor.

Due to a request by pastor Fr. John Dowling, St. John Neumann represented a first in the firm’s recent ecclesiastical work through its use of the Romanesque. We drew on our extensive archive of older heirloom projects and more recent travels by Ethan Anthony, the firm principal, to study and explore the ancient monastery churches of Burgundy in France. The result is a domed and vaulted evocation of God reaching down to earth and embracing His faithful within.

St. John Neumann was completed in 2008.

CATHEDRAL PARISH

CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF MADISON MADISON, WISCONSIN

New 1,050-seat cathedral and parish house

Designed 2017-2018

DESTROYED by fire in 2005, the historic cathedral of Saint Raphael was located in the vibrant downtown of Madison, Wisconsin. Bishop Robert C. Morlino approached Cram and Ferguson in 2017 to design a replacement that would be a a beacon of faith in a secular city, returning, as he put it, church spires to the skyline. The proposed cathedral would be built in two phases, the first a cathedral parish house and rectory, with a crypt chapel, the second the main portion of the cathedral. A partnership with local businesses was pursued to finance

the project through a parking garage located beneath both. The liturgical layout isthe result of close consultation with the bishop, with a generous sanctuary centered on a marble altar beneath a Gothic baldachin and ample space for concelebrants and attendants for a bishop’s stational mass. Sacristies and vestries were designed to accomodate regular masses and solemn diocesan liturgies.

The sudden death of Bishop Morlino in late 2018 and diocesan restructuring in the wake of the 2020 pandemic meant that his last vision remains still a dream, but its power to inspire is nonetheless undimmed.

A CATHOLIC CHAPEL AND STUDENT CENTER IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST OKLAHOMA

Preliminary Study

Designed 2018

INTENDED as an initial stylistic study for our recently completed project of St. John’s University Catholic Center in Stillwater, Oklahoma, this early design represents a window into our creative process. While a variety of styles and material palettes were considered for the student center, we initially explored a simplified Spanish Churrigueresque style that would pay tribute to the early roots of Catholicism in the region, and also allow for a simplified, costeffective design of elegantly-massed volumes punctuated by moments of high ornamentation at important points such as portals, gates and towers. The proposed plan was arranged around a Mission-inspired courtyard that would create a private exterior space still permitting, through ironwork grills, glimpses of the central

chapel from the main thoroughfare, a major artery of campus. Two wings, connected by a vestibule running across the front of the chapel, with a separate narthex beyond, would house classrooms, study spaces and a dining hall, with circulation through the cloisters on either side. Trees, fountains, a grassy lawn, and shaded arcades counteract the Oklahoma sun. A bell tower rises from the northeastern rear corner of the church, serving as a powerful way-marker across campus.

After further discussion with the client, we instead drew on the older precedents of the Italian Romanesque, as seen in Cram and Ferguson Architects: Recent Work. The new student center was dedicated in 2023.

Now we are doing what we can by way of amendment. [...] [T]he restoration must be accomplished, however arduous the effort. And the reward is worth the effort.

—Ralph Adams Cram

“The Ministry of Art,” The Ministry of Art, 1914

Our Lady of Walsingham Houston, Texas