Off-Modern Catholic Aesthetics. Rethinking the Role of Religion in 20th Century Art and Architecture

The PhD thesis centres on analysing connections between aesthetic modernism and traditional Catholic ideas. In terms of scope it examines transnational intellectual transfers between Europe and the US, primarily between 1945 and 1970. To do so, methodological tools derived from intellectual history are employed to observe how concepts which were mobilised from different disciplines sought to maintain a sacred conception of aesthetics within a rapidly changing post-World War II social environment. By analysing aesthetics and theology in tandem, the aim of the research is to construct both an alternative aesthetic historiography which takes into consideration the role of religion in processes of modernisation, and to mobilise a philosophical aesthetics which emerges from encounters between tradition and the avant-garde. This operated along two core fault lines: firstly, the socio-economic context of inter-war France, and secondly, in terms of the transplanted intellectual, where ideas which were initially conceived in Europe found their final articulation in the US after World War II.

In terms of methodology, the thesis draws on the historiographic approaches of Reinhart Koselleck and Hans Blumenberg. In this respect, the dynamics between traditional Catholic ideas and modernist aesthetics is framed within two main categories: firstly, it draws on Koselleck’s notion of ‘sediments of time’ to explore the conflicted temporalities at work between the medieval and modern conceptions of architecture. In the second instance, it analyses how Catholic educators sought to leverage the ‘horizon of expectation’ with the ‘space of experience’ by mobilizing religious ideas in a modern pedagogical context. This broader intellectual horizon is channelled into specific case studies whereby a facet of the secular-religious dynamics of modernist aesthetics is given a sharper conceptual focus. Archival material is used as the basis for the argument of each chapter. Moreover, it draws on Hans Blumenberg’s early work on ‘metaphorology’ to connect these ‘micro-texts’ to the broader historical context in which they appeared, namely, post-World War II America.

The first chapter examines the theoretical discourse on architecture of the Dominican friar and art critic, Marie-Alain Couturier (1897-1954). Having trained to become an artist at the Ateliers d'art sacré in Paris (1920 – 1925), and a theologian at Le Saulchoir and Rome (1925 – 1932), Couturier was situated between the emergence of aesthetic modernism, and a Catholic intellectual framework undergoing major transformations in the first half of the 20th century. This chapter is divided into three parts which offer a theoretical backdrop for the remaining three case studies. First, an anti-modern paradigm, based on ‘romantic anti-capitalism’, wherein Couturier’s thinking was characterised by a radically anti-republican politics on the one hand, and a Neo-Thomist aesthetics on the other. The second part looks at Couturier’s fraternal Catholic modernism, where his framework shifted towards embracing existential hermeneutics. Finally, it examines how the contradictions at work in Couturier’s framework come to the fore in his analysis of modern sacred architecture.

The second chapter examines the clash of temporalities between the medieval and modern by looking at a specific building, namely Marcel Breuer’s (1902 – 1981) futurist design for Benedictine chapel in Collegeville, Minnesota (1953 – 1961). Here, Breuer used innovations from modernist architecture and engineering techniques. Accordingly, the chapter is framed as a negotiation between aesthetic discourses of industry (modernism) on the one hand, and mysticism (tradition) on the other. The analysis is split into two parts. First, the continuities and discrepancies between Breuer’s and the Benedictines’ respective conceptions of ‘architectural symbolism’ is dissected. Second, the chapter engages a comparative investigation between the former Bauhaus teacher, Josef Albers’ conception of the spiritual in art with the more public understanding of symbolism within Benedictine frameworks.

The third chapter analyses the impact which the phenomenon of religious conversion had on the educational philosophy of the curator, activist, and philanthropist, Dominique de Menil (1908 – 1997). During the late 1930s, de Menil was immersed in the renaissance of Catholic intellectual life in France. After a series of geographic displacements, de Menil translated these ideas into her artistic and activist pursuits in Houston after World War II. The first part examines the intellectual origins of de Menil’s conversion to Catholicism. The second part scrutinises the bearing of these ideas in the context of her educational and curatorial agenda in the US after World War II.

Finally, the concept of ‘crisis’ is analysed in post-World War II architectural education in the US. This is done through the lens of an influential educator, Jean Labatut (1899 – 1986). During his time as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Architecture in Princeton (1928 – 1967), Labatut developed a unique form of research based on the development of visual sensibility, which he implemented in his ‘architectural laboratory’. As a progressive Catholic, Labatut thought that religious ideas could be integrated within modernist buildings and urban planning. The first part unpacks Labatut’s framework within the rubrics of visuality, phenomenology, history, and religion. Part two explores how these ideas were taken up in the post-war intellectual landscape via two of his student’s theses: Francis Prokes and Robert Venturi.

In their respective ways, the protagonists of the research sought to reconcile fundamentally heterogenous conceptions of time. Concepts which were derived from a medieval context, were placed alongside modern concepts. The thesis therefore concludes with a reflection on what a re-examination of this clash of temporalities, between the medieval and the modern, can contribute to debates in the historiographic sciences. In terms of impact, can be seen as a contribution to the fields of Art History (as a reconsideration of the role religion played in 20th century aesthetics), Religious Studies (as a reflection on the process whereby Catholic ideas underwent complex and contradictory transformations), and Intellectual History (a reflection on what new forms of temporality and periodisation a clash between the medieval and the modern can produce).