Six Architectural Settings And Worship Renewal

The assembled body of Christ is a primary visual symbol. The way people are seated affects the ways they relate to each other in worship and has much to do with their experience of community. There are six different architectural settings for worship currently in use. Each setting is briefly described and illustrated below with comments on its relationship to worship renewal. Configuration is the heart of the seating issue. Here again we are guided in particular by Environment and Art in Catholic Worship, #68. The arrangement must support all liturgies (Sunday Eucharist as well as funerals and weddings but other liturgies as well). It must also support singing, provide for emergency egress, and may need to be as functional with dozens as with hundreds. Configurations are here put into six categories. Each has its own characteristics and personality. All of the diagrams below have an identical scale and seating capacity (approximately 780 people for 18-inch seat spacing and 670 people…