Best modern churches awards
The search is on to find the Best Modern Churches built in the United Kingdom since 1953 in a new architecture competition launched by the National Churches Trust, The Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association and The Twentieth Century Society.
The Best Modern Churches competition is being held to mark the 60th anniversary of the National Churches Trust. Since 1953 the Trust has provided over 12,000 grants and loans worth £85 million, in today’s prices, to help fund the repair and modernisation of Christian places of worship.
Judges have now selected a shortlist of 24 church buildings or significant extensions to an existing building from any Christian denomination in the United Kingdom which opened for worship after 1st January 1953.
From the shortlist of 24, judges will announce a Top 10 Best Modern Churches and award a ‘National Churches Trust Diamond Jubilee Architecture’ prize to 3 places of worship judged to be the best sacred spaces built in the last 60 years at a ceremony to be held at Lambeth Palace on 7 November 2013. The awards will be presented by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby.
Judges for the awards are: Sherry Bates, President Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association, Richard Carr-Archer, Trustee of the National Churches Trust, Catherine Croft, Chief Executive of the 20th Century Society, Jonathan Glancey, writer and architecture critic . Many thanks also to Philip Whitehead, who has provided administrative support to the awards.
[Take a look at the photos here.]
[Source: http://www.bestmodernchurches.org.uk/about-the-awards/ – HT to ICN]
Tags: architecture, best modern churches, church architecture, modern churches
Of all the Churches shown, I prefer All Saints, Spring Park. In looking at all the photographs, I ‘went with my heart’ and All Saints is the one that I felt looked most homely and comfortable to me. That is not to say that the others don’t have an appeal; it is just that All Saints is the winner for me.
Scargill chapel in Yorkshire looks amazing. The architecture is simply beautiful. Warm & Inviting. The materials are clearly sensitively used to compliment the environmental setting.
There is something utterly ‘shepherdy’ about the design, and it both imitates the hills, and is encompassed by them ~ in fact it looks like a little mountain peak ~ perfect for pilgrims.
But most of all the light through the window both shining outwards and from inside must be utterly amazing. I would Love to worship God here.
Unfortunately, through circumstance, It was necessary for me to attend Mass at the Leyland church – internally it has all the atmosphere of a lecture theatre!