[ the architect | the exterior | the interior | the reredos ] The Church of St. Catharine of Siena is located on the northwest corner of Fischer Place and Wunder Ave, in the neighborhood of Westwood, Cincinnati, Ohio. The Patron The Architect His plan for a Norman Gothic structure was accepted, and Crowe immediately informed Edward Schulte, a designer of bank and theater interiors in Pittsburgh. Both men had worked together for the firm of Werner, Adkins, and Kennedy, as apprentices in 1910. Though Schulte moved to Pittsburgh in 1912 to supervise commissions there, they corresponded especially concerning a mutual interest in designing churches. Neither man was formally educated beyond high school, but both seriously studied Ralph Adam Cram’s Church Building (1906), and Sir Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture (1896). Consequently, Crowe and Schulte became interested in designing churches. Cram, an Episcopalian from Boston, had written: "There is one style and only one, that we have a right to for churches; and that is Gothic as it was when all art was destroyed at the time of the Reformation. It is hardly necessary to prove that Gothic is the one style in which we can work. If we are to build a church honorably, we must take up the life of church building where it was severed at the Reformation, borrowing anything that is available from earlier periods, even from as far back as the Norman." The Exterior The West Front has a tripartite division, emphasized by butresses of the north and south towers, and the center indicative of the nave space behind. The south tower is the more massive and taller; at the base between corner and butresses is a double light window marked by small stone columns and arches. Near the battlemented top of the tower are two rounded arch openings on all four sides resting on stone coping. Beneath each opening is a loophole reminiscent of military defense. The south side has two additional staggered loopholes and a single portal with attached columns supporting an arch. The parapet of the smaller north tower rises to the height of the stone cross surmounting the exterior of the nave. There is a small single light window and two staggered loopholes on the west side with a single opening, smaller than the ones in the north tower near the parapet. The center of the facade consists of the double portal, framed and divided by attached columns and arches. Above the center column is a niche with the statue of St. Catharine on a stone bracket. This is surmounted by a shallow gable with a stone cross, and there begins the molding of the frame of the rose window. The upper half of the frame is bordered by another frame of rough-cut stone, but rather than the circle being completed, the two strips drape in bands along butresses to the portal platform. To either side of the doors above the first coping of the buttress are two coats of arms, to the left that of Pope Pius XI, and to the right that of Archbishop Henry Moeller under whose tenures of office the church was built. The ceiling is a skillfully crafted wood and plaster barrel vault. The eight major transverse wood arches are supported at the side walls by hammer beams with the posts resting on stone corbels. These along with intervening minor arches, support the purlins, dividing the ceiling into plastered rectangles. It has been written that England is unrivalled in its timber roofs; they are to be found in almost every county and reached their perfection in the fifteenth century --much later than the historic Norman Gothic period. St. Catharine's ceiling is a superb example of the carpenter's craft during this later development. The glass windows are unusual, quite different from much other stained and painted glass of our local churches. Glaziers in the medieval period, especially from the 11th to the 14th centuries were painters in or with glass. By the 16th century during the Renaissance medieval stained glass had died. The 19th century was a period of rediscovery and by the turn of the century, through the efforts of writers, artists, architects, and chemists, stained glass had regained an important place among the arts. The Pre-Raphaelite movement in England, especially in the glasswork of Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), contributed much and this can be seen most predominently in the six angel figures of the sanctuary windows. Looking toward the sanctuary the eight windows of the nave have as their subject the Beatitudes, typified by great saints in the Church. Facing the sanctuary, on the right from the front, the subjects of the windows are:
On the left:
St. John the Baptist (lamb and cross in hand) patron saint of the Mens' society; St. Aloysius (young man, cross in hand, no covering on head) patron saint of the Young Mens' Society; St. Francis de Sales (usually with pen and book in hand), the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati; the three on the Epistle side: St. Ann (with young St. Mary and books), patron saint of the Married Ladies Society; St. Rose of Lima (with hands crossed), patron saint of the Young Ladies' Society; and the Guardian Angel (with wings and smaller child), patron saint of children. Above the panels are grouped six saints representing the six main classes of saints as found in the Missal.
St.
Catharine of Siena Church
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The Interior
The
Reredos