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In the 1920s, the firm of Frohman, Robb & Little, fresh from participating in the design of Washington National Cathedral, a high-Gothic structure that is the world’s sixth-largest cathedral, proposed a plainer variant for St. Paul’s. Gothic ecclesiastical architecture with its delicate tracery and soaring pointed arches is well known for playing on the spiritual registers of our hearts and minds. Gothic churches have been called the image of the heavenly Jerusalem. They also evoke the historical high-water mark of Christian influence on western culture. Today’s campus went up between 1928 and the late 1950s. Unfortunately, the financial hardship brought on by the Great Depression and World War II deprived the Cathedral of the funds needed to build the decorative spire envisaged to tower over the simpler lower part of the church. The largest component of the complex consists of the church nave and chancel, completed in 1951, where the people and the clergy, respectively, are seated during services. Inside, the church is 56 feet high, 186 feet long and 72 feet wide and can accommodate 578 worshippers. The Chapel of the Holy Family, located behind and to the right of the main Altar, accommodates 60. The church is embellished by original carved wood furnishings and paneling as well as a major series of stained glass windows. The most salient individual architectural features of the church are the sanctuary (the area around the Altar), the stained-glass windows, and the Columbarium. Columbarium |
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