Taking Out The Pews
May. 18th, 2014 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloA couple of Sandwich's big medieval churches have been handed over to the Churches Conservation Trust and it's taken out the seating.
You put pews or chairs in a church and it becomes a space that can only be used in one way: performers at the east end, audience- seated passively- to the west. Remove the seating and you create a huge, barn-like space- multifunctional, omnidirectional. The aisles cease to exist, leaving the one, large room- unobstructed- squarer than it looked before- a basilica- broken up with pillars which no longer mark out a set of narrow pathways but simply support the roof. The building has been democratized, taken away from the priests, its meaning opened up to interpretation.
You put pews or chairs in a church and it becomes a space that can only be used in one way: performers at the east end, audience- seated passively- to the west. Remove the seating and you create a huge, barn-like space- multifunctional, omnidirectional. The aisles cease to exist, leaving the one, large room- unobstructed- squarer than it looked before- a basilica- broken up with pillars which no longer mark out a set of narrow pathways but simply support the roof. The building has been democratized, taken away from the priests, its meaning opened up to interpretation.
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Date: 2014-05-18 08:32 pm (UTC)The Victorians certainly thought they were striking a huge blow for liberty, fraternity and equality when they got rid of the box pews and put in benches.