Lumen gentium

Noted last week at Inhabitat an article with striking photos of the newly consecrated Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland, CA — ‘the world’s newest cathedral,’ according to the diocese’s cathedral web site.

See the Inhabitat article, along with its source, for impressive architectural photography, but see also certain pics offered by one of the Inhabitat commenters. It would be easy to conclude from the articles — and, strangely, from the cathedral web site itself — that Christian imagery & symbolism are deliberately restrained, almost obscured, in the design, but these sources are a little misleading.

The Oakland cathedral seems to have among its notable architectural antecedents Oscar Niemeyer’s Cathedral of Brasilia and the creepily alien-machinelike Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. It also recalls to my mind’s eye Renzo Piano’s New Caledonia Cultural Center.

 

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