Before and After: St. Andrew's Catholic Church, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

In another instalment in our "before and after" series, today we have feature a project coming from the firm of Cram & Ferguson Architects, based out of Concord, Massachusetts. This particular firm is particularly (though not exclusively) connected to the gothic revival movement, evidenced enough by one of its founding members, Ralph Adams Cram, the great American gothic revival architect. Following in that same spirit, a renovation proposal that was made for St. Andrew's Catholic Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina recently captured my attention. 

I am going to include the original architectural proposal watercolours as it helps to give you a sense of the kind of work that Cram and Ferguson particularly excel at. But first, let's talk about the parish as it stood before. Cram and Ferguson provide the background context for us: 

Saint Andrew Catholic Church's roots in Myrtle Beach going back to 1929, when it was founded as a mission of St. Mary's in Georgetown. To house an expanding parish, the existing church was constructed in 1964 and renovated in 1993. With the Catholic community in Myrtle Beach continuing to grow, the parish approached Cram and Ferguson Architects in 2017 to produce a masterplan to expand the structure and address the building's needs, functional, liturgical, and aesthetic... The work proposed in the Master Plan unifies the disparate parts of the original building and its subsequent interventions. The result is a harmonious whole, replacing previous, now-dated interventions with a timeless architectural language. 

So then, we are looking at a 'before' that came out of the 1960's but which was renovated in the 1990's.  Here it is:

BEFORE

While the interior was certainly nothing particularly special, it also wasn't without some real potential. The biggest issues here were the insubstantiality of the altar and also the rather mundane, netural palette of colours.  However, because of its very basic, but classical ordering, it had potential.  (For example, while gothic was what the community opted for, they could have as equally opted to go in a Romanesque direction in a structure like this). 

Gothic seems to be a challenge to pull off successfully in our time, perhaps in great because the best gothic architecture is usually highly detailed, including carved, decorative wood and/or stonework, as well as ornamental stencilling and the like.  That is precisely what Cram and Ferguson envisioned for the parish church when it made it's proposal:

CRAM & FERGUSON'S FULL DESIGN PROPOSAL

Of particular appeal to me in their proposed design is the carved altarpiece, the hanging canopy above the altar, the side 'shrines,' (meant to mimic side altars) and of course the substantive high altar itself.  Equally of note is the beautiful gold and blue stencilling found behind the high altar, which is also echoed on the ceiling, which includes exposed beams. 

Now design proposals are one thing but what a parish can fund at a given time are not always one and the same thing (something that must always be borne in mind in these projects), so while not every element ultimately was able to make it into the first phase of the project, it is still a substantive improvement to this particular liturgical space (and the parish does intend to complete the remaining elements at some point in the future when funding permits). 

AFTER

A closer look at the altar and reredos and its crucifixion piece (which is a painted piece, rather than a carved one shown in the watercolour). 

The freestanding altar

Detail of the Lamb of God from the freestanding altar

The altar of reservation (which could also serve as a traditional high altar)

The new baptistery

An exciting project to be certain, and one which we look forward to seeing when the second phase is comopleted.

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