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Modern Church Architect as Ritual Anthropologist: Architecture and Liturgy at Clifton Cathedral

A study of the design process at Clifton Roman Catholic Cathedral in Bristol, designed in the late 1960s and opened in 1973, is interpreted alongside theories of ritual in anthropology, to understand the broader relationships between Liturgical Movement-inspired church architecture and religious practice. It is argued that, because of the conservative nature of the clients with whom the ‘liturgical brief’ was produced, ritual became frozen into place by the architecture at Clifton, even though one aim of the Liturgical Movement (particularly after the Second Vatican Council) was to move liturgy away from ritual behaviour and towards free expression. The argument is extended within Liturgical Movement architecture through additional case studies, so that the imposition of space and symbols onto liturgy through architecture can be seen, following anthropological theory (particularly Humphrey and Laidlaw and Pierre Bourdieu), as allied to a notion of religious reform as conducive to social control. The article is part of Proctor’s continuing project on Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain from 1955 to 1975. Research for this article was partly funded by a research grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Architecture, and the project led in 2011 to a major Research Grant from AHRC for completion of a book on the subject by 2013. The article was first given as a paper at the AHRC peer-reviewed conference ‘Field/Work’ in Edinburgh in 2009, and was subsequently invited for submission to ARQ by the journal’s editorial board. It was decided to agree to publication of the article in ARQ because Proctor had already published related work in prominent architectural history journals with a more documentary approach. This more experimental and theoretical article seemed well-suited to ARQ, and also helped to bring the project to a different audience.