Cathedral to Forever Link Lives of Dreamer and Designer

As the story goes, it was August of 1975 when Robert H. Schuller, a man with a dream, dropped in unannounced at the Manhattan architectural firm of Johnson/Burgee in search of a dream maker.

With visions in his head of building the ultimate monument to his rapidly growing Orange County ministry, the stranger from California was looking for Philip Johnson, whom Time magazine had recently described as one of the world’s foremost structural architects.

History has recorded that the glass palace that Schuller saw in his dreams came to be known as the Crystal Cathedral.

With the acclaim it has received since its opening, the cathedral will forever link the lives and memories of Robert Schuller and Philip Johnson, the dreamer and the designer.

Johnson, still working at 85, took a few moments Thursday to recall by telephone from Manhattan those first visits with Schuller.

Right from the start, Johnson said, Schuller knew what he wanted. “His first vision was that he wanted to see the cars and the sky,” Johnson said.

Because he began his local ministry in a drive-in theater lot, Schuller wanted to maintain his connection with cars, Johnson said.

Johnson drew up a design and showed it to Schuller. “He came to New York, and I showed it to him at the Four Seasons restaurant. He looked at it and didn’t say a word. He finally said, ‘Sorry, it’s not what I had in mind,’ ” Johnson recalled. Schuller thought the drawing was too traditional. “So I put on a new thinking cap and started all over again.”

The next design, with relatively few changes along the way, became the cathedral as it now stands.

That’s not to say there weren’t some squabbles between dreamer and designer.

“He’s a boss, all right,” Johnson said, chuckling. “Like all bosses, he changes his mind and has good moods and bad moods, and Monday morning is not the time to talk to them, but we got along beautifully.”

Nearly 70 when Schuller approached him, Johnson had scant experience with churches. He had designed a few chapels, but nothing on the scale that Schuller wanted. Nor did he share Schuller’s religious fervor.

“I love religion. I just wish I were religious,” Johnson said. “To me, an architect’s main aim in the world is to do a religious building, like the Pantheon in Rome, the Acropolis in Greece, or the churches in central France. Those are the things that civilizations are remembered by, not by housing projects or apartment buildings or office buildings. That’s the most sacred job an architect can get and where you can express yourself the best, if you’re any good.”

Although he says the cathedral would be in any top five list of his personal favorites, Johnson said he can’t assess its architectural significance. “I’m too close to it to see the trees,” he said. “I have no idea at all. Even locally among architects, friends didn’t regard it at all, because I was over the hill, as you know. It’s very popular, but I don’t know how it will be regarded in the history books of architecture.”

For Schuller and Johnson, there was a sequel.

That came when Johnson designed the campanile atop the cathedral, the bell tower that adorns the church.

A year ago this week, Johnson returned to Crystal Cathedral for the campanile’s dedication. In brief remarks then, he left what would serve as an elegant legacy to the cathedral and, perhaps, to him and Schuller.

“I have to confess to the sin of arrogance,” Johnson said. “I thought in my weak human way that I knew a lot about architecture. That I knew a lot about building. I thought I knew about stainless steel and what it would do. I thought I knew enough about history to remember the Gothic spires, the glories of the great spiritual ages, and I said to myself, ‘Well, I’m human, but I’m awfully good. So I will build a tower that will combine the history of the Gothic times, the technique of today and make it for the first time new.’ For the first time there would be a building which would do more than just be a building. It would be a part of the sun system which nourishes us all. It would become . . . like a temple of the sun, almost, and would work with the sun. I thought I could do that.

“I was wrong. Dead wrong. I found that out this morning. I found that this tower does so much more than I could have ever dreamed, that this tower expresses so much more of the hopes of our times. That this tower is one with the sun. That this tower moves--every time you take a step that tower turns. Every time you take another step, more lights come from other facets of the prisms. I want you to notice next time you go out.”

It’s hard not to think in terms of histories and legacies as Schuller, just three days shy of his 65th birthday, recuperates this morning in an Amsterdam hospital, where he has been since a head injury last week necessitated two brain operations. Despite a rosy prognosis for a full recovery, we can’t help but be reminded of the fragility of life.

Robert Schuller and Philip Johnson both may live to be 100 years old. But even if they don’t, the cathedral that they transferred from drawing board to reality surely will.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.