In Search of Heavenly Designs

There was a time when designing a church was strictly a matter between an architect and his or her maker. Now into this very private communion has come a very public concern: earthquakes.

In Southern California, seismic safety regulations are beginning to have an impact on the way churches are built.

“An architect can no longer say, ‘This is what the church is going to look like--make it work,’ ” said Trailer Martin, a structural engineer with the Los Angeles firm John Martin and Associates.

Those deliriously high-vaulted ceilings? Nice, but impractical unless you have an enormous budget for steel bracing. Walls and walls of stained glass? Without costly reinforcements, they could come down on your congregants’ heads.

And those majestic bell towers? Think of a brick chimney in a big shaker. Down they come, unless they are properly braced.

In North Hollywood and Tarzana, two Presbyterian churches have been razed to make way for new buildings. And the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced last week that it would not restore St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles, but would instead build on a new site near the city’s core.

At Our Lady of the Valley in Canoga Park, the tower was rebuilt, but purposely left much shorter than it had been.

“The top part was removed and the replacement simply became a cap of folded steel plates,” said architect David Vadman, whose company served as construction manager at 40 Catholic churches that sustained heavy damage.

A good architect, said John Karotis, a prominent local structural engineer, can still design just about anything. But it takes a heavenly budget to pull off the fancy stuff while conforming to the new rules.

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“Generally, we’ve found that the problem is money,” Karotis said. “Churches don’t generate an income per se, like a commercial building.”

But even the best job, he said, is not going to ensure that the church won’t be damaged again in another temblor.

The problem, he said, is the classic design of a church: If it is in the shape of a cross--a common Catholic design--the walls may be different lengths and heights, and may vibrate separately from the roof in the event of a temblor. High ceilings, even if braced, are going to move.

“We can design buildings that will not threaten anybody’s life, but there’s going to be damage,” he said. “And most churches don’t carry earthquake insurance.

How the clashing concerns of budget, design and building regulations will play out in the overall architecture of churches--particularly new ones--is hard to predict, the experts say.

The height of sanctuary ceilings is affected not only by seismic concerns but also by the cost of heating and air-conditioning a tall room. Traditional steps up to a church in front may be impacted by the need for wheelchair access, and those in residential areas may be subject to height limits.

The turn-of-the-century Church of the Angels in Highland Park, for instance, was badly damaged in the Sylmar earthquake in 1971. But worshipers could not afford to rebuild the historic structure’s stone bell tower to conform to earthquake codes.

So the congregation demolished what was left of the tower, being careful to pluck out the stones and store them on the site. They patiently began raising money, but it was not until 1988 that work began on the restoration.

When it was finished, said Karotis, who worked on the project, the tower was supported internally by steel beams. The original stones were cut in half and placed outside the steel as a decorative veneer.

But even where money is no object, seismic considerations can cause changes, however slight, to a church’s appearance.

The monumental restoration of Saint Monica’s, a Catholic Church in Santa Monica that was badly damaged in the Northridge quake, cost $7 million and won a major award. Most of the bracing required by earthquake codes was hidden beneath the church’s stone facade, said Nabih Youssef, the structural engineer who worked on the project.

But there were areas around the altar that “got thickened a little bit,” Youssef said, and a new concrete frame for the area made it smaller. Also, he said, some clay tiles were replaced with concrete and plastered over.

In restoring the historic Welsh Presbyterian Church near the Los Angeles Convention Center, engineer Mel Green said it was necessary to place steel columns inside the sanctuary, where they would be visible. But in order to keep the character of the old church--originally one of the city’s oldest synagogues--the beams were designed to blend in.

Barbara Huff, preservation director for the Los Angeles Conservancy, said she was in the building for 20 minutes before even noticing the braces.

Towers pose particular problems. Like chimneys, their height causes them to vibrate independently of the main building in an earthquake. Most towers are attached to the main church building, and can take part of the building down with them in a strong quake.

Among Catholic parishes, the temblor caused one Granada Hills tower to lean 7% to the side and left another in Reseda threatening to crash through the church roof. At a Sherman Oaks parish, a heavy bell added to the sideways motion of its tower, cracking the tower before the bell itself came crashing down.

But congregations are showing little interest in doing without them.

At St. John Eudes Catholic Church in Chatsworth, which reopened Saturday after sustaining extensive earthquake damage, parishioners decided to take advantage of new technology and build themselves a tower, even though the church did not have one previously.

“Our building looked plain enough before,” said the pastor, Father Robert McNamara. “We wanted it, at first glance, to proclaim that this is a worship place.”

Its design, however, was dramatically different from the old stone towers that fell all over town.

The new structure, a 65-foot high electric carillon, has a lightweight steel frame. Its foundation is sunk 20 feet into the ground and it is not connected to the adjacent church building.

“If that tower falls,” said the pastor, Father Robert McNamara, “then it’s all over. Say your prayers.”

The church was reopened by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in ceremonies that marked its status as the last quake-damaged church in the archdiocese--which sustained nearly $58 million in property damage from the Northridge temblor--to literally fold its tent.

“At one stage in 1994 we had 12 parishes going to Masses in temporary quarters, half of them in tents,” said Brother Hilarion) O’Connor, director of the archdiocese’s construction office.

St. John Eudes has 2,750 families on its rolls, some of them long inactive, McNamara said. The members worshiped in a hall for a while, then acquired a tent designed to hold a maximum of 850 people.

For the past two years, the tent was the scene of Masses, Communion classes, “44 weddings, 148 funerals and 361 baptisms,” McNamara said. “There was an incredible spirit and bonding.”

“There was only one parish that I know of which decided not to rebuild its tower--St. Cyril of Jerusalem Church in Encino,” Vadman said.

Recognizing the pull of tradition, some architects and engineers are skeptical that any real structural changes are in the offing.

“If you’re working with creative engineers, you really still have the infinite range of how you can approach the structure,” said architect Robert Yudell, whose firm, Moore Ruble Yudell, designed the First Church of Christ Scientist in Glendale.

And whether new buildings change along with tastes, technology and regulations, historic churches ought to be preserved, argues Green, who specializes in renovating older buildings.

“Churches are vital buildings to our community,” Green said. “They are the continuity of life in the culture. When we demolish the churches, we lose that continuity as a society.”