Church Tucked Away in Minnesota Is a Landmark

In “A Shared Devotion to the New Cathedral” (Nov. 29), architect Jose Rafael Moneo says: “There have not been many good examples of religious architecture in the last 100 years,” except for a few like “the Matisse chapel and LeCorbusier’s churches at La Tourette and, particularly, Ronchamp” in France.

Apparently, Moneo is not familiar with Marcel Breuer’s internationally acclaimed St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., of which architect I.M. Pei once said, if it weren’t tucked away in rural Minnesota, it would be one of the 20th century’s most famous pieces of architecture.

Begun in the 1950s, the trapezoidal-shaped building seats 1,400 and features giant structures of rough, unadorned concrete surfaces with local granite, including a 112-foot-tall flat bell tower.

In contrast to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, which has no stained glass in the cathedral proper, the north face of the St. John’s church comprises 430 colorful hexagons of abstract design, making it one of the largest walls of stained glass in the world.

Also, in contrast to the Los Angeles church, where the architect “didn’t move a finger without” the approval of Cardinal Roger Mahony, St. John’s was the product of numerous meetings between Breuer and the Benedictine monks of St. John’s Abbey.

Although the church was controversial for its radical design, most architecture critics now agree with Breuer, who died in 1981, that it was one of his finest works, and a landmark in church architecture.

ALBERT EISELE

Washington, D.C.