[Magdalen] Akron Plan.

[Cantor03 at aol.com]

There is a new RC church going up in my neighborhood.  It
is on schedule to be completed and open in September.  I know
the church pastor, and he had shown me the plans about a year
ago.  The parish is the largest in the RC Diocese of Scranton  and
has 4,000+ families.
 
The new church replaces, two buildings that looked little better than
quonset huts.  The church is in a rapidly growing suburban area.
It is ironic that the Scranton Diocese has closed more than 100  churches
because of redundancy and the chronic clergy shortage.  The  church
is to seat 800, and  is fan shaped  in the manner of the old  "Akron"
plan so popular with Protestant churches (and even a few Episcopal
churches, in the early 20th century.  In general, I HATE the Akron  plan.
 
The floor slops down to the altar area, the altar being white Italian
marble recycled, and the stained glass (Munich, c.  1900),  stations,
pulpit, lecturn and pews are all reused from closed churches.
 
There was a tall bell tower in the plans, which played off well to  the
rather horizontal look of the church, but it had to be snipped  because
of the $300,000 price-tag, sadly.
 
The jury (me) is still out, and I will be interested to see whether I
like the church in September.
 
 
David S.