Walking along a three-block radius towards Broadway and East Tenth Street in East Village, Manhattan, one approaches, almost inadvertently, a mystical grayish-brown Gothic Revival cathedral of considerable scale. Grace Church, an exquisitely elegant and historical masterpiece, stands silently, majestically and mysteriously at the corner of the intersection, as if attempting to integrate into the cityscape with its more contemporary neighbors. Unlike traditional Gothic cathedrals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Grace Church today is situated not independently on its own: visitors can only perceive the West and South facades while surrounding buildings, rather obstructively, occupy the North and East.
Paving around the estate to examine the exterior, one forgets about New York City and the busy traffic directly behind. The Medieval grandeur with its complex patterns of pointed arches, waves of spires cascading down flying buttresses, the geometric perfection of the large rose window, and the colorful magnificence of stained glass windows, altogether gradually disorient the audience and lure him inside the edifice. In the absence of a porch, little separates the entrance of the church from the street pavement. At the front door, one confronts a tympanum embedded deeply within the archivolt, and looking further upward, catches barely a glimpse of the pinnacle. The vertical magnitude of the colossal front tower reduces the human individual and quietens the heart and mind in preparation for something greater ahead. Crossing the narrow narthex, suspension heightens to a climax. Opening the doors to the nave, the chancel at the East end suddenly bursts gloriously into view as natural light pours through an immense colorful stained glass canvas topped with a rose window. Already at the beginning of the nave, one becomes awestruck by the intricacies of the sculptural, architectural and artistic handicraft at the altar.
The layout of this church best resembles the Latin Cross plan, but with wider transepts filled with pews and a rectangular choir and apse. As one proceeds carefully down the mosaic aisle, the haphazard, irregular and irrational exterior sheds away to reveal the symmetrical and axial plan of the interior: on the lower zone, pews in the sanctuary occupy either sides of the aisle, and an arcade of tall and wide pointed arches divide the two side aisles from the nave; on the upper zone, an equal number of stained glass windows depicting different stories adorn the clerestory on both sides of the plan. The North and South transepts each contain a monumental piece of stained glass window, as well. Just as the keystone acts as a central support of an arch, so too the grand altar at the chancel appears to orchestrate the interior architecture to point to itself with the highest honor and awe. Feelings of disorientation become re-orientated towards the altar, the sacred place for instruction. The dazzling lights there, like the lights from Heaven and of Christ, seem to purify the light that enters from the outside world each time it receives a visitor. The verticality of space contributes to the aura of otherworldliness and spiritual atmosphere, diminishing the Self and amplifying the Holy Spirit, while the spatial vastness within creates a lightness to counterbalance the weightiness and convolution of the exterior. The rib vaulting of Grace Church, unlike the crazy vaults of the Decorated Style, employs a graceful geometric web pattern punctuated by meticulously carved keystones. It beautifully transfers loads down to the piers along the arcade and between pointed arches in the form of slender colonnettes wrapped together by a slim, floral capital, and erected on a base that disappears among the pews. The elegant simplicity of the church interior results partly from the removal of the triforium for a thin Gothic frieze that runs continuously around the perimeter of the nave, further acting as the base of the clerestory, which leads down to the pointed arch in the arcades. Complementing the frieze, the pointed arch, too, is rimmed by a similar pattern. Such arrangement creates both a logical flow to the eye and an organic yet disciplined dynamic in the otherwise inert-looking mural. The regular and consistent rhythm of the arches and the clerestory also enhances the solidity of the structure, and alludes to a sense of steadfastness, structurally, axially and spiritually.
While the story usually ends at the altar, few turn around to study the retrofacade. At Grace Church, the door of the nave not only marks the line of symmetry towards the altar in front in the interior and the spire at the top in the exterior, but also balances the two shorter tracery screens on the sides of the door. The screens are color-opaque to maximize lighting from natural light outside. Above the door and screens lies a band of pointed dentils, atop which sits a row of detailed miniature arcades (that would usually be seen in the exterior) with five sculpted pointed arches to one two-dimensional pointed arch in the screen below. The perfect geometric shapes in the tracery of the screens and in the design of the large rose window above coexist seamlessly in fluid harmony with the organic, free-running patterns of the frieze, pointed arch frame and the rib-vaulting pattern.
Perhaps the electrical hanging lights in the nave were only included for modern-day
requirements. Regardless, the warm hanging lights that imitate chandeliers of
candles improve luminosity and intensify the colors of the stained glass
windows. The unpredictable juxtaposition of this Gothic interior and exterior
makes Grace Church a hidden gem in the city.
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| Grace Church, Broadway/East 10th St, retrofacade (rough on-site sketch) |
Original photography by Sophie G.
