Christ the King Seminary, La Crosse, Wisconsin, a distinctive Schulte work. Photo by Br. Stephen, O.Cist.
Everyone's favorite liturgist, Denis McNamara of the Liturgical Institute at Mundelein, will be conducting a symposium this coming April in Cincinnati on the architectural work of the prolific (300 commissions in 40 years) Edward J. Schulte. Schulte's career stretched from the heights of the American neo-Gothic revival in the early twentieth century to the depths of 1970s modernism, but whatever style he worked in, his churches always retained a sense of liturgical focus, traditional grounding, and eschatological symbolism that remains a model for all students of traditional design.
Schulte's churches range from stunning exercises in Gothic to intriguing hybrid experiments mingling more modern influences with older forms drawn from the broad Catholic tradition, usually with great success. The conference will consist of a symposium on April 17 at the Cathedral--renovated by Schulte, and discussed in a previous posting on the NLM--and a series of tours the next day at some of Schulte's churches around the city. If you are interested in discovering an unjustly-forgotten local master of twentieth-century liturgical architecture, don't miss this great opportunity.
For more on the conference, go here. A piece, about some of Schulte's work in my own Wisconsin, can be found here, and another here, about his church of SS. Faith, Hope and Charity in Winnetka, Illinois.
