The Bryn Athyn Cathedral project: the art and craft of the ecclesiastical path
Date
1990
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Gothic styling, handcraftsmanship, and guild-like labor practices employed in the Bryn Athyn cathedral building program (begun 1913) by patron Raymond Pitcairn (1885-1966) have prompted scholars to label the project a manifestation of the American Arts and Crafts movement; this thesis re-examines that evaluation. By outlining the "ecclesiastical path" taken by spiritually-inspired craft advocates such as Ralph Adams Cram, the architect initially commissioned for the Bryn Athyn cathedral, and contrasting the ideology and practice of Cram with Pitcairn, this thesis places Bryn Athyn craft in context. Specifically, I examine the Bryn Athyn stained-glass window production as a case study. ☐ The Bryn Athyn project in practice embodied many Arts and Crafts ideas more completely than did self-styled movement adherents. However, Pitcairn's ideals--which derived from his medievalist aesthetic interests, community values, and Swedenborgian beliefs--resembled the English High Church origins of the movement rather than mainstream American manifestations wherein craft was elevated to secularized salvation.