A Catholic parish church for Kingsport, Tennessee

The design of a church for the present time should combine an expression of the ultimate objectives of the Christian religion with an expression of the liturgical formulae as they have evolved through the centuries. A pedantic adherence to the opinions of contemporary critics of church architecture can hinder the designer and can be avoided by comparing the products of contemporary trends with the rubrical requirements that change only by gradual restoration and suppression, hut rarely by innovation. Therefore, a church should not be built solely as an experiment to test the acceptability of pure novelty or to express the ideals of one generation of people, but it should be designed with a basis in liturgical symbolism and tradition and with an interpretation in terms of contemporary materials.