First Church of Christ Scientist - Building

Designed by Miller White & Dunn, on the 4^th May 1959. Constructed on the 1^st March 1960 and completed on the 6^th November 1961. The final cost of this project was £16,999-9-0.

First Church of Christ Scientist is a fine example of The Modern Movement.

This building demonstrates symmetry, cubic forms and repetition.

The high wall of the existing building has an artistic, ornamental repeated pattern that looks like grid dots with the use of how the glass implementations are spaced out and positioned. Each of them is made of coloured glass which functions in letting a lot of light in, in a minimal way. Each of them is yellow, orange and blue that shines a beautiful array of light, warmth and has a homely feel. The colours may act as a motif or representation or a simple addition of artistic preference.

The majority of the buildings design is formulated around four corners, rectangles, squares and 90 degree angle shapes. To break that repetition up of the 90-degree angle grid, could either turn out for good or turn out for bad in the cases of it looking out of place and not fitting in with harmony. In this case it turned out for good and adds an extra sight of amazement, adding extra bonus eye gazing features to the pallet.

At the front of the building as pictured above, there are four protruding pillars (excluding that pile on the corner) that are under four beams. Four windows with a repeated pattern inside them holding five glass panels each in them.  Each of those four windows looks to be a grid line pattern of thirds.

What I love about this building is though there are 90-degree angle symmetry patterns making up the majority of this building, the triangular roof breaks that flow but it doesn’t disconnect or break away from the relationship that it has with the rest of the building.

The First Church of Christ Scientist is an utterly fantastic example of the Modern Movement.

-Lionel Singer