All photos by Bruce T. Martin.
St. Cecilia Parish in Boston was originally built in 1894. And although it underwent a small restoration in 1954, the historic church mostly went unchanged.
In 2010, the church decided it wanted to restore the building fabric and make the various ministries housed at the 16,000-square-foot St. Cecilia more visible, accessible, and inviting.
In the final project, the exterior masonry, roof, and stained glass windows were cleaned and restored and the interior of the upper church was restored to its original colorful appearance. The lower church was gutted and converted into a Parish Center with classrooms, a coffee bar, and a large social bar.
The lower church was gutted and converted into a Parish Center with classrooms, a coffee bar, and a large social bar.
In addition, a four-story building that blocked light into the nave was removed and replaced with a glass stairway and elevator, and a glassy, transparent entrance building was designed to allow daylight to illuminate the stained glass windows on the east side of the nave. The result was a view of newly created gardens.
The church’s renovation has won several awards, including the 2016 Faith and Form Award and the Boston Preservation Alliance’s 2012 Preservation Achievement Award.
In the beginning
In 2010, Context Architecture (at the time, Donham & Sweeney, Architects) was approached by the building committee of St. Cecilia Parish as part of its formal RFQ process.
“A member of the committee knew our founding principal, Brett Donham, and suggested we might be a good fit,” says Jeff Shaw, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, principal of Context Architecture. “After preparation of a qualifications proposal, we were chosen to as part of the final short list of firms to be interviewed.”
The interview took place with both Shaw and Donham, and the duo stressed the firm’s experience with religious projects, their personal involvement with their own churches, and their innovative ideas for the project.
“They asked a lot of questions about the possibilities with the building complex,” Shaw says. “Ideally, they wanted to solve several longstanding issues: proper accessibility to the entire church, better use of space (their lower level was originally designed so that the entire level served as a duplicate worship space, identical to the main level), improved administration offices, rehabilitation of the rectory to house priests for both short term and long term, and finally, they wanted to address the lack of education spaces.”
The renovation plan
Although the existing church and rectory were handsome, Shaw notes that it needed a significant amount of restoration work.
“The presence of these structures dominates Belvedere Street, but since the street is very narrow you only see the building when you are almost on top of it,” he says. “We knew that the new entry pavilion structure would need to ‘reach out’ into the sidewalk area to announce itself to people at the ends of the street and those walking down it. The large overhang of the canopy allowed us to do this.”
“We knew that the new entry pavilion structure would need to ‘reach out’ into the sidewalk area to announce itself to people at the ends of the street and those walking down it." Jeff Shaw, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal, Context Architecture
Once the roof form was determined, the church leaders liked the contrast of a very open and inviting entry pavilion with the heavy, massive and opaque masonry of the existing building. The idea of openness seemed to complement the spirit of the church as well, thus the main walls of the pavilion became glass.
Bruce T. Martin
Design components
One of the challenges of the church’s renovation was that each structure had its own unique components. For instance, the restoration of the main church building was primary, and that also included complete restoration of the interior sanctuary and nave, including decorative painting that completely transformed the interior.
“The original had become so faded and dark nobody knew that it could be such a bright and pleasing space,” Shaw says. “The rectory townhouse and tower was modernized but the layout remained. The basement became the new administration wing while the upper floors were renovated for priests’ rooms and the tower became the site of the new communal kitchen, complete with roof terrace.”
The new entry pavilion was primarily a stair and elevator hall, but the design left room for religious icons and interesting views into the upper and lower levels of the church building. This became the primary way people experienced the building. The two new elevators were carefully tucked into portions of the church building to handle accessibility in a way that allowed people using them to have a very similar experience to all worshippers.
“The design was meant to invoke openness, by reopening areas within the old church that had not been used, or that were closed off to parishioners, or that were simply just unused space,” Shaw says. “The goal was to remake parts of the building that allowed activities that could never [happen] before. We also wanted the new addition to transform how the building was experienced, from different angles and with longer and different sightlines.”
"We also wanted the new addition to transform how the building was experienced, from different angles and with longer and different sightlines.” Jeff Shaw, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal, Context Architecture
Shaw says the challenges of the restoration were mostly technical: restoration and proper preservation techniques that allowed the older spaces to shine.
“Fortunately, the function of the sanctuary was easily adaptable by simply extending the platform out into the congregation,” he says. “Remaining areas where functions needed to change were ‘behind the scenes’ in the sacristy, choir rooms, classrooms and other spaces where a more modern design aesthetic was used to match the needs.”
Energy matters
A key decision was made by the church in the early stages of design to not air condition the church building including the sanctuary and nave. This was done due to the large swing in attendance that happens over the summer months, and considering the relatively short period of high humidity in the Boston area.
“The mechanical design included high efficiency systems that introduced dry air rather than super cold air,” Shaw says. “The dehumidified air, introduced through grills set into the wood wainscoting, help to cool off the congregation without requiring massive ductwork, loss of space and much lower energy efficiency. Throughout the rectory building ductless mini split systems provide energy-efficient cooling.”
AVL elements
The lighting design was done in combination between Context Architecture and an electrical engineer, while an independent audio system was designed and installed by Boston Light and Sound.
“A lighting control system allows for a simplified scene selection from multiple points within the space.” Jeff Shaw, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Principal, Context Architecture
“We placed a priority on creating a dramatic lighting scheme for the nave,” Shaw says. “A lighting control system allows for a simplified scene selection from multiple points within the space.”
The audio system focuses on proper distribution and amplification of the priest who likes to walk around, up and down the aisles, while giving his homily.
Elsewhere within the building traditional AV systems allow for AV projection, including within the classrooms on the lower level.
Larry Philbrick, an AVL specialist with Acentech, handled the video and audio components of the church. Now retired, Philbrick remembers the challenges faced with including these systems in a historic church with the modern communities’ needs in mind.
“We settled on a distributed array of column-lined speakers that had an electronic tilt to their coverage pattern.... They were installed vertically, which from a visual standpoint was much less intrusive.” Larry Philbrick, AVL Specialist, Acentech
“We settled on a distributed array of column-lined speakers that had an electronic tilt to their coverage pattern. There were three on each side of the nave,” Philbrick says. “They were installed vertically, which from a visual standpoint was much less intrusive.”
The sound system, he adds, was pretty straight forward because it was a fairly reverberant space, and was very much a pre-set and “let it operate on its own” type of system.
There was also a miniature loud speaker column covering the chancellor area, so it would stay unobtrusive.
"With any historical building, the biggest thing is the visual aspect of it,” Philbrick says. “That’s what really drove this design.”
Interior design
The interiors of the church were meant to be bright and airy but modern in all areas that were not being restored.
“In the lower level and the rectory this allowed for an interesting balance between old and new, where the old was saved it became even more special,” Shaw says. “This effect was heightened when you pass through the very modern entry pavilion, through the glass enclosed narthex and then into the fully restored the Nave.”
The interior decorative painting was especially thoughtful. A significant amount of research was performed by the specialists doing the restoration work to complete the artwork and chose the final colors.
“The lower level classrooms became a partnership between the local music college, Berkeley College of Music, and the church as the college maintained an existing relationship to use the religious education spaces for music classes and practice rooms,” Shaw says. “This partnership required the classrooms to be particularly sensitive to acoustic privacy.”
The exterior
With minimal space on the lot, Shaw says the exterior landscape design became more about grabbing whatever space was available, protecting it and preserving it as spaces for contemplation.
“The rear yard was sunken with a direct entry to the lower level,” he says. “The sunken garden allows you to be effectively cut off from the city with the maximum potential for reflection. The front yard was converted to the new entry sequence for the administration. It serves as a welcoming space of its own during normal business hours and when students use the lower level class rooms.”
All complete
When it was finally completed, the church was thrilled with the end result and the architects were pleased with what it had accomplished.
“We were very satisfied with the end results; the original client goals were exceeded, and our design goals were able to be fully implemented,” Shaw says. “The building functions well while being heavily used. We are very happy with the way we were able to knit together three seemingly incongruent structures to form one whole, complete experience.”
