Saint John’s Abbey Church
Marcel Breuer · Collegeville, United States · 1961
Marcel Breuer’s church for Saint John’s Abbey is dominated by a monumental freestanding concrete bell banner and a vast folded-concrete worship space. Inside, the congregation is gathered close to the altar under a broad structural ceiling, while an enormous stained-glass wall fills the rear elevation with colored light. Built between 1958 and 1961, the project applies Breuer’s brutalist language to Catholic liturgical reform and remains one of the most ambitious modern religious buildings in the United States.