ABSTRACT
American architect Charles Haertling (1928–84) started his practice in Boulder, Colorado, in 1957, designing over forty structures in Colorado in an organic and dynamic mid-century modern style. Only a few religious buildings were included in his œuvre, the most unusual being St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Northglenn, a suburb of Denver, Colorado (1964). St. Stephen’s has a striking concrete roof profile. While the structure is still in use as a church today, the original congregation now worships in a more traditional stone building on the same lot. This paper will investigate the exuberant architecture of Haertling’s St. Stephens, what the original congregation felt about its design and functionality, and why a more sedate, traditional building was constructed for the congregation in the 1990s. Did Haertling “push the envelope” too far in St. Stephen’s?
