ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book focuses on the new urban parish church. This Roman Catholic Church architecture in post-war Britain was prodigious and creative, testament to the vitality of the Church at the time. The shift towards modernism in church architecture and the liturgical and theological innovations that took place in post-war period, meanwhile, are increasingly regarded as an aberration, as revisionary interpretations of the Second Vatican Council at its fiftieth anniversary emphasise continuity with tradition and lead to reversals of reform. Churches were designed to be outward-facing, presenting Catholic communities to contemporary society in order to claim a stake within it. Church architecture represented cultural capital, as economic capital was put to use to elevate the status of the institution and its people.