ABSTRACT
In the context of church architecture, each interpretation of modernism brought different qualities and meanings to the parish church. The New Empiricism maintained many of the principles of the International Style of modern architecture before the post-war, but, inspired by Swedish architecture of the 1940s particularly celebrated by the Architectural Review. By the mid-1950s, the New Empiricism was becoming not only the style of the welfare state but also more generally that of the modern city. Several of Williams's churches related the social democratic ideal in post-war modernism to a liturgical understanding. While municipal modernism emphasised its allegiance to secular architecture, modern architects were also fascinated with the expressive and spatial potentials of new building technologies. Modern structural techniques such as steel trusses allowed wider naves and fewer columns, giving large churches unobstructed interiors.
