St. Michael’s, South Providence Landmark, Dominates the Landscape–Architecture Critic Morgan
Saturday, July 24, 2021
St. Michaels Church in South Providence is a testament to the fact that there is a lot of magnificent architecture in this city beyond downtown and the East Side.
This too-little-known ecclesiastical treasure dominates the neighborhood skyline; its forty-foot tower is a landmark visible from around the city and across the bay. More than just an architectural monument, St. Michael's was the largest Catholic parish in New England until after World War II, and it was long the center of Irish culture in Rhode Island.
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Earlier, there was a wooden church here to minister to the Irish diaspora. Land for a substantial worship space was acquired on Oxford Avenue and construction began in 1891. When the church was completed in 1915 it became the core of a major complex that soon included a rectory, a convent, an orphanage, a recreation center, and the largest school in the diocese. In 1930 a branch of the Public Library was built across the street from the church, further enhancing this parochial village.
James Martin designed St. Michael's basement level, which was used for worship while funds were raised for the rest of the church, the work of architects Murphy, Hindle and Wright. Eleven bells were installed in the tower in 1939, but the church today is virtually as it was built a century years ago. Seriously large Catholic churches in Rhode Island were generally built of stone (think St Mary's in Newport or the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul downtown), and often in French medieval or Italian Renaissance styles. But this ecclesiastical landmark is built of brick, a material usually reserved for less affluent parishes.
As the mother church of Irish Catholicism in Providence, St. Michael's is noteworthy in its thoroughly English inspiration. At the turn of the twentieth century, certain Boston architects championed a Gothic based upon the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, and which was embraced by Episcopalians. The chapel for St. Paul's School by Henry Vaughan, for example, was undoubtedly a source for St. Michael's. Such romantic evocations of medieval England as St. Paul's and St. George's School Chapel in Newport (designed by Vaughan's protégé, Ralph Adams Cram) provided an appropriate stage set for the WASP ascendancy in New England.
These Collegiate Gothic compositions, like St. Michael's, rely on strong, simple massing rather than on abundant decoration. Plans are boxlike, rather than sculptural. There is a strong sense of wall, rather than the more familiar Gothic evolution of larger and larger windows for the display of stained glass.
The interior of St. Michael's is as rich as its exterior is chaste. While decidedly English in layout, the decorative scheme is a riot of color and lavish materials. The majority of the windows are the work of Birmingham, England glassmaker John Hardman, while the painted and gilded vaults, in English fashion, are made of cypress (far less complicated and expensive than stone). The walls feature murals depicting the lives of the saints.
As muscular as the brick bones of St. Michael's are, one senses that the parish put all their money into decoration, particularly around the main altar. The statues of Jesus and various saints are carved of Siena marble; the walls are adorned with Venetian glass mosaics and mother-of-pearl inlay. The dazzling richness of the altar wall reminds us that St. Michael's was the heart of an incredibly vibrant Irish Catholic neighborhood back when Benefit Street was the other side of the tracks.
Neighborhoods evolve, while the postwar flow of the Irish to the suburbs, plus the influx of other immigrants, dramatically changed the complexion of South Providence.
Yet, this once large and influential Catholic parish continues to serve new immigrants, even though the convent and school are no longer a part of its mission. The congregation is mostly Spanish-speaking, while masses are also conducted in Hmong, Haitian Creole, and the African tongue of Kirundi.
St. Michael's is indeed an architectural landmark. But its design is only one manifestation of its role as a center of community life. Just as its Anglo-Catholic appearance sets it apart from the typical continental Catholic sources, St. Michael's has maintained an independent spirit at odds with its often-conservative diocese. Perhaps the best example of this was when, fifty years ago this summer, St. Michael's offered sanctuary to Daniel Berrigan, the Jesuit priest, who was being hunted by the FBI for his anti-war protests.
Architecture critic Morgan is the author of American Country Churches and The Almighty Wall: The Architecture of Henry Vaughan. He has taught at Princeton, Louisville, and Roger Williams.
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