Saint John's Abbey Church was designed by the renowned Hungarian architect Marcel Breuer. This cast-in-place concrete marvel is a stepping-stone in modern design of religious architecture in the United States. One must admire the great concrete trees that support the ceiling and the dominant bell banner that shields the church.
In 1950, Abbot Baldwin Dworschak made an audacious decision resulting in what art historians have called a milestone in the evolution of the architecture of the Catholic Church in this country. He contacted twelve exalted architects, among them was Marcel Breuer. Abbot Baldwin asked the architects to submit a building design for the second century of Saint John's. As part of his stipulations, Abbot Baldwin required a design for "building a church which will be truly an architectural monument to the service of God…The Benedictine tradition at its best challenges us to think boldly and to cast our ideals in forms which will be valid for centuries to come."
Photo by Bobak Ha’Eri, via Wikimedia Commons