Christ Church Lutheran (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Christ Church Lutheran
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Christ Church Lutheran from the southeast
Location	Minneapolis, Minnesota
Coordinates
Built	1948
Architect	Eliel Saarinen
NRHP Reference #	01000654
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	June 20, 2001
Designated NHL	January 16, 2009

Christ Church Lutheran is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) located at 3244 34th Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its buildings, a sanctuary with chapel (1949) and an education wing (1962) designed by Finnish-American architects Eliel Saarinen and Eero Saarinen, have been internationally recognized, most recently in 2009 as National Historic Landmark by the U.S Department of the Interior.

The congregation was established in 1911 as part of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, but left in the 1970s as part of a dispute that led to the formation of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, which in turn was among the founding denominations of the ELCA.

The Rev. Kristine L. Carlson currently serves as lead pastor, alongside its cantors, the Rev. Robert Buckley Farlee and the Rev. Martin A. Seltz.

Structures

The church sanctuary

Inside the nave, facing the front

The worship building was designed by the firm Saarinen and Saarinen, a father and son partnership of Eliel Saarinen (1873–1950) and Eero Saarinen (1910–1961), the project was Eliel Saarinen's last completed building. The sculptured stone panels were designed by William M. McVey (1922–1976). It was dedicated in 1949, and was acknowledged as an architectural masterpiece from the day it opened. As an early, outstanding example of modern religious architecture in the United States, it was widely published in the architectural, popular, and religious press, and provided inspiration for countless modern churches that were to be built in the 1950s and 1960s.

The congregation opted to go with the design after finding that their plans for a traditional Gothic Revival building would be too costly. In 1946 a new pastor, Reverend William A. Buege, contacted the elder Saarinen, then the president of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and convinced him to take the commission. Saarinen had designed the pioneering First Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana in 1941 and used it as a model. It was Eliel Saarinen's last building; he died the following year. Upon the church's opening, Saarinen noted "if a building is honest, the architecture is religious."

The 1962 education building

An addition, the education building (connected by an arcade and interior hallways) was designed under the supervision of Eero Saarinen by his former employee Glen Paulsen, and completed in 1962. By coincidence it was also Eero's last completed project; he died the year before. The addition is organized around a courtyard and was carefully designed to complement and complete their earlier worship building.

In 1977, the building was the eighth recipient of the American Institute of Architects Twenty-five Year Award, one of only two places of worship to have been so honored. Notably, it was chosen for this award ahead of Mies van der Rohe's iconic Farnsworth House, though both buildings were eligible in the same year. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The entire building was named a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service by the Secretary of the Interior on January 16, 2009.

Free architecture tours are offered to the public at 11:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of every month. Tours are led by a trained docent from the non-profit Friends of Christ Church Lutheran.

See also

• Chapel of the Resurrection (Valparaiso, Indiana), a landmark of mid-20th-century worship space design that was influenced by Christ Church Lutheran
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Minnesota
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Hennepin County, Minnesota

External links

• Christ Church Lutheran
• The Friends of Christ Church Lutheran
• National Historic Landmark draft nomination for Christ Church Lutheran