de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 0:00 This is Episode 25 of Ethics and Culture Cast from the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. Welcome to Episode 25 of Ethics and Culture Cast. I'm Ken Hallenius, the communications specialist at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. In this episode, we chat with Professor Duncan Stroik of our School of Architecture. Duncan's area of focus is sacred architecture, and he both teaches and practices in the field. We recorded this conversation in his firm's office in the tower building in downtown South Bend. Let's head over for this fascinating conversation. Tell us a bit about yourself about your intellectual journey. What did you do before you came to the University of Notre Dame? Duncan Stroik 1:09 Before I was at, before I came to Notre Dame in 1990, 29 years ago, I was working for a well known architect in Washington D.C. where I had the pleasure to work on buildings all over the US - classical buildings for the State Department, for the Blair House in Washington, for William and Mary, and for my alma mater, University of Virginia, a news building in Athens, Georgia, and some big houses all over the US. And before that, I was in graduate school at Yale, where I had the fortune to study with some talented architects and smart historians and theorists and run into a lot of very intelligent people. Try to compete with some as far as other students. And there I also fell in love with teaching, because I was a teaching assistant. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 2:10 What brought you to Notre Dame? Duncan Stroik 2:12 Thomas Gordon Smith. Thomas was the new chairman of the architecture school, came in '89. And he said that he was going to make Notre Dame into a classical architecture school and put the architecture school on the map, both of which he did. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 2:29 As a layman, I don't know a lot about when you say, you know, classical architecture. I can, I can picture of course, you know, Greece and Rome, columns and what have you. But what does it mean when, when the University of Notre Dame's School of Architecture says that it's into traditional architecture and urbanism? What does that mean in a way that I could understand? Duncan Stroik 2:53 So the School of Architecture at Notre Dame is interested in promoting the great tradition. The great tradition in architecture, which is very varied over thousands of years, and we find a locus or an epicenter in Greece, in Rome, and particularly as Catholics, or at a Catholic University, in Rome, where Notre Dame has the longest running program for architecture students in the Eternal City. And so, we have used that in the last 30 years to to really direct the school. Two years on campus, a year in Rome, two years back on campus, to develop the student, both as a educated person at a college at a great college, but also to develop them as a knowledgeable and talented designer of buildings. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 3:54 Since you've been here you also have established the Institute for Sacred Architecture, which you established in 1998. So how can architecture promote, and in a sense, even protect the sacred? Duncan Stroik 4:07 When I came to Notre Dame in 1990, the kinds of things that we were doing in the profession for Catholic churches were abysmal. And when I turned to my students who seemed more enlightened than the profession, equally, if not worse. So I began to study it and to try to teach it. And of course, as they all say, if you want to learn something, well teach it. And so, we have tried to recover some of the things that were lost as we embraced modernism or modernity. And part of my understanding of modernity is a rejection of the past and from a sacred point of view or religious point of view, an iconoclasm, modernist Art and architecture is inherently iconoclastic. So anti-Catholic, anti-figure, anti-incarnation. So we've tried to ignore that development, which has been so detrimental, architecturalIy but also otherwise, and to return to where we left off. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 5:23 When you walk into a church, what do you what do you see when you walk into, for example, I grew up in a parish that was, I'd always been told that the parish had been designed, it was built in the 50s, it was designed to eventually be replaced with a new church when the parish was big enough and so they built a building that can be turned into a gym. And, of course, they never built the new church. So the parish, kind of, it's been renovated a few times and restored and turned sideways and what have you. But when you walk into and I know you've done some restorations, especially like at the cathedral in Sioux Falls. What do you see when you walk into a church? Duncan Stroik 6:03 I love to visit beautiful churches. And my idea of a vacation is going somewhere beautiful, especially in Italy, and walking into churches and drawing them. And of course, my children and wife love that. But at any rate. So I'm looking for order. I'm looking for beauty. I'm looking for transcendence. And there are many ways that we've been doing that in the last couple thousand years of Christianity. And that's great. That's the wonderful thing about being an artist or an architect is there's creativity, there's freedom, there's variety, but there's also bad stuff. And so I'm looking for things that exude the sacred, something beyond us. Something that speaks of heaven, of God. And so there are many ways to do that. There's not one but basically a verticality, which is transcendence, directionality, which has to do with our sense of pilgrimage or sense of journey in this life. And most important in a church is a beautiful sanctuary, because that's really the focus. That's the focus. It's the main storyline. It's the, it's also the conclusion of the novel. And so, a very nice building with an ugly sanctuary isn't that good. And a mediocre building with a beautiful sanctuary is pretty good. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 7:48 Well, you're kind of beginning to make me think about the role of the vocation of the architect. Do you think of your job as a vocation? Duncan Stroik 7:58 I guess we all should. I would like to think that as an architect, I have a vocation to build buildings for the edification of people and the glory of God. And I hope I'm doing that or trying to do that at least. Yeah, that's, that's a good way to think about it, because it's also kind of challenging. The architect's role, or let's put it this way, the Catholic architect's role is not about self expression, which is what we think of with architecture and art. It's not about being successful in terms of making a lot of money or being published, or flashy, or what have you, but it's really to edify people, to inspire them, to make them feel at home, and to point them in, in a better direction. Because we're all led towards sin, towards selfishness, and we all need to be pointed, even the great saints needed to be pointed, including by art and architecture, towards that which is above us. So, I would say that's our vocation. And that, in some ways is in tension with the role of an architect who's a little bit like a composer or conductor of a symphony. And you know the conductors of great symphonies tend to be very humble men. No. So there's a tension there because in order to fulfill this great, to create a great building, you have to be strong, you have to have vision, you have to be passionate, you have to be unwilling to put up with mediocrity. And yet, you're not doing it for yourself. So there's ego that needs to be really chained or balanced by this, this greater goal, which is what you said, the vocation. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 9:43 I'm thinking as you're describing that, the great cathedrals in, in Europe where the stonemason today is never going to see the finished completion of this work. And yet he puts all of his craft into what he's doing right here. Is that an experience you have? Duncan Stroik 10:00 No, we're really fortunate. I think the projects, most of our projects will take three to five years, from the beginning of design, to completion, to dedication, in a church's sense. We've had some bigger projects, which take 10 years. So for us, that's a long time, 10 years, and it seems forever. And whereas I have colleagues doing other, you know, houses or office buildings or whatever, and they get built very quickly. But that's what it takes to do good quality craftsmanship. It takes time to raise money. And it's worth it. But no, we're very fortunate that we are able to design things that we can see. And the craftsmen are able to work on things that they will see and then go on to the next building. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 10:46 Yeah. So tell me a bit, you use the word "we." The Royal We? Or, or tell me about the team that you've assembled that you work with on on any given project. Duncan Stroik 10:57 I think architects in this sense are different than most, many other artists, in that we are almost always a team, especially on a big building, especially on a church, it would be very hard for me to do all the drawings, and all the telephone calls, and all the coordination. And all of the cost estimating on on a $10 or $20 million church without a great staff. Whereas, you could do a beautiful altar piece of the Madonna, or a statue of Saint Peter, that could be eight feet tall and marble and you could do it all yourself. And it would take longer than if you did it, if you had a staff but you know, it's very common for artists to work alone or with limited staff. So it's kind of interesting. And so there's a pro and a con to that, of course the staff and delegation to them allows you to do more, allows you to do more quickly. And I would say even allows you to do some things better because many, many hands or many brains. But there is the danger of many hands. Making mistakes or or people going in different directions. So it's very important that we work as a team, like a basketball team, we're about five, five staff, and maybe I'm the coach. And we have to all be staying together and helping each other out and checking ourselves and checking each other. Ultimately, it's my fault though, if we win or lose, and I have to be responsible for working with the client, doing the drawings, working with the contractor, and then catching the mistakes during construction, which is a normal thing. It's not a bad thing. Mistakes are just human nature. And so I'm very fortunate I have staff who all graduated from the University of Notre Dame. Some were undergrad, some were grad students. Some have been with me for over 10 years and they're all wonderful people. They love sacred architecture. They love classical architecture. So they there's a great rapport, I think of them as an extension of the Notre Dame family. Because they're all Domers. And because of that they're very religious people. I mean, they go to football games. So it's a great place to work and great to have them and no, I couldn't do, I couldn't do what I do without them. They get all the credit. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 13:23 Tell me a bit about the experience of handing over a building, handing over a, a church, a chapel. I read a piece about the dedication of the Jesuit chapel which you did, in Florida was it? And it was dedicated this past August and I'll link to that here in the show notes as well. But it was interesting to read that there stood at the door, with the bishop, was you and a member of the construction team handing over the keys, and you gave the designs, the plans. Tell me a bit about that experience from from what you saw and what you were feeling. Duncan Stroik 13:59 Yeah, it's a nice Catholic tradition, that as part of the liturgy, on the outside of the building before everyone goes in, you hand, the architect hands over the drawings to the bishop, who's going to consecrate, dedicate the church. And he doesn't go in yet. This is all on the outside. Sometimes, if they are really bored, they'll ask me to give a few words. So it's quite an honor. And it's historic that in Catholicism, we've recognized the importance of the architect, and also the artist and the builder, that these all have roles and they're necessary and the building will look different or be different with other people doing it. So we give people credit. So it's, it's a day that we look forward to. It's an amazing experience and the if you haven't ever been to the dedication of a church, I recommend it for everybody. You should do it once. I've been to many. I don't get tired of them. Of course they're my churches, why would I get tired of them? But I think they're a very long ceremony. But they're unusual. They're not something you're going to see at Christmas Eve, at Easter, for a wedding. They're going to have its own, you could say its own consecration. It's a little bit like those other great events. But instead, what you're doing is you're baptizing, blessing, making sacred, not a husband and wife or not a little child, or a confirmand, but you're you're making the building sacred. Technically, before the bishop dedicates the building and consecrates the altar, technically, it's just another building. And it's really his action of dedicating it to Christ and to the use of his church and blessing four times or twelve times around the walls with oil that makes it sacred. Just like you bless a person or a thing. You make the building sacred and that's it. So it's a real honor to be part of it, very exciting. And I also am reminded that when you work on a project for five years and even more so with 10 years, you're actually sorry to see it dedicated. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 16:10 Why is that? Duncan Stroik 16:12 Because you've been working on it so long. And you've gotten into this great relationship with the client, the pastor, the president, the donors, whatever, the contractors, that is part of your life, your weekly life, your monthly life, and when it for us, for, for the client dedication means they can finally use it. They've been waiting for this for five years. For the architect, the dedication means you're not going to be invited back anymore. So it's it's a happy, sad event. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 16:47 Yeah. That's a lot of fun. What are some recent projects or or even longer ago than recent, but what are some projects of which you're particularly proud? Duncan Stroik 16:59 Well, we're proud of all of our projects, and they each have challenges which I like, as an academic and as a classicist. I like things that will challenge me and I like having clients that will push me. And I've worked for Archbishops and bishops, and college presidents, and high school presidents, and pastors, and there have been very successful lay people involved. And I love working for people who are passionate about what they do. The two projects we're working on now that are kind of interesting. We're just about to complete a renovation of a very simple country church in Trumbull, Connecticut where they just wanted to beautify it, and they focused on the sanctuary. So it's a redo of a sanctuary that was nice in 1960, but was renovated multiple times. But now the goal is to make it glorious. So it's dedicated to St. Catherine of Siena. And it has a statue of her. And it has a large crucifix. It has this amazing limestone, Indiana limestone, high altarpiece with an image of the Holy Spirit coming out of it. And it goes right up to the ceiling. And then a beautiful marble altar with a, with relics inside of it, that you can see. And to either side shrines to Our Lady and St. Joseph, also in Indiana limestone, a small altar rail, a new font and a new ambo for proclaiming the Word of God. So it's a very simple project, but it's exquisite because the client was very demanding, and wanted the best within his means. And so we just searched and worked to find the best marbles and the right sculptors, etc. to do this very high quality work on a budget. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 19:03 You were mentioning that you've found that you loved teaching, having been a teaching assistant and then now. How do you work to inspire the next generation of architects with the idea of what they are doing as vocation. Duncan Stroik 19:20 It's very important what you say. Yeah, the teacher will be judged more lightly, right? No, we're going to be judged more harshly. And so we do need to see this as a vocation and we need to see it as a service to our students and to society. And I would think also to the Church. So I'm hoping that students at Notre Dame, that I can inspire them, encourage them, challenge them. Share a little bit of what I know from my experiences. I would love to see them do good things, great things. I didn't know what I would be doing 30 years later. I didn't know about that when I was in college, and but I had some vision. And I hope they too will be inspired to try things that are important and good. And even though maybe they're difficult to attempt them. And I do love that about teaching. And I'm also and have a side of me that likes to read, likes to write, that likes to lecture. And this is a real outlet, although I claim and people can, somebody else can test this out. I claim that my teaching and my lecturing has also something to do with my designing that they're somehow related. So when I lecture about principles of sacred architecture, I'm also trying to, trying to practice that in my, in my professional life, it's not just a theoretical idea or the best, the best methods that I've gotten from principles. But I've been trying to put that into action. And that's kind of a nice challenge. I think having to teach has forced me to keep the bar high in terms of what I will allow or won't allow or want to do or goals. Again, whether I meet the bar is another thing, but we, I think it's set the bar high for us for office. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 21:24 Well, I think that's a great spot to end our conversation, but thank you kindly for your time. Duncan Stroik 21:30 It's a great pleasure, Ken. de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture 21:37 Thank you to Professor Duncan Stroik for an excellent conversation. Find links to articles about his chapels and churches in the show notes, as well as a link to his 2013 book, "The Church Building as a Sacred Place." Subscribe to Ethics and Culture Cast so that you can always get the latest episodes by visiting ethicscenter.nd.edu/podcast. We would love your feedback. Please give us a review wherever you get your podcasts, and email your suggestions to cecpodcast@nd.edu. Our theme music is "I Dunno" by grapes, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. We'll see you next time on Ethics and Culture Cast. Until then, make good decisions. Transcribed by https://otter.ai