Let There Be Light

	Photo: John Blaustein

    There are several marvels to contemplate in Oakland’s new $190 million Catholic cathedral, the Cathedral of Christ the Light, but the most striking is the 58-foot image of Jesus Christ behind the altar on the church’s omega window. He is Christ in Majesty, ruler of the world, seated on his throne at the end of time, with his left hand on a Book of Life and the right hand raised with two fingers held up to proclaim the second coming.
    Its impact is bolstered by the illusion that the image is moving toward the middle of the sanctuary. Its overall effect is stunning. It commands a visitor’s attention immediately and might make some convert to Catholicism on the spot.
“It was experimental,” says Craig Hartman, the cathedral’s architect. “It was a big risk, but we convinced the bishop it would work,” he says.
    During design discussions, Oakland Diocese Bishop Allen H. Vigneron instructed Hartman and the designers to use the image of a 13th-century sculpture of Christ from the façade of Chartres Cathedral in France to decorate the sanctuary.
    Hartman’s graphic designers worked out a way to transpose such an image onto triangular aluminum panels by perforating them with 94,000 precise laser-drilled holes. The image becomes visible when light shines through the holes. The quality of light makes the image appear and disappear, and it’s more visible on a foggy, overcast morning. “It’s ephemeral. It contributes to the beauty and mystery of it,” says Hartman.
    There will be lots of light inside the new cathedral, because the bishop also insisted that light be the focus of the building’s design. Tucked into a corner of Lake Merritt and dwarfed by skyscrapers, the new cathedral looks like a bishop’s hat from the front and a mini-skyscraper with sloping walls in profile, topped off with steel rods that stretch skywards.
    The Oakland Diocese’s Catholics have been without a central cathedral since the historic St. Francis de Sales Cathedral was irreparably damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and torn down in 1993. Discussions about a new church began in the mid-1990s. The resulting cathedral and surrounding complex of chancery offices, cafe, bookstore, conference center and plaza will be the new home of the Oakland Diocese and its bishop, as well as the mother church for the 500,000 or so Catholic parishioners in the East Bay.
    For Hartman, a partner in the San Francisco office of architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the cathedral was a new challenge that began right after work had begun on his most famous structure, the new international terminal at San Francisco International Airport. From its innovative design, replete with green glass and a wavy roof, Hartman became known for his use of glass and steel, and his ability to create luminescent interior spaces that are flooded with natural light.
    Hartman’s admirer and friend, the late Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Allan Temko, served on the cathedral’s architectural design committee and gave him the opportunity to compete for the project with a host of internationally known architects. In 2000, the Oakland Diocese selected Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava as the winner of the design competition, but the diocese and Calatrava parted company in 2003, and Hartman got the job.
    Hartman, who had never before designed a church, consulted his former teacher and colleague, Walter Netsch, the genius behind the singularly distinct Cadet Chapel at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. While the Oakland cathedral bears a slight resemblance in shape to it, Hartman says the indirect introduction of light is what the two structures share.
    Netsch was the only person Hartman knew who had designed a modern church without prior experience. He referred Hartman to The Church Incarnate, a 1958 book by Rudolf Schwartz, a German architect and priest who declares church design is an end in itself, unbound by strict definition other than its own intrinsic meaning. The book’s premise gave Hartman the idea, with Bishop Vigneron’s blessing, to explore a fresh, innovative design, which wouldn’t be bound to the look of traditional European Catholic churches. Oakland’s new cathedral wouldn’t be a neo-Gothic church, built in the shape of a cross, with stone and marble and enormous stained glass windows such as St. Peter’s in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris or the newly opened cathedral of the Houston/Galveston Diocese. No, this church’s design would be something entirely different. Hartman also realized the church’s design had to reflect the Bay Area in the 21st century and needed to stand the test of time while also still keeping in mind the 2,000-year history of the church. “We’re not in 15th-century Europe but on the edge of the Pacific Rim. It needed to be open, diverse and welcoming to all people,” he says.

Hartman and his team made the altar the center of the sanctuary, designing the pews to curve around it. Built without pillars, there’s really not a bad seat in this house of God, which is constructed of glass, wood and concrete, along with a touch of modern steel for the frame. “They’ve been put together in a 21st-century way,” Hartman says.
    The sanctuary’s design consists of two interlocking circles, the “vesica pisces,” or fish symbol, a sign of Christianity and an ancient symbol of congregation for many cultures in the East and West. The outer shell of the cathedral is jacketed with green ceramic fritted glass panels that will insulate the building, reduce glare and change the quality of light throughout the day and seasons as the sun moves across the sky. Natural light from the oculus roof, which reflects the fish symbol shape of the sanctuary, illuminates the Italian marble–sheathed altar and the front of the mausoleum directly beneath the sanctuary. The static triangular aluminum panels that compose the omega window, with its image of Jesus, and the alpha window above the cathedral’s front door, also line the ceiling and collectively create a sense of upward motion toward the light. The alpha window’s panels are farther apart and allow more light in, while the omega window’s panels are tighter and
restrict light.
    Hartman’s choice of wood for the vaulted inner walls of the sanctuary proves both aesthetically pleasing and economical. Twenty-six, 110-foot Douglas fir ribs curve up dramatically to the roof, which, along with the horizontal Douglas fir louvers attached to the ribs that look like fixed blinds, breathe life into the modern, unembellished interior. It’s a forest wrapped in glass.
    The light-colored red oak pews and wood-lattice reredos walls behind the altar reflect the Douglas fir ribs and add more warmth to the sanctuary. A circular granite baptismal font rests just inside the front door and is aligned with the altar and the external pathway to serve as a reference point for a sacred journey of parishioners who may walk and touch each of the 14 bronze-relief Stations of the Cross that line the sanctuary’s walls.
    Hartman is proud of how gentle the building is on the environment. The concrete uses fly ash, a byproduct of coal production that requires less energy to produce than cement and is a better adhesive. The concrete floor and 15-foot base walls of the sanctuary allowed Hartman to borrow an idea from the Romans: Cool the building from the floor with small ducts beneath the pews. During the day, natural light will provide the main source of light and radiant heat for the sanctuary.
    At $190 million, the cathedral is one of the most expensive ever built in the United States. The new Los Angeles cathedral, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, opened in 2002 and cost $180 million, which, in 2007 dollars, is $211 million.
    The Rev. Paul Minnihan, provost of the new cathedral, says the diocese needed a new central church because it had been without one since 1989 and points out that this new complex includes an entire campus, complete with outreach, education and ministry. “We’re not just building it for us, but for the future,” he says. Indeed, the cathedral is designed to last 300 to 400 years and has been built to withstand another Loma Prieta–size earthquake.
    Critics of the project say it will take money away from the charity work of the diocese, despite assurances otherwise and the fact
that anonymous individual and corporate donors have paid for the church. The new complex will feature a health clinic with a staff physician and nurse, and the Catholic charitable organization the Knights of Malta will sponsor it and enlist volunteers to help run it.
    Eight years after his original design submission and more than three years after construction began, Hartman’s modern cathedral will finally open. It has garnered several design awards already, including one from the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “It’s a leap of faith for the diocese and the clergy to accept the risk of making something for the 21st century,” he says, “and not fall back on the ideas of the past.”

The dedication Mass and consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Light is scheduled for Sept. 25. For more information on the cathedral, call (510) 271-1935, or go to www.ctlcathedral.org.