Wednesday, August 11, 2010

The Other Modern: Sint-Agneskerk (St. Agnes Church), Amsterdam

Continuing with our Other Modern series, we now turn to St. Agnes church in Amsterdam which was built between 1919 and 1931, designed by architect Jan Stuyt. Many NLM readers will recognize this particular church as it has been featured here before within a liturgical context, being the church which the FSSP operate out of. Remarkably, this unique church was threatened with closure for more than 20 years.

The church features a beautiful ciborium magnum over the altar which has certain modern qualities to it, but I believe the Other Modern aspect of this church is particularly to be found in the beautiful and unique glass work on the sanctuary walls, executed by Joep Nicolas.

The church also appears to feature some unique frescoes, including for the Stations of the Cross. Unfortunately I do not have any good images of either.























Here are some further looks at some of the details from these photos:

Ciborium Detail



Glass Tile Work Details





Fresco Work Details





Earlier I had noted that this church had been threatened with closure for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, this resulted in a lack of maintenance which means that the church building is now in need of significant restorative work. (See the photo above for an example of this.) Accordingly, the Fraternity of St. Peter and the Parish of St. Agnes need to raise funds to finance such a restoration.

Those who might be interested in donating to the church for this purpose, or who might be able to help the parish in other ways to work at raising the necessary funds, please visit the church's financing page.

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