Cardboard Cathedral

Christchurch Cathedral in New Zealand, damaged beyond repair in the recent earthquake, is being replaced by a temporary structure made partly of cardboard. The new building will cost only $4m NZ dollars, which is roughly £2m. It will seat 700+ people and can be built in 3 months.

Cardboard is an ideal building material because it’s readily available, recyclable and surprisingly strong. “The strength of the building has nothing to do with the strength of the material,” says Shigeru Ban (the architect). “Even concrete buildings can be destroyed by earthquakes very easily. But paper buildings cannot be destroyed by earthquakes.” It’s also consistently low-cost. Normally after disasters the price of building materials goes higher, but since this is not a traditional building material, it’s very easy to get,” he says. Ban’s temporary buildings are weatherproof, fire resistant and secure, and have lasted for upwards of 20 years. They can be transported easily and deconstructed and recycled when their working life is over. If the Christchurch 'Cardboard Cathedral proceeds, the cardboard tubes will be locally produced.


more pics here. Bit late on this, as it was in the papers last week, but as an Anglican I see it as my duty to be slightly late on social trends. Can't help but feel it might get uncomfortably soggy if they built one in the UK, but I'm sure they've thought of that.

Cathedral Attendance Levels: A Question

A continued steady rise in Cathedral attendance was noted a couple of weeks ago on by the CofE, which generated some number crunching of Biblical proportions by Peter Ould.

Just 1 question: I'd like to see a comparison between those cathedrals which didn't charge for entry over the period, compared to those who did. Is there, for example, any connection between rising midweek attendance at services, and the fact that the only way to get into many cathedrals for free midweek is to, you guessed it, attend a service?

More telling would be if there was a significant increase in adult baptisms, confirmations from cathedral congregations, or people entering recognised forms of CofE ministry. On the figures, the number of baptisms of those aged over 12 has risen from 120 to 160 over the last decade, i.e. from roughly 3 per cathedral per year to roughly 4. That's good, and to be celebrated, but is what you'd hope for from a parish church which was doing reasonably well.

Flying Spaghetti Monster banished by Planning Authority

In news that will come as a blow to atheists everywhere, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has made a public appearance. Sick and tired of being trundled out for the 10,000th time on Guardian threads and Dawkinsnet as a fictional deity, the FSM was briefly sighted in Chichester Cathedral recently, as the photo (right) reveals.

Unexpectedly translucent, the FSM was soon banished by the church planning authorities. This is a common occurence for anything combining church contents and imagination. Frank Field MP uttered the 2nd Subclause  of Power (the first is Health and Safety) and the vision promptly vanished.

In other planning news, a large LED display is to be erected above the stone bridge in the middle, which will show, live, the running costs of a wedding as it actually takes place. As each multiple of £100 is passed, a small bell will sound from the vestry, at £500 a chip and pin machine is passed to the father of the bride, at £750 all the lighting is switched off, and at £1000 the entire wedding party is forcibly ejected.

Credits: don't blame me, blame Alastair.

A Guide To Cathedral Staff

The resignation of the Chancellor of St. Pauls Cathedral, Dr Giles Fraser, along with statements by the Dean, reminds me of the singular set of names we have for Cathedral staff in the CofE. So here's a guide for the perplexed:

Dean: someone called Dean. Or failing that, Graham. Anyway, it's a mans name, which explains why there are so few female Deans. The last known sightings were in the 1980s, (Hazell Dean, Brenda Dean)

Sub Dean: Someone else called Dean whose job it is to go out to the sandwich shop to get lunch for everyone else.

Chancellor: Runs the economy, sets the levels of taxation for visitors to the Cathedral, appears regularly on TV.

Precentor: Best to ask a midwife.

Succentor: Succesor to the Precentor. Particularly enjoys the middle parts of sweets.

Lay Canon: Goes round telling people 'you're fired'. This practice recently discontinued after one of the senior staff didn't realise it was said in jest.

Chapter: part of a long and wonderful ongoing story. Meets in a Chapter House for regular book club gatherings. As the name suggests, composed mostly of chaps.

Registrar: Sits at the door taking the names of everyone who comes in.

Verger: Keeps the grass by the edge of the road looking tidy. Not to be confused with Virgil, the previous Verger, who is off sick.

College of Minor Canons: Finishing school for small photocopiers.

There, bang goes my chances of ever getting a job in a Cathedral. Which is quite a relief, to both parties probably. For an alternative set of definitions, try here, and in the meantime pray for the good people of St. Pauls as they pray and work and seek to bear witness.

Cathedrals are orderly places, with lots of set times, roles and traditions, and it feels like St. Pauls has struggled to know how to handle the disorderly, fluid congregation in its front porch. I think I would too, if we had a protest camp in our churchyard. It's important that we keep houses of prayer as houses of prayer (does having rock gigs in Cathedrals help or hinder?), but the church should be just as much at home on the streets as in the sanctuary.

All Quiet in the Cathedral

The Cathedral tour guide who never once mentioned God, Jesus, or the Christian faith during a tour of Salisbury is the topic of a couple of threads, one at Cranmer, and the original by Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home.

Sharing the same tour was American blogger CrunchyCon, who also takes a dim view of the bookstore. He notes that during some recent time in England, there was increasing despair about society in general, and the church's response to social breakdown.

Tim's post brings to mind several conversations I've had with English Christians of various traditions on my travels here this summer. There is among them a very deep concern about the moral direction of this country, and what role exiling Christianity from the consciousness of the nation plays in this.

His post is not the whole story, but it's part of it.

I note in passing that there's a vigorous debate about assisted suicide going on at Conservative Home as well. I'm struggling to think of anything equivalent on a Christian-run blog. Maybe this backs up CrunchyCon's point - the moral discussions are, increasingly, bypassing the church. That's partly because we don't play knockabout/rentaquote, but it might also be because we're too scared of offending people to make clear and unequivocal statements.