CREATING SPACES OF LIGHT AND BEAUTY

Architect Richard Falkinger took an opportunity that came his way to work on the reordering of a cathedral. It was a step along a path that has given him thirty years of involvement with the Church. Rosie Hoban goes with him along that path.

The history of Christianity is littered with stories of people thrown into the path of God. Munich-born architect Richard Falkinger is among their ranks. It was the Second Vatican Council that ‘forced’ Richard back to the Catholic Church, after a turbulent relationship with God, which was tested most by living in post-war Germany in the late 1940s.

After the Second Vatican Council, Richard, who had migrated to Australia, was asked to head the reordering of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral. It was this exciting and challenging commission that drew him back into the Church. Since that 1971 commission Richard has reordered many cathedrals and churches, as well as some of Victoria’s most valued heritage buildings.

‘I was only a young man during the Second World War’ says Richard, ‘and it was a very difficult life, with bombings, no food or clothes or hope in what lay ahead. After the war I found out about the concentration camp at Dachau, which was only thirty miles from where I grew up. To discover what had happened at Dachau was devastating.’

Richard stayed in Germany after the war and watched the economy and his colleagues grow more prosperous. But it was a hedonistic lifestyle, which gave him little joy or fulfilment. Haunted by images from a film he had seen of a concentration camp, he discussed his sense of grief with his workmates, only to be told to ‘move on’, enjoy the new revitalised Germany and forget the past.

He left Germany in 1959 and migrated to Melbourne. His wife and two daughters followed a year later. Within weeks of arriving in Melbourne Richard found employment, and within two years he had joined Yuncken Freeman Architects. There he found a mentor and friend in senior partner Roy Simpson, who encouraged him to set up his own practice. In 1970 Richard’s first job was the reordering of St Patrick’s in Melbourne for Archbishop James Knox. This marked the beginning of a career in church restoration that continues today.

Richard recently wrote a book which chronicles the reordering and restoration of some significant cathedrals and churches over the past thirty years. He tells how the changes to the liturgy which flowed from Vatican II required significant changes to the interiors of churches. Richard hopes that the spirit of Vatican II is reflected in the ‘new look’ of the many churches he has reordered. He hopes the changes allow people to participate at a more intimate level while still able to enjoy the liturgy in the beauty, light and sound of the buildings.

Richard rejects any suggestion that declining numbers of churchgoers will see some of the world’s great cathedrals and churches, including St Patrick’s in Melbourne, become museum pieces, more relevant to a tourist’s itinerary than as a meeting place for the faithful. Richard’s latest commission, the restoration of St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Melbourne, is looking to the future. St Paul’s is hoping to create a place at the rear of the Cathedral for people to hear talks and debates about current issues of interest to everyone, without affecting the traditional space for prayer.

Richard’s book, Ringing the Changes: New Liturgy versus Heritage—Chronicles 1971–2000, is also about Richard’s own spiritual journey over the last thirty years. ‘Although I had been raised a Catholic, the war years and the discovery of the treatment of the Jews in Germany, made it difficult to see God in what had happened. Through my work at St Pat’s I began to understand the wider picture and rediscover my own relationship with God.

‘It was an interesting experience. The office I worked in during the 1960s did not discuss or understand the impact Vatican II would have on the Church and the people. So I was very much a novice to this new concept. Similarly my clients, who wanted their sanctuaries reordered in line with Vatican II, did not know how far they could go with the new ideas at that stage.

‘I think in some ways my distance from the Church at that time worked well for me because I came in open to change and new ideas. Although I had grown up with the pre-Vatican II liturgy, I was ready to explore the new ways.’

It was during the reordering of the sanctuary at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sale in the late 1980s, that Richard’s life hit another low. His wife Heather was diagnosed with cancer and died within three years. But, Richard says, it was his faith in God that helped him through the suffering and sense of loss.

‘I began to understand the meaning of Jesus’ invitation to come and follow him. I understood that this life is only temporary and is part of the much bigger cycle. If Jesus’ life has any meaning for us it has to go beyond this life’, he says. ‘That became very clear to me when Heather died.’

Richard, 72, has spent much of his professional life in churches. He loves to sit through Masses and services during the planning stages of a commission to see how the people relate to the sanctuary and the position of the altar and other key architectural features. He works for the Catholic, Anglican and Uniting churches and feels at home in any of them, seeking dialogue with God. Prayer is an important part of his faith, not simply structured prayer, but regular and relaxed conversations with God.

‘I hope young people today will find a need to have a dialogue with God. Just talking to him as they walk along, to thank him for the day; the beauty of a park they walk through; the sound of music they hear; the friends they have and for being part of a family. This talking kind of prayer has always given me a lot of joy and relief.’
Richard remains a consultant with the firm he began in 1971, and churches remain the stuff of his daily bread.

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