As inspiration for ‘The Brutalist,’ famed St. John’s Abbey Church gains renewed interest
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Motorists traveling on Interstate 94 toward St. John’s University can glimpse the massive bell tower of the Abbey Church from miles away, jutting more than 100 feet into the sky like a giant concrete sail.
Completed in 1961, the strikingly unique Abbey Church is the flagship of St. John’s, and a heralded example of modern architecture.
It’s also the inspiration for “The Brutalist,” an epic movie about an immigrant architect haunted by the Holocaust, and one of the favorites to win best picture at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
The movie’s main character is fictional, but thought to be partly based on real-life modernist architect Marcel Breuer, whose church on the central Minnesota prairie is considered one of his renowned achievements.
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The movie has brought new attention to the controversial architectural style of brutalism, which became popular after World War II and favored exposed building materials rather than decorative design. The term comes from the French words béton brut, which means “raw concrete.”
“Brutalism really is about the rawness of the structure, the kind of immediacy of the material,” said Brother Alan Reed, a monk at St. John’s Abbey and resident expert on the church’s design.
But Reed doesn’t like to use the term “brutalist” to describe the Abbey Church. The word brings to mind ugly Soviet-like fortresses, not the artistry of Breuer's creation, he said.
“Call it a modern church,” Reed said. “It’s a piece of poetry in many ways.”
Inside, visitors emerge from the darkened entrance into a vast, light-filled interior. Hexagon-shaped stained glass windows fill one entire wall, casting colorful reflections across the rows of simple wooden pews.
Instead of gothic spires, the church has curved piers of reinforced concrete that support the huge balcony and roof.
“It kind of breathes with that, the light that comes in, the shadows that pass, the reflection, the space,” Reed said.
After World War II, a renewed interest in religion spurred an increase in students and monks at St. John’s. The monks decided they needed more space, and to plan for the future. They asked for help from the top architects of the time.
They chose Breuer, a Hungarian-born architect who emigrated to the U.S. in 1937. He had studied at the Bauhaus, a German art school famous for its innovative approach to architecture and design.
Most of the monks didn’t mind that Breuer wasn’t Catholic, Reed said.
“I think what the requirement was that it be a genuine and good architect who could learn from us what this had to be,” he said.
Breuer developed a 100-year plan for St. John’s, and designed 10 buildings on campus, including the Abbey Church.
The church was built during a time of reform in the Catholic Church, with a focus on more active participation from the congregation in the liturgy. Although it can seat nearly 2,000 people, its wide pews and huge balcony mean no one is ever seated far from the altar.
When it was completed, people’s reaction was surprise, but not universal love. Architects and artists were amazed by it, Reed said, while others were puzzled by its modern style.
“‘How come there are no statues? Why don’t you paint it?’ Just questions like that,” he said. “‘It feels like a barn to me.’ So it was mixed, clearly mixed.”
The immigrant architect in the “The Brutalist” seems to be inspired by Breuer. But there are key differences. Breuer never spent time in a German concentration camp. The film’s centerpiece project is a community center in Pennsylvania, rather than a church in Minnesota.
Victoria Young is a professor of modern architectural history at the University of St. Thomas, who wrote a book on the Abbey Church. She thought the movie’s portrayal of modern architecture was problematic.
Young especially disliked how the film depicts interactions between the main character and the wealthy industrialist who hires him. The client-architect relationship between the monks of St. John’s and Breuer had problems at times, Young said.
“But by and large, (they were) super respectful of each other, and super able to really pull something together that was really wonderful,” she said.
In contrast, in the movie, the relationship is fraught and culminates in violence.
Yet the movie’s director, Brady Corbet, has told media outlets he was influenced by a memoir written by Father Hilary Thimmesh, a St. John’s Abbey monk and junior member of the building committee.
Thimmesh described how the monks and Breuer did have differences of opinion and conflicts, “but there was also a movement towards a single idea,” Reed said.
People from all over the world visit Collegeville to see the church at St. John’s. Reed said the monks view sharing it with the world as part of their mission.
“It’s sort of like having a museum, and you want people to come and see it,” he said. “We didn’t make it just for us.”
But the 64-year-old building is in need of repairs. The renewed attention generated by the movie could also help the abbey raise funds to preserve it for the future.
Young said St. John’s also might look to renovate the church to meet its current needs. When it was built, the monastery had more than 300 monks. It now has fewer than 100.
“There are a lot of things going on up there that are calling for a rethinking, re-enlightening, restoring of that building, which is going to cost a lot of money,” she said. “And if they can build awareness in a really positive way off of this, I’m all for it.”