Architecture critic Mark Lamster: Does adding glass-box modernism to the shell of a Dallas landmark Gothic Revival church turn it into Re-Revival?
The defensive nature of Harris’ 1964 building, which he described as “a clearing in the forest,” was not accidental. “At that time, they were about protecting this progressive community from conservative Dallas,” says Daniel Kanter, First Unitarian’s senior minister.
“One of the phrases that we coined during the process was making the campus ‘radically welcoming,’” says Paul Manno, the architect in charge of the project for Gensler’sA first order of business was replacing Harris’ entry arcade, essentially a blank wall facing Preston Road, with a sheer, blue-glass curtain wall. “The reason you see so much glass is to bring in daylight, but also to make it transparent,” says Manno, noting that Harris’ design “shut out the neighborhood.
The main entry has been shifted around the corner, to Normandy Avenue, and through the former Raible Chapel, a modest 1944 structure of horizontal bands of cut Tennessee stone. The interior, which was largely unused, has been repurposed as a sitting area named for Patricia Davidson, a leading advocate of women’s reproductive rights. From the entry, a visual axis runs through the entire campus, linking community, worship and education spaces.
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