The 'un-Calatrava' touch

Whitney Gould reports in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on the local design work by architect Jim Shields, including

The renovation and courtyard addition of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist downtown.

The article returns to this topic.

"When we ran into cost overruns that we couldn't afford, he redesigned things on a dime," says Father Carl Last, rector of the Cathedral of St. John. "And what he redesigned was even better than the first version."

I recall it as fundraising underruns. Fool me once ...

The cathedral project was especially meaningful to Shields, a devout Catholic, who worked closely with a national liturgical consultant on the interior.

Who Dare Not Speak His Name?

Nevertheless, some Catholics denounced some of the changes and even sought intervention from the Vatican to halt the project.

Now, four years after its completion, Shields points proudly to a scholarly article by a conservative priest, praising the project's workmanship, materials and understanding of theology.

I've heard no critcism of the project's workmanship or materials. Since the article is not identified, it's hard to judge its argument for the project's understanding of theology.

Update: Richard S. Vosko, Ph. D. (via The cafeteria is closed ...)

Update: The article is "The Renovation of the Milwaukee Cathedral" by William Turner from the Fall/Winter 2003 issue of the journal of The Institute for Sacred Architecture. Only the issue's table of contents is online, not the text of the articles.