Holy Cross Lutheran Church

Category: Churches

1961. among the best modern buildings in Phoenix. Modern in the truest sense, striking and different but nothing phony or showy about it. That rhythmic waffle-roof is used wonderfully, and there's real taste and sensitivity at work here. True to its function, true to the spatial logic of its efficient concrete-shell structure, barely altered from its original 1961 configuration, well-loved, cared-for, healthy, and in marvelous condition. The tower is two concrete slabs, complicated curves that come together in a complicated way, a sculpted object of considerable grace.
Inside the sanctuary, there's a comfortable community feeling from the 1960s, a space that must help keep the congregation together, a space I find haunting because that spatial feeling of integrated and cooperative community, down to the fixtures and furnishings, feels like my own childhood. Perhaps yours too.