1937-38 Remodeling at Shadyside & Trinity Church
Charles D. Magginis Presentation Drawing Trinity Chancel
(From The Makers of Trinity Church in the City of Boston James F. O'Gorman, ed., Univ of Massachusetts Press)
Shadyside stands
prominently in the line of Romanesque Lantern churches that stems from
Where there were differences, the two chancels became more similar. Trinity’s deep chancel was always enclosed in a semicircular apse. Originally, Shadyside had a central pulpit backed immediately by the organ console and pipes. Our spacious chancel and small apse were 1937 additions. From the beginning, Trinity was known as a “color church” featuring rich brilliant hues throughout. Significant color came to Shadyside with Rudolf Scheffler’s mosaic.
Where the chancels
were initially similar, the changes moved in the same direction.
Both began with wooden communion tables.
Trinity replaced theirs with a carved stone altar (more typical for
an Episcopal congregation). Shadyside’s
communion table became stone, in a design some see as reminiscent of an
altar. In both remodels, these
tables were elevated and moved toward liturgical East.
Both churches
replaced wooden chancel rails with light-colored carved stone ones.
Both provided space for choirs at the sides of the chancel.
In the apse dome, Shadyside has a mosaic of the Transfigured
Christ. In the analogous
location, Trinity had planned a depiction (unexecuted) of the Ascendant
Christ.
Influence of one
design on the other seems precluded by their simultaneity.
Shadyside, by the
One intriguing, if
tenuous, connection exists. Shadyside
member Elizabeth Macfarlane, noted in a letter to her parents, that her
distant cousin Charles Marcus Osborn was designing the chancel furniture
both for our church and nearby Heinz Chapel.
Unclear about his employer, she states that previously he had
worked for