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Perspective sketches for the altar [2] and for the font [2] shaded in purple and red.

Design
1990
Artist/Maker
Stephen Cox (maker)

Perspective sketches for the altar [2] and for the font [2], shaded in purple and red.


Object details

Categories
Designs
Ecclesiastical Art/Craft
Object type
Design
TitlePerspective sketches for the altar [2] and for the font [2] shaded in purple and red.
Materials and techniques
Photostatic print and coloured chalk.
Paper
Drawing
Brief description
Perspective sketches by Stephen Cox for the altar [2] and for the font [2] of St Paul's Church, Harringay, London, 1990. Photostatic print and coloured chalk.
Physical description
Perspective sketches for the altar [2] and for the font [2], shaded in purple and red.
Dimensions
  • Height: 30cm
  • Width: 42cm
30 x 42 cm
Object history
The old church of St Paul burnt down on Ash Wednesday, 1984 and Father Seeley, the parish priest, wanted a completely new church in a modern idiom. It was rebuilt in a post-modern style by Peter Inskip and Peter Jenkins, completed in 1993. Stephen Cox was commissioned to design the reredos, altar, font, and the stations of the cross. The initial idea for the reredos depicting St Paul was replaced by a view of the crucifixion from behind, over a map of the Mediterranean world showing St Paul's travels. The altar was made out of porphyry left over from the Foreign Office commission and the reredos from travertine, itself formed of fossilised carapaces of sea creatures, a symbolic link with the skull of Golgotha. The drawings track the design and manufacturing process which took place in Egypt. The worked-up photocopies show the reredos in the setting of the church.
Subject depicted
Ecclesiastical Architecture
Association
Haringey
Bibliographic references
  • Melhuish, Claire, 'Act of Faith', Building Design, 25 May 1990, p. 24.
  • Seeley, John, ‘Phoenix Rising, St Paul’s, Harringay’ in Church Building (Summer 1990), p. 45.
  • ‘Clare Melhuish reports on the new church’ in Church Building (Summer 1990), pp. 46-47.
  • ‘Detail: St Paul’s, Harringay by Peter Inskip & Peter Jenkins’ in Architecture Today, 17 (April 1991), pp. 88-89.
  • Glancey, Jonathan, ‘A temple of simplicity to soothe the soul’ in The Independent, Wednesday 4 August 1993, p. 13.
  • Dorment, Richard, ‘Putting high art above the altar’, in The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday, August 25, 1993, p. 12.
  • Maxwell, Robert, ‘Sacred Space: Inskip and Jenkins in Haringey’ in Architecture Today, 43 (November 1993), pp. 36-41.
  • ‘New Church of St Paul, Harringay (GB)’ in Eurozinc (1993), p. 13.
  • ‘St Paul’s Harringay, Review by Clare Melhuish and Michael Jones-Frank’ in Church Building, 28 (July/August 1994), pp. 31-33.
  • ‘Spiritual Elevation, St Paul’s Church, Wightman Road, Harringay, London N4’, in Brick Bulletin (Autumn, 1994), pp. 18-20.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
E.341:4-1994

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Record createdApril 3, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O219150/perspective-sketches-for-the-altar-design-stephen-cox/
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