By Deacon Inacio de Araujo Almeida
I cannot think of any visitor going to London who will not have in mind the Houses of Parliament, the Elizabeth Tower or Big Ben Tower as it is usually known, as places necessarily to be included in his itinerary. Everybody knows that at the top of the Big Ben Tower is the most famous clock in the world, a symbol of British punctuality. Most visitors, however, are unaware that this building is the creation of a genius who was a convert to Catholicism, and who used Christian architecture as a direct instrument of evangelization.
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was his name. He was the son of a French aristocrat who emigrated to England during the French Revolution, and was born in Bloomsbury, central London, on March 1, 1812. During his childhood, Pugin was educated in strict Protestantism, marked by a series of prejudices against Catholicism, leading him to despise that same Church which years later he would embrace with sincere enthusiasm.
While still very young he devoted himself assiduously to the study of art and, along with his father, who was a renowned architect himself, he started working on his first projects. Pugin quickly stood out due to his unique talent and in spite of his young age, being only 19, he undertook important decorative work at Windsor Castle, the oldest official residence of British royalty. Pugin committed himself intensely to the study of ancient architecture. On one occasion, glancing through books that dealt with the origins of Christian art, he discovered a subject that played a decisive influence in his conversion: the Catholic liturgy.
“Applying myself to liturgical knowledge, what a new field was open to me! With what delight did I trace the fitness of each portion of those glorious edifices to the rites for whose celebration they had been erected! Then did I discover that the service I had been accustomed to attend and admire was but a cold and heartless remnant of past glories, and that those prayers which in my ignorance I had ascribed to reforming piety, were in reality only scraps plucked from the solemn and perfect offices of the ancient Church. Pursuing my researches among the faithful pages of the old chronicles, I discovered the tyranny, apostasy, and bloodshed by which the new religion had been established (…). Opposed to all this, I considered the Catholic Church; existing with uninterrupted apostolical succession, handing down the same faith, sacraments, and ceremonies unchanged, unaltered through every clime, language, and nation”. 1
1832 to 1834 were the instrumental years of his conversion. During this time he travelled extensively in order to visit the main Gothic buildings in Europe. Among them one merited his special attention. Entering the Church of St. Lawrence in Nuremberg, Germany, Pugin was surprised by the magnificence of this building which is considered to be one of the finest examples of German Gothic architecture. He first enjoyed contemplating the slender (slim) columns of the central nave, the stained glass windows and the side altars. Then his eyes rested on a huge garland of golden flowers, suspended over the presbytery. At the center of this large circle, he marvelled at the beautiful image of the Virgin Mary, carefully listening to the Archangel Gabriel’s announcement that she would be the Mother of God. Such was the sense of wonder he felt before that representation, that shortly after he confided to a friend that he could well make his own the words of the prophet Simeon: “Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”2
His attraction for the splendour of the Catholic liturgy was growing, and it was not long before he definitively espoused the true religion: “For upwards of three years did I earnestly pursue the study of this all-important subject ; and the irresistible force of truth penetrating my heart, I gladly surrendered my own fallible judgment to the unerring decisions of the Church, and embracing with heart and soul its faith and discipline, became an humble, but I trust faithful member”3 On another occasion Pugin expressed even more clearly the role of Christian art in his conversion: ” I became perfectly convinced, he afterwards wrote, “that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one. I learned the truths of the Catholic Church in the crypts of the old cathedrals of Europe. I sought for the truths in the modern Church of England, and found that since her separation from the centre of Catholic unity, she had little truth, and no life; so without being acquainted with a single priest, through God’s mercy, I resolved to enter His Church.”4
After his conversion, Pugin put all of his artistic talents at the service of the Catholic religion, because in his soul there was no longer a distinction “between his faith and his art.”5 His creative capacity manifested itself prodigiously in the construction of cathedrals, such as Birmingham and Enniscorthy, in the design of sacred utensils, pulpits, altars, as well as the internal decoration of castles, homes and universities. He also insisted that liturgical celebrations should always be held with pomp and beauty. At the inauguration of a church in Derby, he donated vestments of rich purple and gold to be used in the solemn ceremony. One of his biographers said that the embellishment of the house of God was one of his most constant aspirations, and this led him to recall the words of the Prophet King: “The zeal for your house consumes me” (Ps 69.10) “.6
His radius of activity was also extended to the academic realm. Pugin was regarded as one of the greatest theoreticians of art in the nineteenth century, writing several books on liturgy and architecture. With only twenty five years old he was appointed Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Scott, publishing right away a glossary concerning customs and ecclesiastical ornaments. His main book is “Contrasts”, which establishes a parallel between the wonders built in the Middle Ages and the artistic decadence of the buildings erected in his time. One of the central premises of his writings was to evidence the nexus between art and morality of actions. An article published in the Times, on the occasion of his death, declared that Pugin “was the first to show us that our architecture was not just an offense against the laws of beauty, but also against the laws of morality”7
The Construction of the Big Ben Tower
On October 16, 1834 a major fire destroyed almost all of the old Westminster Palace. Some years later, the House of Lords decided to erect a new building that should surpass the old one in beauty and magnificence. Being only 24 years old, Pugin was one of those chosen to prepare a project for the grandiose building. The construction of the new Parliament House extended over many years, and in 1850 the project of the big clock tower was still missing.
During this period, Pugin contracted a serious disease that gradually destroyed his health, but not his genius. Although very ill, he kept on working to such an extent that he confided to a friend that he had never worked so hard as he had done in the preparation of the Big Ben project. While sketching the facade of the tower and its clock he felt that his days were reaching an end, and as a result he affirmed: “we must work for the cause while we have breath.”8 Pugin had often meditated on the admirable duel between life and death as he contemplated the walls of the cathedrals or as he studied liturgical texts. Now he could observe this same battle taking place within his own body. A few days before his death, however, he confided to a friend: ” I have learned to love God to the degree that death has nothing dreadful before my eyes (…) I feel as resigned as if I had a journey to perform. “On September 14, 1852, after receiving the last Sacraments, he gave up his soul to God. It was therefore under the sign of pain and suffering that Pugin designed the Big Ben Tower, giving as a legacy to England its most significant postcard. The architectural style of this grandiose clock, always remembered for its impeccable punctuality and its “noble, erect and strong architecture” was acknowledged by Professor Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, writer and renowned catholic leader born in Brazil (1908 – 1995), as being the symbol of the vocation of the English people:
“Imagine someone standing before the Tower of Big Ben. It is a beautiful tower and I also heard the playing of its clock, as all visitors to London do. The tower has an extraordinary dignity and majesty! This building seemed to me so genuinely Catholic that before it, the following thought came to my mind: here the Catholic Church left some of the best signs of its own thinking and of its own soul. But, due to what reason? What does it have that is so special? It is not the dominant affirmation of fantasy, nor the predominant admiration of reason. But it is the combination of two values ??that are in another order of ideas: strength and delicateness. There is much delicacy in that facade. It is all made of long lines that repeat themselves, and that have a great unfolding and breadth of horizon. The tower lacks the élan of the cathedral of Cologne and the superlative harmony of Notre Dame of Paris. But it has its own category of a great dignity and a great elevation. It has a touch of serenity and affability. It is both sacral and serious, thus uniting opposing extremes. And every work of art when it unites precisely the opposing extremes, accomplishes something supreme in its own category.
Looking at the tower, I felt myself supported in my desire for continuity, in the sources of my own strength, just by knowing that the Tower of Big Ben is standing. It represents stability so well, and does so much good to the soul of man to contemplate this quality, that the sense of stability finds a certain sustenance just by knowing that the Big Ben Tower continues to stand and will not change. It is the idea of a stable greatness, the greatness that will no longer undertake to launch anything, but that has not begun to fall into decadence and sits back on its own power and begins to meditate. This is the tower that deserves to be juxtaposed to that building: so coherent, so logical, so beautiful, but with that sweetness, that gentleness of the English people, that Catholic genius placed there by the hand of this man who knew how to interpret the buildings in their original plans, communicating a Catholic spirit to all that ensemble. We can behold here a man who knew how to touch the soul of his country through symbolic means. “
Footnotes
1 Ferrey, Benjamin. Recollections of A.N. Welby Pugin, and His Father Augustus Pugin; with Notices of Their Works. London: Stanford, 1861. p. 103-104. “Applying myself to liturgical knowledge, what a new field was open to me! with what delight did I trace the fitness of each portion of those glorious edifices to the rites for whose celebration they had been erected! Then did I discover that the service I had been accustomed to attend and admire was but a cold and heartless remnant of past glories, and that those prayers which in my ignorance I had ascribed to reforming piety, were in reality only scraps plucked from the solemn and perfect office s of the ancient Church. Pursuing my researches among the faithful pages of the old chronicles, I discovered the tyranny, apostasy, and bloodshed by which the new religion had been established (…). Opposed to all this, I considered the Catholic Church; existing with uninterrupted apostolical succession, handing down the same faith, sacraments, and ceremonies unchanged, unaltered through every clime, language, and nation”.
2 Hill, Rosemary. God’s Architect. Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. p. 126. “Entering the church, Pugin wrote to Willson on his return, ‘I could have repeated the song of Simeon without profanation. The song of Simeon, the ‘Nunc Dimittis’, begins: ‘Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’ Pugin’s dream of a revived Christendom, made manifest in art and architecture, was all at once before him.
3 Ferrey, Benjamin. Recollections. p. 104. “For upwards of three years did I earnestly pursue the study of this all-important subject ; and the irresistible force of truth penetrating my heart, I gladly surrendered my own fallible judgment to the unerring decisions of the Church, and embracing with heart and soul its faith and discipline, became an humble, but I trust faithful member”.
4 Williamson, Claude C. H. Great Catholics. New York: Macmillan, 1939. p. 319. “I became perfectly convinced, “he afterwards wrote,” that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true one. I learned the truths of the Catholic Church in the crypts of the old cathedrals of Europe. I sought for the truths in the modern Church of England, and found that since her separation from the centre of Catholic unity, she had little truth, and no life; so without being acquainted with a single priest, through God’s mercy, I resolved to enter His Church.”
5 Hill, Rosemary. God’s Architect. p. 04. “He himself never admitted any distinction between his work and his life any more than between his faith and his art.”
6 Ferrey, Benjamin. Recollections. p. 109: “Beauty of God’s House was his dream by night and by day, and the Royal Prophet could not say with more literal truth than he: Zelus domus tuce comedit me”.
7 Ferrey, Benjamin. Recollections. p. 315: “it was he who first showed us that our architecture offended not only against the laws of beauty, but also against the laws of morality”.
8 Hill, Rosemary. God’s Architect. p. 474: “we must work for the cause while we have breath”.
9 Hill, Rosemary. God’s Architect, p. 481: “I have learned to love God to that degree that death has nothing dreadful in my eyes (…) I felt as resigned as if I had a journey to perform.”
