RESEARCH ARTICLE

A pragmatic approach to church construction in Northern China at the time of Christian inculturation: The handbook “Le missionnaire constructeur”, 1926

  • Thomas Coomans , 1,2
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  • 1. Faculty of Engineering, Department of Architecture, University of Leuven, Belgium
  • 2. School of Architecture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong SAR, China

Received date: 02 Aug 2013

Accepted date: 17 Mar 2014

Published date: 31 Jul 2014

Copyright

2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

In 1926, French Jesuit missionaries from Daming published at Xianxian (Hebei province) a little handbook for church construction in Northern China: “Le missionnaire constructeur, conseils-plans” (“The missionary builder: advice-plans”), containing 67 pages of text and 54 plates. After a short introduction about handbooks and pattern books of churches, this paper describes and analyses the handbook's content and its different practical aspects about building materials, masonry, roofs, etc. The book, however, is more than a compilation of technical hints and reveals a lot about the missionaries’ perception of Chinese building traditions as well as the transmission of Western techniques to Chinese workers. The paper also contextualizes the handbook and tries to identify both the authors and the addressees. In the mid-1920s, the Vatican launched the Christian inculturation process in China, which concerned architecture too. Nevertheless, many missionaries resisted, preferring Gothic or Italianate architecture to a new Sino-Christian style. The handbook participated in this debate.

Cite this article

Thomas Coomans . A pragmatic approach to church construction in Northern China at the time of Christian inculturation: The handbook “Le missionnaire constructeur”, 1926[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2014 , 3(2) : 89 -107 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2014.03.003

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