Historic Church

Church of All Nations // 1975

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One building in Boston that has always perplexed me is this round church building. It echoes Eero Saarinen’s MIT Chapel in Cambridge, but is much heavier and plain. After over an hour of researching, I finally found out some history behind it! The church was constructed in the South Cove Redevelopment area, an urban renewal program run by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (now BPDA) as a sort of “slum” clearance near Chinatown. The Church of All Nations was founded in the South End in 1917, housed in a Gothic Revival chapel that was seized by eminent domain for the Massachusetts Turnpike Extension and demolished in 1963. The congregation met in temporary quarters on Arlington Street until the new church was constructed in 1975. Records show that the congregation hired famed Modernist architect Bertram Goldberg as early as 1967 to design a new chapel, set in a new public park. The original plans called for a square building with a massive “steeple” incorporated as the entire roof. For some reason (possibly funding and changing demands for the church), the final design was a little more mundane. The cylindrical church is clad in dark glazed brick with a cross raised in the brickwork. The church suffered from a dwindling congregation in its location, and now appear to rent out the building. One of my favorite local architecture firms Touloukian Touloukian, Inc., re-imagined the site as a new residential tower. It would be one of the few beautiful new buildings in Boston in the past decade or two. Can we please make this happen?!

Seventh-Day Adventist Church // 1842

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In the township of Washington, New Hampshire, about three miles from the Washington Town Green, stands a rural church building, a white wooden structure complimenting freshly fallen snow. This church is honored as the mother church of the first Seventh-Day Adventists. Its story started in 1842 by a local group of farmers calling themselves Christian Brethren, who dissented sharply from the strict Congregationalism of the Church in Washington Center. Many of the Christian Brethren became Adventists about the time this building was first used, and thereafter some of them began worshiping on the Seventh Day; and eventually the majority did so. In 1862 the official Seventh-day Adventist denomination was born at this place. Today, the building is a regular point of pilgrimage for members of the massive, international congregation.

East Washington Baptist Church // 1877

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Residents in the eastern portion of the rural town of Washington, NH found it very inconvenient to attend church at the center of town. In 1800, a group of residents on the east side of town banded together to create a new congregation, building a church perched on a low hill soon by 1826. The church was used for decades until it burned in 1844, it was replaced a year later, but that burned as well. Undeterred, the small congregation had yet another church built in 1877. The church remains in great condition, and is still active.

Pomfret Congregational Church // 1847

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Located in North Pomfret, Vermont, the North Pomfret Congregational Church is one of many white clapboard church buildings constructed in the mid 19th century. Built in 1847 by the Church of Christian Brothers and the Congregationalists, the church was used by the two religious societies as a joint meeting house, each society holding services in the church on alternating Sundays. The Greek Revival style church features a prominent tiered, boxed bell tower with louvered lancet openings and a slender octagonal spire.