Institution 3
Clyde, OH

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This project seeks to reconcile the vernacular Midwest building type of the Big Box with the classical ecclesiastical tradition fundamental to architecture’s historical development. Underway in Ohio is a migration of younger Christians to unaffiliated or evangelical churches which forgo the traditions, ceremonial and architectural, of the Mainline Protestant denominations such as Methodist, Presbyterian, or Baptist. These start-up “Big Box Churches” occupy storefronts, gymnasiums, theaters, warehouses, nightclubs. Such a trend should be interpreted as a schism between spiritual practice and architectural typology. What is it about this Big Box anyway? The Clyde Methodist Church inherits the Big Box as an architectural vocabulary for projecting a contemporary state of Methodism and a contemporary State of Ohio.