1. Before you get all Crusades on us.

   Why are they destroying the chapel?

   1. Apparently they are building a new building on the site.

      Keep in mind that this isn’t an old building. It dates back to 1887. It’s a fine example of mongrel architecture. Unlike the common “neo-gothic” churches found all over Europe that are Gothic in style but built in the 19th century rather than the middle ages, this one is just “wrong”. It has a Gothic structure (high walls, large windows) but circular arches (which are Roman, not Gothic) and is missing the flying buttresses. So unless one were insistent on preserving it as a good example of what a very confused architect can get away with, I can’t see any reason to regret this.

      It’s not like church buildings are much in demand any longer in Western Europe for their original purpose. Many of them get repurposed, for example I remember a church in Holland that was remodeled into quite a nice bookstore.

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      1. “it’s not an old building, just built in 1887…”

         If I were in a room with you, I’d smack you upside the head. You have missed the point entirely.

         10/10, got me to reply.

         1. Is he wrong about the mongrel architecture part though?

         2. In Europe, pretty much anything under 300 years is ‘recent’,

         3. My point is that, by European standards, that building is neither old nor in any way particularly worthy of preservation. If it is no longer needed as a church (which is quite plausible given the decline of Christianity in Europe) and there isn’t interest in reusing the building for a different purpose as I mentioned is often done, I can’t see any good argument against tearing it down and building something on the site that is useful. It’s not really any different from going into some US city and tearing down, say, an apartment building from 1920 to build an office building on the site.

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      2. Well, it does show what kind of freedom architects feel when you give them new building materials and methods… Aesthetic (perhaps in quotation marks) considerations can take the place of needing things to be set up a certain way simply to remain standing.

2. You should see the abomination that is going to be built there.

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