Keeping it Modern: The Saint John's Abbey Church Conservation Plan

Saint John’s Abbey Church is both a landmark of Marcel Breuer’s architecture and a place of daily worship. Our task was to help the Abbey understand its condition and plan carefully for its future, respecting the architecture and the community whose life centers upon it. At the Getty Foundation’s invitation, the Abbey asked us to assist in preparing a conservation grant proposal for its Keeping it Modern program.

Keeping it Modern supports the conservation of outstanding works of 20th-century architecture. For the Abbey, the grant enabled a comprehensive plan for the conservation, restoration, and preservation of a landmark that remains a place of worship and community life.

We prepared a detailed work plan defining the investigations, assigning specialist responsibilities, and establishing a coordinated approach to assessing the church. Following review of the proposal, the Abbey was awarded the grant.

The work brought together specialists in worship, art, building systems, materials, and conservation. During implementation of the grant, we guided, reviewed, and approved the artisan and engineering findings and recommendations, ensuring that each specialist’s work answered the agreed scope and contributed to a coherent conservation plan.

The Abbey is putting the conservation plan’s lighting recommendations into practice with local lighting fixture suppliers. Temporary installations allow proposed fixtures to be tested in the church and their effectiveness assessed before permanent installation.

For the Bell Banner, understanding the condition of the concrete and reinforcing steel was essential to determining an appropriate repair approach. The first phase of fieldwork is complete, including corrosion potential mapping, ground-penetrating radar, and the removal of four concrete cores for laboratory testing. Early findings are encouraging: the reinforcing steel appears to be in better condition than anticipated.

The concrete cores are now undergoing further laboratory analysis to understand conditions within the concrete, including the depth of carbonation, concrete strength, and whether chloride levels may be contributing to corrosion. Preliminary recommendations for restoration and rehabilitation have been made, with the continuing investigation informing the response.

From temporary lighting trials to investigations of the Bell Banner, the conservation plan connects careful study with considered action. We gave the Abbey a framework for renewing its church while sustaining the architecture and worship that give it meaning.

Keeping it Modern: The Saint John’s Abbey Church story.