Transformation of the cathedral: An interview with gregory glenn G A RY
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Since completion of the Cathedral of the Madeleine under Bishop Lawrence Scanlan in 1909, and especially after its colorful redecoration in 1917 under Bishop Joseph S. Glass, it has become one of Salt Lake City’s most celebrated architectural monuments. The cathedral underwent a further transformation during the 1980s from an almost exclusively Roman Catholic structure to an authentically public building—“A Cathedral for All People,” as the slogan had it during its extensive renovation from 1991 to 1993. Today there are few people with a cultural bent in Salt Lake City who have not attended at least some of its free public concerts, lectures, or dramatic performances. That renovation was an immense project costing 10.4 million dollars. In addition to a seismic retrofitting of the structure itself, it included cleaning the murals and other interior painting that had become dulled by air pollution over the decades; removing, cleaning, and reassembling the stained glass windows; redesigning the sanctuary area; commissioning a new set of paintings for the Stations of the Cross; acoustical improvements; and construction and installation of a new organ, among other less
Gregory Glenn with the Cathedral of the Madeleine Choir, 2011. —
courtesy intermountain catholic
dramatic improvements.1 The transformation included more than just physical aspects, for such programs as the annual Madeleine Festival of Arts and Humanities and the annual Eccles Organ Concert series, among other events, made the cathedral a public cultural center as well as an architectural and artistic marvel. 1 The Stations of the Cross are ordinarily paintings or sculptures arranged around the sides of a Catholic church and depicting various events during the passion of Christ. Their number has varied considerably over the centuries but eventually became standardized at fourteen. Bishop Lawrence Scanlan’s stations were bas-relief sculptures that were replaced during Bishop Joseph Glass’s redecoration with rather gloomy oil paintings. During the 1990s renovation, they were deemed unsalvageable and new paintings were commissioned and executed by University of Utah art professor Roger “Sam” Wilson.
