# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1926_S252
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

938 Proceedings of Thirty-Third Regular Convention,

Conferences with Architects. — In order to learn as much as
possible about the building of churches, the clerical members of your
Committee have held conferences with the architects on the com-
mittee, and also several times visited the most noted church architects
of the country, and often corresponded with church architects in
America and abroad. Without exception we have been kindly treated,
even by the busiest of architects, who have often done much to place’
valuable information at our disposal.

Recommendations. —-The secretary of your Committee would
respectfully ask that Synod urge its congregations to consider the
suggestions offered by members of your Committee. We are often
consulted, and congregations often go to considerable expense in
paying the railway expenses of some member of your committee for
the purpose of a conference. But in many cases our recommenda-
tions are set aside under the plea of “local circumstances.” Thus
small congregations of slow growth often build much larger than we
advise and frequently adopt designs which are very inferior in mat-
ters of scale, planning, and proportion, and often demand recreational
features far beyond the needs of a small parish, usually under the
plea of local conditions. .

Your Secretary, after voluminous correspondence with over>400
congregations, would respectfully urge that, sf at all possible, only
capable architects be retained. Too often an architect with no church
experience whatever, or perhaps entirely unaware of the requirements
- of a Lutheran church, or a young draughtsman in the employ of
a real estate firm or a factory, is paid a respectable fee to design
‘a church. The amount thus spent would often secure the service of
an architect of unquestioned ability. The majority of our most able
church architects are organized in such a way as to be able to handle
work at long distances from their office, by the process of subletting
the actual superintendence to a local architect. Thus the congrega-
tion has the advantage of a skilled architect in matters of plan and
design and local supervision as well.

Your Secretary would respectfully call attention to the fact that
countless promising projects have failed because of building com-
mittees that insisted upon dictating in matters of planning and
design. This has often resulted in much needless waste of money
and churches bad in proportion and in detail. We would respectfully
urge that building committees be petitioned to confine their activities
as much as possible to financial matters, allowing the architects to
determine such questions as require professional training, such as
proportion, disposition of parts, size of windows, location of exits,
and matters of detailing and finish.

We would likewise request that congregations consulting us
make a small contribution to our running expenses, so that Synod’s