Churches need more art installations like Canterbury's
Saturday 11 October 2025 at 07:02
Visible to anyone in the world
This week the Canterbury Cathedral has been in the news for allowing a graffiti inspired art installation onto its historic walls and pillars.
The installation has drawn the ire of those you would expect it to draw the ire of. The Times reports that US Vice President Vance has described it as making a “beautiful historical building really ugly”, while Elon Musk has called it “shameful”. Ordinary visitors have likened the installation to "an underground car park in Peckham" and even the cathedral's administrators have accepted the installation has "divided public opinion".
But isn't that missing the point?
Any church, and especially a great cathedral, is 'a house of God' but to be one it must also be a place of community. It is a place of prayer but it also where throughout the centuries people have gathered. Historically churches were stone built places where people would seek sanctuary, some were even fortified.
Places of worship were places of commerce too, he may not have liked it but even the Bible recounts Jesus throwing traders out of the temple.
The historical record shows that churches were used as hospitals, as schools and even as a place of politics (how many churches are used for political hustings even now?)
The important part is that churches were lived in, and with a massive reduction in those claiming to be practising Christians there is a danger that will not continue.
Added to that, and it may bait the usual voices off, but graffiti has always had a place in history. You will find graffiti on Hadrian's Wall, the Great Pyramind of Giza and the Colosseum and, if you look closely, in countless places in every town and village in the land. I've no doubt that Canterbury's installation is a reflection of that.
As the world changes we must find appropriate uses for our historic buildings or they will become nothing more than empty shells with little contemporary meaning.
Ed Smith, the new president of the MCC gets it right in this week's New Statesman saying of Lord's "It is a primary question, how a great building faces the world, hot it connects and interacts with the wider community. Get that right and everyone wins: the visitor, the casual passer-by and the institution itself."
In that respect Lord's is no different from Canterbury Cathedral or any other great historic building. It must have a use more than simply becoming an exhibition in and of itself.
If people were really concerned about Canterbury Cathedral, and accepting that it has bills to pay, they should be more concerned about the fact that you have to pay £21 to get in. Would that have been the case when it, and Christianity, was a living, breathing community?
Churches need more art installations like Canterbury's
This week the Canterbury Cathedral has been in the news for allowing a graffiti inspired art installation onto its historic walls and pillars.
The installation has drawn the ire of those you would expect it to draw the ire of. The Times reports that US Vice President Vance has described it as making a “beautiful historical building really ugly”, while Elon Musk has called it “shameful”. Ordinary visitors have likened the installation to "an underground car park in Peckham" and even the cathedral's administrators have accepted the installation has "divided public opinion".
But isn't that missing the point?
Any church, and especially a great cathedral, is 'a house of God' but to be one it must also be a place of community. It is a place of prayer but it also where throughout the centuries people have gathered. Historically churches were stone built places where people would seek sanctuary, some were even fortified.
Places of worship were places of commerce too, he may not have liked it but even the Bible recounts Jesus throwing traders out of the temple.
The historical record shows that churches were used as hospitals, as schools and even as a place of politics (how many churches are used for political hustings even now?)
The important part is that churches were lived in, and with a massive reduction in those claiming to be practising Christians there is a danger that will not continue.
Added to that, and it may bait the usual voices off, but graffiti has always had a place in history. You will find graffiti on Hadrian's Wall, the Great Pyramind of Giza and the Colosseum and, if you look closely, in countless places in every town and village in the land. I've no doubt that Canterbury's installation is a reflection of that.
As the world changes we must find appropriate uses for our historic buildings or they will become nothing more than empty shells with little contemporary meaning.
Ed Smith, the new president of the MCC gets it right in this week's New Statesman saying of Lord's "It is a primary question, how a great building faces the world, hot it connects and interacts with the wider community. Get that right and everyone wins: the visitor, the casual passer-by and the institution itself."
In that respect Lord's is no different from Canterbury Cathedral or any other great historic building. It must have a use more than simply becoming an exhibition in and of itself.
If people were really concerned about Canterbury Cathedral, and accepting that it has bills to pay, they should be more concerned about the fact that you have to pay £21 to get in. Would that have been the case when it, and Christianity, was a living, breathing community?