Page 54 - Summer_2019

ArchDC Summer 2019.qxp_Spring 2019 5/22/19 3:01 PM Page 52

St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church,
with the sanctuary visible behind
the tilted glass wall on the upper level.

A Church Leans
A Church Leans All photos © Anice Hoachlander/

Hoachlander Davis Photography
In to the City
In to the City

MTFA’s Design for St. Augustine’s

Episcopal Engages Its Community by Ronald O’Rourke

The Palm Sunday service at the new St. Augustine’s Episcopal space—the church’s striking, light-filled sanctuary, where the
Church in Washington began outside, in the building’s front entry remainder of the service took place. As they listened to the readings
plaza, where the congregants could be seen by the surrounding and participated in the service, the sanctuary’s tilted glass curtain
community as they assembled beneath the church’s dynamically wall, which acts as the backdrop to the altar, afforded them an
angular, glass-clad upper level. After welcoming remarks and a expansive view of the surrounding community and the sky above.
reading from the Book of Luke, the Reverend Martha Clark and The service’s sequential settings highlighted key design features
her congregation, palm branches in hand, entered the building and of the new St. Augustine’s, a project located on Maine Avenue
gathered around the church’s baptismal font, situated in a circular between Water Street and 6th Street in Washington’s rapidly
space just inside the front door, for the reading in unison of a psalm. changing Southwest waterfront area. The building’s compact,
The worshipers then joined in a processional hymn as they energetic design makes good use of its limited footprint to provide
walked up the building’s grand staircase, elevating themselves the church with a strong but welcoming presence on its site, with the
both physically and spiritually, to arrive at the main second-floor structure’s tilted glass wall literally leaning into the surrounding

52 A CHURCH LEANS IN TO THE CITY