Plan as generator: Modernism and the Protestant liturgy in the Kuilsrivier De Eike Dutch Reformed Church

Abstract

A significant feature of Afrikaner culture during the twentieth century was the development of strikingly modernist church architecture. The background to this complex development, which entails the devastating impact of modernity on the traditional rural lifestyle of a majority of Afrikaners due to compulsory urbanisation, is briefly sketched out. One of the most interesting features of this cultural phenomenon, which goes a long way to explaining the apparent contradiction between the markedly conservative values of the majority of Afrikaners during this period and the radically modernist church architecture that they embraced, is the fact that two fundamental principles of modernist architecture were embraced. They are “form follows function” and “plan as generator”, which conformed perfectly to the essentially functionalist principles of Protestant church design as formulated soon after the Reformation and practised for centuries. The Kuilsrivier De Eike Dutch Reformed Church, designed by Anton Morkel, is a case in point. Over and above the functionalism that pervades the entire design, the principle of “plan as generator” is followed through right into the details. This article argues that these modernist principles were applied primarily as expressions of the Protestant liturgy, in accordance with this very old Protestant architectural tradition, which happened to coincide with modernist principles. Furthermore, it argues that, through an extraordinary confluence of circumstances, church design also embraced modernism to address the spiritual and social crises caused by the compulsory urbanisation of a rural people.