Between mysticism and industry: Breuer, the Benedictines and a binder.

The article examines the difference between Bauhaus conceptions of modernism and industrial design and Benedictine concepts of symbolism within the context of the architecture of St. John's Abbey Church in Collegeville, Minnesota. Topics discussed are influence of the Benedictine liturgy on the idea of history that is compatible with functionalism, form and symbolism as the language of religious experience central to Benedictine spirituality, and semantics of the sacred in modern architecture.