How the architect behind Minnesota’s St. John’s Abbey Church impressed “The Brutalist”

Simply off Interstate 94 in Collegeville, Minnesota, is a hanging architectural surprise that was delivered to life by famend architect Marcel Breuer: Saint John’s Abbey Church at Saint John’s College.

“He was from Hungary, initially studied on the Bauhaus in Germany within the Nineteen Twenties and 30s, after which when Hitler took over the Bauhaus, he moved to London,” stated abbey monk Brother Alan Reed. “Finally, he moved to the US.”

The Oscar-winning movie “The Brutalist” — a fictional story a few Holocaust survivor and immigrant architect — was impressed by the abbey’s church, due to a e-book written by a monk who labored with Breuer.

“The hyperlink is that the director of the movie had learn a small e-book when he was desirous about this undertaking,” Reed stated.

In that e-book had been that monk’s reminiscences from minutes he stored of conferences with the architect. 

Constructed between 1958 and 1961, the church was half of a bigger imaginative and prescient for the rising monastery that Reed has ensured stays true for practically 60 years.

“It was conceived after the Second World Conflict, so each the college and the abbey grew fairly, fairly a bit in these years,” he stated. “Lastly, it was determined we’d like an architect to assist us plan that.”

The movie is loosely based mostly on Breuer, though in contrast to within the film, he was by no means in Germany through the Holocaust and was not training Judaism on the time.

For monks like Reed, having the Hollywood highlight shine on his Midwestern faculty is thrilling.

“I might adore it if it helps folks to understand that it is a sacred house,” Reed stated.