Award For Church Design

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 12

Award For Church Design

A Christchurch architect, Mr C. R. Thomas, has been awarded a bronze medal by the Canterbury branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects for his design for the Church of Our Lady of Victories at Sockbum.

The church is unusually de signed, both inside and out. It has a hyperbolic paraboloid roof, while the interior of the church, which seats 500 persons, is designed to highlight the relationship of the congre gation to the priest and par ticipation in the Mass. There is a free standing altar, allowing Mass to be said from either side, and a small chapel at the back which cap be used for a very small con gregation.

Mr Thomas designed the church in 1964. The building was completed about two years ago.

Aged 40, Mr Thomas was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School and Auckland University, where he gained a diploma in architecture. In 1954, he became a re gistered architect and re turned to Christchurch.

In 1960, he went into private practice and since then has designed many commercial and other buildings, including the Blue Skies scout training centre at Kaiapoi and the Darfield Hotel He also designed the new Rochester Hall of Residence at the University of Canterbury, at present under construction in Ham Road. Each branch of the institute has the right to award bronze medals each year for

houses and industrial and other buildings. This year, the branch did not award a medal for housing or industrial buildings, but just the one award to Mr Thomas. All winners of these bronzemedal awards then go forward for a national award made by the institute itself, when awards of gold and silvei medals are made. The photograph above shows the Church of Our Lady of Victories at Sockburn.