MODERN CHURCHES: 
Estonian Sacred Buildings of the 1920s – 1930s

30.11 – 16.12.2001 and 05.01 – 10.02.2002 

The exhibition "Modern Churches: Estonian Sacred Buildings of the 1920s–1930s" is devoted to the churches of Christian denominations built in the Republic of Estonia 1918–1940. The objects under consideration are 113 new churches, congregational chapels and prayer houses.
The most intensive period of church building falls into the first half of the 1930s. During the period 1930–1935, 54 churches were erected – half of all the churches built in the course of two decades. Construction work was most active in North and West Estonia; in South Estonia the building of new churches was more moderate.
In the 1920s–1930s Traditionalism, which modernised the architectural styles of the past, was spreading in Estonian architecture. In comparison with Historicism, architecture became more rational, the forms became simpler, décor decreased and grew subtler. It was possible to observe modifications of elements from various period styles within one building.

As in to Germany in the 1920s, in Estonia in the 1930s an Expressionist trend emerged in architecture which paid particular attention to the decorative features of the main façade. The expressiveness of the strikingly impressive front façades was even more enhanced by high, narrow, arched windows and niches as a new sacred motif. Beside them a tripartite portal of ordinary door-height was for the first time brought into use in Estonian church architecture in the 1930s.

The Italian trend proceeded, above all, from the simple form of Early Christian sacred architecture in rural regions of the Apennine Peninsula: the rectangular body of the building with almost no articulation covered by a low gabled roof; a free-standing campanile that gave the building an asymmetrical look, scanty décor - almost none. In Estonia the first plain churches that proceeded from Italian rural chapels were built in the first half of the 1930s. In addition to such simple buildings with little décor there are also churches of the Italian trend which, while restrained, do not discard décor and follow original Renaissance and Classicism of the Apennine Peninsula.

Based upon Early Christian architecture and the traditions of Italian churches Functionalism developed in sacred architecture of the 1930s. For Estonia the influence was only indirect. The first features of Italian expression, based upon geometrical primal forms and surfaces without décor, appeared here at the same time as and united with Functionalism.

The building of Historicist churches also continued to a certain extent in the 1920s–1930s. Beside Neo-Gothic and Neo-Romanesque forms, prevalent in the 19th century exterior design, Baroque forms emerged: the framing of round or lancet windows by typically Baroque framing corner chains and keystones, lunette windows etc.

Earlier Estonian Orthodox churches mainly represent Historicist architecture, as most of them were built in the second half of the 19th century. Those are monumental stone churches whose building was subsidised by the central administration of the Orthodox Church and in some places built also on the initiative of the central administration. The churches built in the period of the Estonian Republic did not receive any external financial support. Therefore new places of worship were smaller and built of a cheaper material – timber. 

Vernacular church architecture was characterised by extreme simplicity, lack of ornamentation, asceticism. The members of the congregation usually built such a prayer house entirely with their own hands and building skills. These buildings were mostly situated in the countryside, built in the 1920s without any architectural plan, in the 1930s in accordance with a plan drawn by a builder.

Egle Tamm
 

Catalogue of the exhibition. Tallinn, 2001. Compiled by Egle Tamm, edited by Karin Hallas-Murula, design by Enno Piir. English summary. 132 pages, ill. 18 $*