Crystal Cathedral, home to the 'Hour of Power,' transforms into Catholic seat

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

For nearly 30 years, the Rev. Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral was not only a religious landmark, but an architectural wonder and an embodiment of flush times in Southern California’s Orange County...…

Around the turn of the 21st century, Schuller’s large following of white evangelicals was aging, and the population of nonwhite residents in California was increasing. Membership and donations to Crystal Cathedral began to decline. The cathedral filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
At the same time, the Roman Catholic Church started seeing an increase in Southern California.
In 1976, the Diocese of Orange consisted of about 300,000 Catholics. Today, the numbers are closer to 1.6 million, supporting 62 parishes, 41 schools, three hospitals and care centers and a number of agencies serving the poor, according to The Orange County Register.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2018/11/28/crystal-cathedral-home-to-the-hour-of-power-transforms-into-catholic-seat/

The RCC in Orange County has increased rom 300,000 to approximately 1.6 in 42 years. But that increase must not be seen as anything other than a local trend.

[MineralMan]

1. It was also a very uncomfortable building.

Cold during the winter and like an oven in the Summer. I've been in it many times. Pretty, but pretty impractical as a center of worship.

[guillaumeb]

2. I only saw it while driving to a training seminar in California.

And given the glass walls, much like a state building in Chicago, your observation makes much sense.

[MineralMan]

3. I used to go to organ recitals there.

It had a monster of a pipe organ. When it was all working as it was supposed to, which was not always the case, it rivaled the most powerful organs in the world. I saw in Guy's linked article that they're moving it within the building. Good luck to them on that job. I suspect that it will not be completely functional ever again. A pity, that, I suppose, but the cost of keeping a huge pipe organ in proper repair is enormous. I suspect that as the church got into financial trouble, they stopped doing the maintenance required. It's probably a mess by now, and restoring it would cost millions.

[guillaumeb]

4. Do you play keyboards?

And how was the sound experience in the building?

My wife and I have heard choir and organ recitals at a few large cathedrals. We found them to be amazing experiences.

[MineralMan]

5. No. My interest in pipe organs comes from a summer spent

interning for an organ builder as he installed a major organ in my hometown church. I was just 16, and worked alongside the man as he installed, set up and prepared the organ for its first use. I learned a great deal from that, and have maintained my interest in those instruments ever since.

I did learn to play to some degree, but only well enough to play a couple of Bach Preludes and Fugues through. I was a woodwind player and vocalist, not a keyboard player.

So, I go to places with major or historical organs to listen to them. Once, while in Germany, I listened to an organ that had been played by Bach himself in an old church. The organist let me take the bench, and I played one of those preludes on it. I'm sure the shade of Bach was wincing the entire time. The organist certainly was, but was a good-humored man.

The Crystal Cathedral had very poor acoustics and too many hard, echoing surfaces. It muddied almost any music played on that organ.

[guillaumeb]

7. I wondered as much about the Chrystal Cathedral.

We heard choral music in Salisbury at the cathedral there. A great sound.

[MineralMan]

9. I played in an orchestra there, accompanying

A choir on a two week tour in the 80s. It was a favorite stop.

[MineralMan]

6. After working with that organ builder, I considered going into that business.

He offered me a job, but I finally decided not to go in that direction. I did build a one-rank pipe organ for myself, which I kept for several years and then sold. However, as a lark, I designed a small portable 2-octave organ that was well within the capabilities of a home craftsman. At that time I was designing woodworking and other projects for various magazines.

I convinced Popular Mechanics to buy an article on that little toy pipe organ. The article was published in 1982. Many years later, while searching YouTube for organ videos, I happened upon this video:

Someone had actually built the project and made a video of the finished item. I suppose others built it, too, but I had never seen one that wasn't the prototype I made. I contacted the person and he wrote back. Apparently he made several of them as gifts for grandchildren and went on to make some larger instruments as well. Very nice.

Here's the Popular Mechanics article, which I was surprised to find on the Internet, too:

https://books.google.com/books?id=-9kDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=circus+calliope+popular+mechanics&source=bl&ots=GTBBimj9if&sig=j28dp4_qKNtxkDIA9c5CiBkWgqQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIivbu7fzeAhUi5YMKHWmrAWQQ6AEwEHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=circus%20calliope%20popular%20mechanics&f=false

[guillaumeb]

8. A compliment indeed.

Everything seems to be on the internet.