Gerard Goalen
Gerard Thomas Goalen (16 December 1918 – 2 January 1999) was a British architect who specialised in church architecture and was influenced by continental models and the Liturgical Movement.
A group of architects that included Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, Gerard Goalen, Francis Pollen, Desmond Williams and Austin Winkley, utilised contemporary design and construction methods to deliver the ‘noble simplicity’ instructed by Vatican I.
"While working as Senior Architect for Harlow New Town Development Corporation, he was recommended for the task of building a new Catholic Church to the parish priest Francis Burgess by the architect-planner Frederick Gibberd.
[9][10] "For the church the architect, Mr. Gerard Goalen, has drawn up plans for a building with three naves, walls of coloured glass to give a warm internal radiance and a strictly liturgical layout.
[11] Proctor and Gillick argued that the liturgical movement was a significant influence in this church and that was also closely related to the egalitarian social aims of post-war modern urban planning in Harlow.
The church's reinforced concrete frame allows for large areas of dalle de verre by Dom Charles Norris, an early use of this medium.
The church was extremely influential, with Andrew Derrick crediting it with influencing Frederick Gibberd's winning entry for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
The architect Robert Maguire, writing in the Ecclesiology Today (Issue 27, January 2002) commented: "Gerard Goalen's T-shaped church of Our Lady of Fatima at Harlow, resplendent with its Buckfast Abbey glass.
[16] This was on the basis of its design with the alter surrounded by seats for the congregation and the large amount of modern stained glass that illuminates the interior.
[18] The dalle de verre stained glass is by Patrick Reyntiens, who Goalen had previously worked with at Our Lady of Fatima, Harlow.
In 2012, the church was awarded £119,000 by English Heritage to resolve issues with concrete fatigue and reinforcement decay, which was eroding the fabric of the building.
[19] The Grade II listed Roman Catholic Church of St Gregory the Great, South Ruislip, London was designed by Goalen in 1965.
[21] The building contains work by Patrick Reyntiens, Steven Sykes, Dom Charles Norris and Willi Soukop.
The single storey friary buildings are of pale brick with a shallow pitched felt-covered roofs, arranged around a central cloister that contains a small rectangular pond.
It contains abstract stained glass by Whitefriars Studios and a statue of St Anthony by renowned ecclesiastical sculptor David John.
"The new Catholic parish at Cranford, Middlesex, has a less unconventional proposal: the church and the hall are to be united on Sundays by drawing back a folding partition.
For the common defects of such an arrangement will (it is hoped) be overcome...At Cranford the building is designed as a trinity of spaces, a nave flanked by two very wide parallel "aisles" each of which has its own quite distinct and separate roof.
One aisle will be partitioned off to become the hall on weekdays, but the geometry of the floor and roof has been contrived to make this aisle into a really independent room, not just a "slice".The Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs is an English Roman Catholic parish church located at the junction of Hills Road and Lensfield Road in south east Cambridge.
[30] To bring the sanctuary in line with the liturgical directives resulting from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), its design and re-ordering was undertaken by Goalen.
The altar was made moveable to allow the room to be used for meetings; a bronze and resin crucifix by David John was suspended over its normal position.
