Square Altar
2024 - Built
Church of the Incarnation, Memphis, Tennessee
Square Altar
2024 - Built
Church of the Incarnation, Memphis, Tennessee
This altar for an Anglican church plant returns to the archetypal square, assuming an inherent wisdom in the lost spatial traditions of the early church. The square form physically places both priest and congregation in equal relation to and under the divine presence at the center of Anglican worship.
A simple wooden table suffices while the church plant awaits its permanent home. Its spindly, weak legs will one day be embedded in a robust stone base, uniting the two precedents given by the early church, which celebrated the eucharist on wooden tables in houses and on the tombs of martyrs in the catacombs.
The bulk of the tabletop is constructed of locally sourced walnut wood. The structure that forms the inlay creates a Jerusalem cross on the altar's surface. An Anglican standard, the insignia's five crosses join a more ancient catholic tradition of engraving an altar's surface with the five wounds of Christ. The weight of the table is carried down to the ground from the five points of this blood-red inlay. The disparate walnut pieces never touch, just as the people of Incarnation Memphis are held together and up by nothing but the blood of Christ's sacrifice.
All photos © Camille Weaver.