The Cathedral of St. John (The Evangelist), Brisbane:the metamorphosis of the Western Facade

Few buildings in Brisbane have taken over 100 years to complete. The Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist is an example of delayed fulfilment of a rare specimen of Australian Architecture. It is an example of Australian Gothic Revival Architecture1. A question of architectural significance, in light of this prolonged 100 year gestation, is the extent to which the Cathedral’s design has remained true to the original Gothic Revival drawings of Englishman John Loughborough Pearson. To this purpose, this dissertation will examine the evolution of the Western Facade and the extent to which the final construction corresponds to Pearson’s 1897 design. The warrant of this dissertation recognises St. John’s Cathedral as the fifth largest Cathedral in Australia and is among the last group of Gothic Revival Cathedral buildings to be completed in the world. A recent report on the significance of the Cathedral (as a piece of Australian Architecture), states that St. John’s Cathedral is a valuable example of Gothic Revival Architecture and is the principal place of worship for the Anglican Diocese in Brisbane. 2 The Anglican Cathedral Chapter are certain that upon completion of the Western Front, St. John’s will take its place as one of the greatest ecclesiastical buildings in Australia3. Architecturally this assertion may be based upon the belief of a faithful adherence to the 1897 John Loughborough Pearson design vision of euphoric Gothic Revival Architecture. The aim of this dissertation is that a scholarly examination of the final Western Facade construction will support the Anglican Chapter’s beliefs and hopefully finalise the documented chronology of the Cathedral’s committed 100 year completion. As part of the methodological examination of this undertaking, the temporary Western Facades constructed in 1910, 1968 and the 1988 bi-centennial bell towers will be analytically assessed and evaluated. Hopefully, such an undertaking will establish an ordered chronology of this aspect and elicit the personification of a recognizable cognition of the integral elements in Pearson‘s vision for the completed Western Front during the interim construction stages. The Western Front of St. John’s is, in fact, the least documented element of the Cathedral. To substantiate the Chapter’s claims regarding the Pearsonian authenticity of the finalised construction with the 1886 commission, the accredited Western Fronts of Pearson’s ecclesiastical masterpieces St. Augustine’s, Kilburn and St. Mary’s, Truro will be examined. . These examples were selected from Pearson’s many works because of their spiring towers and construction materials. Clear images of these Western Fronts were also available for assisting comparative examination. Uncovering the recurring elements and characteristics of cathedral’s designed by John Loughborough Pearson will assist to illuminate identifiable features, in particular noteworthy Pearsonian traits in the spires of St John’s Western Front. Perhaps the most pertinent reason for choosing St John’s Western Front as an evaluation optimum relates to this being the final stage of the centennial completion of the project, and in reality the least formally documented; a procedural undersight not to be overlooked given the circumstances circumspect to Brisbane’s then and now Anglican Chapter. In fact, unlike the well-documented Eastern Front, Pearson appears to have provided only one drawing of design intentions for the Western Front.