{"id":30720,"date":"2017-01-22T21:43:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T02:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30720"},"modified":"2026-02-02T09:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T14:38:07","slug":"photographing-a-baltimore-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30720","title":{"rendered":"Photographing a Baltimore Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I mentioned in yesterday&#8217;s post about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30170\">the Women&#8217;s March in Baltimore<\/a> that I stopped along the way and took pictures of churches.  It&#8217;s something of a hobby of mine.  Sacred architecture speaks to the better angels of our nature, a monument to the human need for community that spans decades and centuries.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the pictures I took of churches in Baltimore aren&#8217;t especially interesting, but I wanted to share a few pictures of <a href=\"http:\/\/lovelylane.net\/home\/\">Lovely Lane United Methodist Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112237.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth wp-image-30718\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As I walked up Charles Street toward Hopkins, this massive spire rose out of the foggy mists.  It was a striking spire &mdash; solid, a few windows, almost formless.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, I had to investigate.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112010.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth wp-image-30713\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What I found was something that looked ancient, like something from the late Roman Empire.  A basilica, not quite Byzantine, with arches and patios and porticos.  <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lovely_Lane_Methodist_Church\">Wikipedia<\/a> tells me that was the intention; when Lovely Lane was built in the late 19th-century, it was designed &#8220;in the Romanesque Revival style,&#8221; &#8220;patterned after the early churches and basilicas in Ravenna, Italy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112110.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth wp-image-30715\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The tower, which is what caught my eye, actually seemed <i>wrong<\/i> to me when I viewed the church in toto from across the street.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112152.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30716\" \/><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s because, going back to Wikipedia, the tower was &#8220;patterned after the campanile of the 12th century church of Santa Maria, Abbey of Pomposa, near Ravenna.&#8221;  Lovely Lane, then, combines two architectural styles &mdash; a fourth-century basilica with a 12th-century tower.  Of <i>course<\/i> the tower looked wrong.  It was supposed to.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112228.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth wp-image-30717\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sign out front says they give tours.  I may have to visit sometime and take the tour.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1600\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112326.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-30719\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Satisfied, I resumed my walk toward Hopkins for the Women&#8217;s March in  Baltimore.  A few block away I turned and took another shot of the church&#8217;s formless tower, disappearing into the mists of a foggy January day.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/20170121_112747.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter size-fullwidth wp-image-30721\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I mentioned in yesterday&#8217;s post about the Women&#8217;s March in Baltimore that I stopped along the way and took pictures of churches. It&#8217;s something of a hobby of mine. Sacred architecture speaks to the better angels of our nature, a monument to the human need for community that spans decades and centuries. Most of the<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=30720\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Photographing a Baltimore Church&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4554,424,4553],"class_list":["post-30720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-architecture","tag-baltimore","tag-lovely-lane-united-methodist-church","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}