Image: Austin History Center
Perhaps Austin’s most striking modernist house of worship in the downtown area, the vaulted roof of St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church stands as a timeless example of local midcentury architecture at 606 West 15th Street.
Completed in 1960, the church fuses old and new by incorporating the ancient historical form of a Gothic cathedral’s vaulted basilica, adapted in modern fashion by architect Robert Mather of local firm Jessen Jessen Millhouse and Greeven — the structure represents the ability of the most successful modernist designs in marrying tradition with progress, pleasing the eyes of nearly everyone along the way. That includes the Texas Historical Commission, which will consider the church’s application for admission to the National Register of Historic Places later this year at its September 17 State Board of Review meeting.
Image: Austin History Center
The defining visual element of the building’s exterior is the thin barrel vault in the middle third of the roof. Floating above masonry walls and resting on the steel frame, the thin white roof resembles the thin-shell concrete buildings typical of its time. However, the delicacy with which the semi-circular barrel vault rests on the projecting steel beams (rather than the beams running parallel to the springing) and the sharp, unreinforced angle formed between the vault and the rest of the roof suggest another structural solution. The construction drawings indicate Mather used off-the-shelf Stran-Steel Quonset hut ribs to form the barrel vault. Beating swords into plow shares, this was an innovative use of a mass-produced war-time product attempting to find post-war civilian applications.
— National Register of Historic Places Application, St. Martin’s Evangelical Lutheran Church
Besides its impressive vaulted design, one of the most notable aspects of St. Martin’s is its stained glass windows by German church architects Dominikus and Gottfried Böhm, noted by the national register application as some of the few American creations by these designers — the exterior sculptures on the church sanctuary hail from a bit closer to home, by noted sculptor and adopted Austinite Charles Umlauf.
An application for historic status virtually never reaches the State Board of Review’s agenda without securing approval, so the upcoming vote in September is essentially a formality — even without the historical background or notable names attached to the church’s design, a simple view from the street ought to tell you this is a special building, worthy of recognition as one of the city’s lesser-known architectural gems.
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