Church of St. Bernadette
The Church of St. Bernadette was one of the modern churches designed by pioneer architect Alfred Wong in the 1950s and 1960s. It was completed in 1961, the same year as the Church of St. Ignatius (1961-1990s), which was also designed by Wong, It too had an unusual plan: a compressed hexagon that looks like a diamond. This shortened the distance between the entry and the altar and created an unusual seating plan. While the seats in the middle portion are parallel to the entry walls, those on the sides are perpendicular and had the effect of “perspectival foreshortening”, according to architectural historian Raymond Quek.¹ Wong’s use of geometry to create a sense of greater lay participation in the church’s liturgy was a strategy that modern Catholic churches around the world were starting to adopt, and later formalised in the recommendations of the Second Vatican Council.² Besides its atypical plan, the Church of St. Bernadette is also supported by steel beams and the roof at the sanctuary is increased by a projecting volume above the main pitched roof. A skeletal steeple on top of the volume creates a vertical accentuation on the exterior.
Locations: 12 Zion Rd, Singapore 247731
Architects: Alfred Wong
Year: 1961
Status: Conserved
¹ Raymond Quek, “The Modernisation of the Catholic Church: 4 Churches by Alfred Wong 1958–1961,” Singapore Architect 200 (1998).
² Robert Proctor, Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955-1975 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014), 4-5, 54-55.
Last modified on 4 May 2021. Description by Chang Jiat Hwee, edited by Justin Zhuang.
