The Architecture

A guide to the design and architectural features of our heritage-listed church.

St Joseph's Catholic Church is widely regarded as the finest work of architect Kevin J. Curtin in Canberra, and one of the most significant Catholic churches in Australia. This page describes the building's key architectural features. To read about the history of its construction, the lottery that funded it, the artworks, and the 2007 fire and restoration, visit Our Church page.

The Site

St Joseph's Catholic Church stands on a site with a northern frontage along Boronia Drive, O'Connor, adjacent to St Joseph's Catholic Primary School and Convent. Other boundaries run along Macarthur Avenue to the south and Hovea Street to the west. The circular building sits on a square platform, around which are uncoursed bluestone retaining and balustrade walls, crafted by Croatian parishioners. The church enjoys a generous setback on all three street frontages, with landscaped grounds on these sides and a car park on its eastern side. The ground plan can be interpreted as the embodiment of the external outline of a Celtic Cross, a personal touch insisted upon by the founding parish priest, Fr. William O'Shea.

Ecclesiastical Style

St Joseph's is an example of the radical stream of church design known as the Late Twentieth-Century Ecclesiastical Style (1960–). This style was characterised by a shift away from the heavily symbolic forms of earlier church architecture towards a focus on the gathered community and the ministry of the Word. It saw post-war religious architecture move away from medieval forms, permitting freer expression while retaining a strong vertical emphasis. St Joseph's embodies this style through its circular plan, its dramatic manipulation of shape and space, and its emphasised verticality culminating in the tower and spire.

The tower and spire

Tower & Spire

The tower rises from the centre of the roof, surmounted by a tall metal Celtic Cross, a second Celtic Cross to complement the one encoded in the building's ground plan. Curtin solved the challenge of roofing a circular nave in a highly innovative way: four kite-shaped roof elements slope up from the corners of the surrounding square platform to meet at the square pyramidal tower. Glazing at the apex and narrow central panels on each side of the tower allow daylight to pour into the centre of the church and through the stained glass ceiling panels below.

The circular nave is kept free of ancillary spaces by locating these in four projecting wings, preserving the integrity and openness of the interior. The generous sanctuary allows the altar to be positioned well towards the centre of the circle, drawing the congregation close.

Nave & Walls

The four walls of the nave between the wings consist entirely of panels of stained glass, filling the interior with colour and light. The arrangement of the nave ceiling, timber boarding between the four stained glass walls and the tower, with grey painted plaster sheeting reflecting the kite-shaped roof elements, responds inventively to the unusual roof structure above it.

Four wings with walls and sloping bluestone buttresses project beyond the circle towards the corners of the square. The main entrance is via the north-west narthex wing, on the axis of the nave and sanctuary. The church can also be entered via a porch on the north-east corner, between the parish office and St Vincent de Paul rooms, and via a porch on the south-west corner, between the toilets and confessionals. On the south-east corner, behind the reredos of the sanctuary, are the sacristy and work sacristy.

Ceiling

Rosary carvings

Pitched Roof & Rosary Carvings

The pitched roof, clad in bronze-coloured ribbed steel decking, has four kite-shaped elements which slope up from the corners of the square to the central pyramidal tower. The roof over the narthex projects further than the other three elements to provide a porte-cochere at the main entrance. This origami-like arrangement of folded planes projecting dramatically in four directions has drawn comparisons to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, particularly his Madison Unitarian Church and William H. Danforth Chapel, which share a similar quality of folded, prow-like rooflines integrated with stone bases.

Internally, the nave has pews facing the sanctuary, which is stepped up on two levels. On the upper level is the altar, positioned well forward of the timber screen reredos, with carvings of the rosary and a raised central section bearing a carved wooden crucifix. A passage behind the reredos leads to the sacristies. On the lower level of the sanctuary are the font, pulpit and the Blessed Sacrament.

The Annunciation

Stained Glass from Ireland

The stained glass of St Joseph's is one of its most celebrated features. The four large wall panels that form the nave walls fill the circular interior with rich colour. The tower above the altar focuses brilliant light down onto the sanctuary below through stained glass ceiling panels.

The stained glass panels flanking the sanctuary are predominantly blue on the east and red on the south. Within the eastern panel are two windows made by Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd of Dublin, 'The Annunciation' and 'St Joseph and the Young Christ', commissioned in 1972 and installed in 1973. The large windows at the front of the church were designed by distinguished Australian artist Leonard French, whose geometric compositions were conceived as a complement to the Harry Clarke windows' traditional figurative style.