Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Crosse, Wis.

March 5, 2009

Outside, the Shrine Church for the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, dedicated last July, incorporates a classic Renaissance Italian aesthetic with a hint of Mexico, as befits a pilgrimage church dedicated to what Catholics believe is the apparition of the Virgin Mary to Juan Diego in Mexico in 1531.
Inside, however, the look is pure Italian, reduced to a smaller scale without cutting any richness from the appointments. Anchoring the interior is a selection of European marbles, with some more practical granites discretely chosen mainly for their ability to handle harsh Wisconsin winters.

SINGULAR VISION
The presence of the church – in fact the existence of the entire Shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe – owes itself to the vision of one man: Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, currently the Rome-based Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, served as bishop of the La Crosse diocese from 1994-2003.
“He was very hands-on, attending to every detail,” says Jack Socha, La Crosse-based manager of external communication for the shrine of the archbishop. “However, the shrine isn’t about him. His hand has definitely been in a lot of it, but it’s a gift to the people of the diocese and the greater community.”
Initially, Socha says Archbishop Burke’s idea had been for a shrine in honor of Our Lady of Fatima. Then, a visit to Mexico by Pope John Paul II reaffirmed that Our Lady of Guadalupe was the patroness of all the Americas, changing his perception of the shrine.
At about the same time, a La Crosse-area family donated 70 acres of property for the project (an additional 30 acres has since been purchased), which then began to generate interest and support, including financial donations.
“Once people had something they could look at and say, ‘This is where it’s going to be,’ it got off to a substantial start,” says Socha. “The shrine is privately incorporated and, as such, is not part of the Diocese of La Crosse infrastructure. The cost of the construction and continued operations of the shrine complex are funded 100-percent by private donations received from all over the United States.
That’s why the property has been developed in phases. First to be constructed, following a 2001 groundbreaking, were the Pilgrim Center (with a café and gift shop), and the Mother of Good Counsel Votive Candle Chapel. An outdoor Stations of the Cross was dedicated eight months after the groundbreaking for the Shrine Church in May 2004. In December 2007, an outdoor Rosary Walk was dedicated.
As for the design of the Shrine Church, Socha believes the ultimate influence was the time the archbishop spent studying and serving in Rome throughout his career.
“I have noticed the various priests and seminarians who have been over there come back with a different aesthetic appreciation than those of us who haven’t been to Rome,” he says. “I think that after you’ve spent time around things that are hundreds of years old and have stood the test of time, you get an appreciation for those types of materials.”

MONUMENTAL CHALLENGE
To help the archbishop turn his vision into a reality, he selected Duncan Stroik, principal of Stroik Architects LLC. The South Bend, Ind.-based firm specializes in designing new Catholic churches.
“We do this type of work all over the country,” Stroik says. “There are certainly many Catholic churches inspired by the classical tradition, but this is the most-monumental and -important one we’ve ever done.”
Stroik explains that he was chosen for the task by the archbishop, whom he met at the University of Notre Dame, where Stroik is a professor of architecture.
“First, he asked me for advice on the Shrine Church, and then he asked me to be involved in it,” Stroik says.
The architect says he believes the archbishop’s vision of the church was for a pilgrimage church that is, in Stroik’s word, “Glorious.”
“This is a place for people to go to draw inspiration and strength for daily living,” he explains. “Because it’s a pilgrim church, it’s not like a normal Catholic parish where people are coming every Sunday. It’s supposed to draw people to it, and part of that is through its extraordinary sense of beauty and proportion and art.”
The visibility of the structure and its hillside location also played a role in the exterior appearance, and certainly drove the desire for a dome and a tower.
“It then became a question of balancing those vertical elements while making the building – on the exterior – in a sense, sculptural,” says Stroik. “There was also a desire to use materials to relate to the other buildings on the site.”
Michael Swinghamer, of LaCrosse-based River Architects, served as the architect-of-record for the Shrine Church. He’s been involved with every phase of the shrine, and helped do the master planning for the site; he agrees with Stroik that the goal was to make the church the gem of the project.
“The exterior of the church is all made of stone from the United States, and the roofing tile is the same as was used at the visitors’ center,” he says. “The stone picks up the stone used on the votive church, but that was done on a much smaller scale.”
The exterior is a mix of light-colored limestones from Indiana and Wisconsin.
“The idea was to have the church appear like it grew out of the bluff and the stone was quarried from the site,” says Stroik. “Instead, it’s a mix of warm colors from the Midwest. Where the limestone is more-finished – such as at the moldings – it gives good shadow. We didn’t pick one stone; we were interested in a mix of natural and finished stones.”
Even so, Mark Martell, project manager for Fowler and Hammer, the LaCrosse-based general contractor, says it soon looked like the exterior might match the stucco of the visitors’ center.
“The first budget was stone, and then they backed off with that and were going to go with stucco because the stone was high,” Martell says. “However, one day the structural engineer said, ‘It’s like taking a precious gem and putting it into a cardboard box,’ and we very quickly went back to stone.”
Fowler and Hammer served as the installer on the exterior stone, as well. The company does quite a bit of work with brick and has done some natural stone installations in the past.
“The (International) Masonry Institute sent a guy from Italy who came here and showed us how to lay the stone,” says Martell. “He showed about eight of our more-experienced bricklayers how to lay it, and in the end he said it was some of the best stonework he’d seen. At one point, we had 29 bricklayers on the job, but there aren’t many jobs where we do this much stone.”

A PRECIOUS GEM
As for the “precious gem” of the church’s interior, stone is a very strong element.
“Early on, the concept was of a marble interior that would be of the quality and importance of the great churches in Rome,” says architect Stroik. “The concept is marble. The whole interior is marble, although the walls are mainly faux marble and faux gold leaf. We did the floor in marble and a lot of the bases, and of course the altar and the baldacchino (the canopy over the altar) are all in different marbles.”
However, because the Shrine Church pays homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the proportions and dimensions are more in keeping with the Mexican tradition.
Stroik adds that it was important for both him and Archbishop Burke that the marbles used be fairly traditional.
“Not everything is a classic Italian marble, but in general we were not going for the latest marble color that’s been found in India or Guatemala,” Stroik says. “Marbles such as the Carrara Classico and the Carrara Statuario are classic marbles seen in most of the churches in Italy.”
While those stones have their places on the sanctuary floor, they aren’t there alone. The floor also incorporates Bardigilo Chiara, Giallo Reale, Botticino Classico, Tinos Green, Noir St. Laurent, Rosso Levanto, Rosso Portogallo and Breche Nouvelle.
“I love the European tradition of floor patterns in churches,” says Stroik. “In this case, it’s a geometric pattern with framing that lines up with the pilasters. It’s a grid-like pattern that lines up with the architecture and overlaid on that are different shapes: circles, diamonds, lozenges, squares and rectangles, all creating more patterns.”
In addition, the different stones and different patterns are designed to delineate different portions of the floor, such as the transition from the nave to the sanctuary or the side aisles from the main aisle.
“Then, as you go up the stairs, there’s a different marble floor,” Stroik says. “We wanted the altar rail to stand out (it’s a Statuario with strong veining). Then, the piece de resistance is the altar and the baldacchino. We used the same marble (Rouge Du Roi) on the altar as on the base of the tabernacle because we wanted to connect the two things. It’s a deep red, so your eye goes there.”
By comparison, the four baldacchino columns are of Rosso Francia on pedestals of Giallo Siena and Rosso Francia. Stroik describes the columns as more cloudy and more of an orangey-red than the Rouge Du Roi.
“They have a lot of figure,” he says. “The idea was to have a stone that fit with the rest of the interior and yet stands out.”
The other key use of marble is as the backdrops for the sanctuary’s two major shrines: Carrara Classico statuary of the Sacred Heart and of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
“We were looking for something that had the beauty and pattern of the Rosso Francia but that we could book match,” says Stroik. “We used Rosso Francia and Arabescato Orobico because they’re special marbles and they’re used for special things.”
The only place where Stroik didn’t follow tradition with his marble is in the narthex – the main entry to the building. In that case, practicality and the snow and dirt of Wisconsin winters prompted a decision to use a mix of Santa Cecelia, Carmen Red and Venetian Gold granites.
“The Italians were horrified, but people will be here 12 months a year, and December 12 is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe,” says Stroik. “After debating the pros and cons, we made a decision early to use granite in the lobby. It has a similar pattern and a similar feeling, but granite’s a much-harder material and – for the lobby – can take a beating. It also provides a transition from the outside to the inside.”

FULL RESPONSIBILITY
Given the sheer amount of stone involved, and the intricacies of it, taking Stroik’s ideas and translating them into reality wasn’t a job for just any stone fabricator/installer. The project found the artistry it needed in St. Paul, Minn.-based Twin City Tile & Marble Co.
Twin City’s Joe Becker says there’s nothing particular surprising about his company’s involvement. It found the project from a recommendation, and, “We don’t usually travel out of state, but we’ve done work four or five hours away, and this is definitely up our alley. A lot of what we do involves higher-end European stone.”
While Stroik says he and River Architects’ Swinghamer were very involved with the selection of the contractor and the subs, some firms – Twin City was one – were brought in as early as 2004 to help develop budgets for the project.
“They looked to us to get help with details and installation ideas, and what stones were suitable for different application,” says Becker. “We did two rounds of budget exercises with them, and as things went on, stone dropped down the budget.”
However, he adds, that’s not atypical of these projects and, as with traditional European churches, stone is often replaced with paint and plaster. An initial desire to use Mexican stone, where possible, also gave way to reality, although a Mexican marble was used on the pilaster bases in the narthex.
“I don’t know if it would even be possible to get the details they wanted with Mexican stone,” Becker says. “Duncan Stroik and his staff are very knowledgeable about stones, and we fine-tuned what we wanted on our first trip to Italy.”
Even then, Becker says it wasn’t a given that Twin City would get the job. Church officials were planning to buy the stone themselves and have someone supply the labor, mainly to save on mark-ups and fees. However, it’s a plan both Becker and Fowler and Hammer’s Martell opposed.
“Obviously, we bid the whole job,” says Martell. “Half the suppliers had the stone at a port in Italy and it wasn’t even in a crate. Twin City has people over there, and we would never have gotten it done without them.”
Becker says not only was it important to him to have the Italian fabricator (with whom the company has a history) doing the work, but it was the only way his company would bid the project.
“I said, ‘I want to take full responsibility for everything; I don’t want to have to argue down the line when things are wrong and we have to field cut them and argue over who’s going to pay for it,’” Becker says. “We included everything, and when they added it all up, we were lower by supplying the whole package.”
Compared with the bidding process and the development of the shop drawings, which took the better part of a year, installation of the project was fairly straightforward. Becker says Twin City had a crew of anywhere from eight to a dozen craftsmen at the site from the spring of 2007 right up through the end of that year.
The biggest challenge was raising the columns, and Becker says it was quite a dramatic day when the first of them went up.
“The columns are 14’ tall and weigh about 6,500 lbs each, and they were running about a month late,” he explains. “When the first one came in, we set it, even though it was a Sunday. I have never been involved with anything that large before, with that much risk. This was inside, and we had to engineer a scaffolding system on rails to lower it into place.
“When it came down on the column base, there was a big sigh of relief.”
Much of the rest of the job was pretty straightforward, Becker says, with few cuts onsite. And, because nothing else was more than 4’ above the floor, it’s no wonder the columns were the real challenge.
“We started at the sanctuary, and worked our way toward the back door,” he says. “Eight guys kept pace with the containers coming in, and luckily the architects and contractor were well-organized and got us in there as soon as possible.”
The only rush came at the end, last December, when dusty work had to be completed so the organ could be installed. Still, Becker says it’s not like other church work Twin City has done.
“It’s kind of overwhelming to go into it now,” he says. “I like to look at the details and remember how it’s put together. Unfortunately, the pews hide the stone floor, but the focal point is the columns and the altar and that’s the way it should be.”
Both the shrine’s Socha and River Architects’ Swinghamer stress that the Shrine Church is just one more piece in an on-going project. A memorial to the unborn is slated to be dedicated late this fall, and a convent and a retreat center are among other ideas becoming considered.
Swinghamer says he enjoys visiting the Shrine Church and hearing the comments from visitors.
“It’s just an incredible interior,” he says. “It’s a very positive space, very spiritual and quiet.”
Fowler and Hammer’s Martell agrees. He says the people who installed the organ called it one of the prettiest buildings they’ve worked in.
“I think everybody loves it,” he says. “It’s a very neat place, and people who see it keep coming back. I think you could come back 100 times, and still see something different.”

Client: Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Crosse, Wis.
Design Architect: Stroik Architects LLC, South Bend, Ind.
Architect of Record: River Architects, La Crosse, Wis.
Contractor: Fowler & Hammer Inc., La Crosse, Wis.
Interior Stone Supplier/Installer: Twin City Tile and Marble Co., St. Paul, Minn.