Monument to St John Henry Newman
The Blessed Cardinal Newman is to be made a saint in Autumn 2019. This white concrete monumental Ciborium (or Baldacchino, part of our competition winning proposals for Westminster Cathedral Piazza from 2011), is designed in honour of this event, and would sit in front of Westminster Cathedral on Victoria Street in London. It is modelled on the Baldacchino in St Peter’s in Rome, which Pope Urban VIII commissioned from GL Bernini in the 17th Century, to mark the grave of the first Bishop of Rome. Bernini’s Baldacchino acted as a setting for poets and musicians; as a sort of festive cosmic gateway. Our proposal houses a drinking fountain at its base. The crown above has an ornamental pattern cast on all four faces, with round niches waiting to accept stone-carved Tondos of future English saints (roughly one every 400 years at the current rate, making this a project with a 1,600 year construction period). One face, facing into the piazza, will accommodate a stone Bas Relief sculpture of Saint John Henry Newman. This would be a separate artistic commission. On sunny days, a stained-glass disk, situated within the dome, will project trans-illumination (coloured light), onto the structure and people below.
