Commanding silence
CONFRONTING everyone as they walk through the west doorway of Llandaff Cathedral is an unforgettable—and to the first-time visitor—completely unexpected sight. Dominating the interior without obstructing the main vista is a great parabolic arch in hammered concrete supporting a standing figure of Christ in Majesty (Fig 1). It springs straight through the Gothic order of this monumental interior, clearly distinct from it, yet unifying the space. The combined creation of architect George Pace and sculptor Jacob Epstein, it is only the most celebrated intervention in a restoration project prompted by the devastation of this building by a landmine on January 2, 1941.
As described last week, before the 20th century, Llandaff Cathedral had an unusually complex architectural history. The majority of the fabric damaged by the landmine blast was Victorian (Fig 5). That probably explains why the complete restoration of the building was never in question. In this regard, it is intriguing to contrast the treatment of Llandaff with Coventry Cathedral, where the ruins of the medieval church famously became an architectural pendant to its modern successor.
At Llandaff, services were briefly removed from the building altogether, but, by
