page_title: Gerard Goalen
section_title: Our Lady of Fatima
hierarchical_section_title: Gerard Goalen / Church architecture / Our Lady of Fatima
caption_attribution_description: English: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic church built 1958-60 was closed for 4 years to reburbish the pre-stressed concrete structure. The architect was Gerald Goalen.
context_page_description: Gerard Goalen BArch, FRIBA, AMPTPI was a noted 20th century British architect who specialised in church architecture and was influenced by continental models and the Liturgical Movement. He was one of the most important architects of the Catholic Modernist movement in the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: Our Lady of Fatima, Harlow, is a Grade II listed Roman Catholic Church designed by Gerard Goalen in 1953-4. The brief was for a church that could hold 500 parishioners, set as close as possible to a free-standing altar. The sanctuary was to be generously sized. Goalen was recommended for the job by his boss at Harlow New Town Development, Frederick Gibberd. Building started in 1958 and was completed in 1960. The church is built in reinforced concrete and Surrey stock bricks. The roof is clad in copper, with concrete and asphalt for the aisles. The 84-foot central spire is made of plywood sheathed in copper.
  "For the church the architect, Mr. Gerard Goalen, has drawn up plans for a building with three naves, walls of coloured glass to give a warm internal radiance and a strictly liturgical layout."
  — 3 Mary Churches for Harlow, "Catholic Herald"
  Goalen also designed the tabernacle and high altar candlesticks and cross. A model of the church was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1956 and the church was extremely influential. Proctor and Gillick argued that the liturgical movement was a significant influence in this church and that was also closely related to the egalitarian social aims of post-war modern urban planning in Harlow.
  The church cost £60,000 to build, and the Catholic Review noted it owed much "to the generosity of Fr. Burgess's parents". It was one of the first post-war churches to break away from the traditional longitudinal plan, being T-shaped, with the sanctuary at the central crossing. The church's reinforced concrete frame allows for large areas of dalle de verre by Dom Charles Norris, an early use of this medium. The church was extremely influential, with Andrew Derrick crediting it with influencing Frederick Gibberd's winning entry for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
  The building was not without its critics. The architect Robert Maguire, writing in the Ecclesiology Today (Issue 27, January 2002) commented: "Gerard Goalen's 'T'-shaped church of Our Lady of Fatima at Harlow, resplendent with its Buckfast Abbey glass. My only serious criticism of this – and it is serious – is that God's Holy People are divided, like All Gaul, into three parts."
  It closed in 2001–2005 in order for £500,000 of repairs to be made to the glass in its walls. In December 2017 it was reported in the local press that the church had to be closed while repairs were made to the spire. It had previously had to close for work to be carried out on its concrete infrastructure.
caption: Our Lady of Fatima, Catholic Church, 1960
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:10:21 15:47:04", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-P100", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2006:10:21 15:47:04", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2442", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5022", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:10:21 15:47:04", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:10:21 15:47:04", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "79/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "960", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2236"}