Construction Tour: The View Baptist Church

A regular feature of Building Technology courses at SIUC is a site visit. This spring, ARC 342: Building Technology III (Steel), visited the construction site of The View Baptist Church in Carbondale, Illinois.

The church was designed by Architect Thad Heckman of DesignWorks in Carbondale. Mr. Heckman teaches one of the three lab sections of ARC 342 this spring. The 18,000 sf church building replaces the original First Baptist Church in downtown Carbondale. Those familiar with the building know it as the large stone Romanesque Revival building with the rose windows. As you can see in the image above, Mr. Heckman paid homage to the original church design in the forms used for the new church.

The spire on the northwest corner of the building points toward the original location of First Baptist in downtown Carbondale. The new church building is located on South Giant City Road. The original stained glass windows of the church have been transplanted and used in the new building, as shown in the image below.

The sanctuary of the new church is tuned to the acoustics of the human voice. The SIUC School of Music will present a choir performance in June in the sanctuary.

Thanks to Thad Heckman for arranging and guiding ARC 342 students through the church!