Downtown Presbyterian Church

              When my group discussed our feelings on the Egyptian architecture in the church, many different opinions arose.  Some people in my group were under the impression that for a place of worship (let alone Christian worship) to have any representation of a belief system that honored numerous gods was simply unacceptable and therefore not visually appealing.  Others in my group formed their opinions of the church's architecture completely separate from the building's purpose, and looked at it in a very non-objective way.  Personally, I chose to observe the church's architecture as a separate entity of its identity, and then critically question why a place of Christian worship would have been in favor of decorating its building in such a way.
               The architecture was most effective in transporting the visitor from downtown Nashville to a place across the Atlantic Ocean.  Certain techniques employed by the architect to achieve this visual effect were: showing large columns painted in perspective along the back wall, creating blue skies in the squares of the coffered ceiling, and including papyrus, lotus, and other river plants in the illustration of the stained glass windows.  The color palette was very specific to not only the time period that this style refers to, but the cultural origins that it stemmed from.  The main colors used in this design were: mustard yellow, greyish teal, bright blue, pink, and reddish browns.  The most occurring shapes in this building's design were triangles and trapezoids, which created a very geometric look.  Although curved lines were not typically found in the main structures built in ancient Egypt, they were sparingly included in the case of the illustration of Lotus or other flowers.