Dallas isn’t known for an adventurous taste in architecture; it has always been a business-oriented place that prizes the conventional. An exception is its religious architecture, which stands out all the more for the city’s more prosaic building tradition. From its earliest days to the present, congregations of all faiths have looked to architecture for visual transcendence.
With that in mind, here are 15 of the region’s most interesting, innovative, beautiful and quirky works of sacred architecture. (Read on for a bonus, as well.)
The Guadalupe Cathedral in the Dallas Arts District.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
Guadalupe Cathedral, Nicholas Clayton, architect, 1902.
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A resplendent Victorian pile that holds its place in the Arts District.
2215 Ross Ave., Dallas
Highland Park United Methodist Church.
Ben Torres / Special Contributor
Highland Park United Methodist Church, Mark Lemmon, architect, 1926.
Gothic Revival done beautifully on land donated by Southern Methodist University.
3300 Mockingbird Lane, Dallas
Little Chapel in the Woods, Denton.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
Little Chapel in the Woods, O’Neil Ford, architect, 1939.
A charmer on the Denton campus of Texas Woman’s University, an elegant box with dramatic parabolic arches.
415 Chapel Drive, Denton
Fifth Church, Dallas.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, George Dahl, architect, 1952.
An absolutely impeccable work of midcentury design by the city’s most prolific architect. A study in architectural clarity.
5655 Northwest Highway, Dallas
Temple Emanu-El, at 8500 Hillcrest Road in Dallas. (Jan Sonnenmair/Staff File)
Temple Emanu-El, Howard Meyer, architect, 1957.
A magisterial work of modern design with stained glass by Gyorgy Kepes and an arc by textile artist Anni Albers. The main sanctuary is a mystical space of immense power, with a smaller, secondary sanctuary in a restrained and limpid modernism. A third sanctuary, recently designed in Scandinavian style by architect Gary Cunningham, is also a winner.
8500 Hillcrest Road, Dallas
St. Pius X Catholic Church, Dallas.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
St. Pius X Catholic Church, George Dahl & John Barthel, architects, 1959.
This singular building could easily have been named the Church of the Holy Protractor given the architects’ delightful obsession with circles and semicircles.
3030 Gus Thomasson Road, Dallas
Exterior view of St. Stephen United Methodist Church, in Mesquite.
Charles Davis Smith FAIA / Charles Davis Smith – FAIA
St. Stephen United Methodist Church, Pratt, Box & Henderson, architects, 1962.
How did this woozy work of modernism, clearly inspired by Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Ronchamp, end up in suburban Mesquite? A progressive congregation begat one of the region’s most progressive structures.
2520 Oates Drive, Mesquite
St. John’s Episcopal Church, O’Neil Ford and Arch Swank, 1963.
Robert Meckfessel / Robert Meckfessel
St. John’s Episcopal Church, O’Neil Ford and Arch Swank, 1963.
The unique sanctuary ringed by vertical brick cylinders blends tradition and modernity in an unusual (for Dallas) wooded setting.
848 Harter Road, Dallas
First Unitarian Church, in Highland Park.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
First Unitarian Church, Harwell Hamilton Harris, architect, 1964.
A white box along Preston Road with detailing inspired by Louis Sullivan’s rural bank buildings and Frank Lloyd Wright’s textile block houses.
4015 Normandy Ave., Dallas
St. Jude Chapel, Dallas.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
St. Jude Chapel, Eugene Boerder, architect, mosaic by Gyorgy Kepes, 1968.
This often overlooked downtown gem is fronted by a resplendent mosaic mural by the Hungarian artist Gyorgy Kepes. Inside it is surprisingly airy.
1521 Main St., Dallas
Pigeons find a haven for roost outside architect Philip Johnson’s chapel at Thanks-Giving Square in Dallas.
Thanks-Giving Square Chapel, Philip Johnson, architect, 1976.
Johnson based the design of this bit of architectural whipped-cream on the historic minaret of the Mosque of Samarra, in Iraq. Why? Who knows, but the spiral cap makes a pleasing mark on the skyline.
1627 Pacific Ave., Dallas
Church of the Incarnation, University of Dallas, Irving.
Mark Lamster / Mark Lamster
Church of the Incarnation, Duane and Jane Landry, 1985.
A beautifully realized chapel in the modern style on the campus of the University of Dallas, in Irving.
1845 E. Northgate Drive, Irving
The outside of the church at the Cistercian abbey at Our Lady of Dallas in Irving. The church was built in 1992 after being designed by a former student of the Cistercian Preparatory School.
ANDY JACOBSOHN/Staff Photographe
Cistercian Abbey Church, Gary Cunningham, architect, 1992.
A masterpiece of regional modernism built of immense stone blocks. Cunningham describes it as “Neo-Romanesque,” but it is decidedly its own thing.
3550 Cistercian Road, Irving
The Interfaith Peace Chapel, a modern masterpiece designed by architect Philip Johnson, sits on the property of the Cathedral of Hope.
Mark Lamster
Interfaith Peace Chapel, Philip Johnson, architect, 2010.
A sweet cloud of a building completed after Johnson’s death for the city’s largest LGBTQ congregation.
5910 Cedar Springs Road, Dallas
Apse view of Saint Sarkis Armenian Church, Carrollton.
Dror Baldinger / David Hotson Architect
St. Sarkis Armenian Orthodox Church, David Hotson, 2022.
Located in suburban Carrollton, an exquisite and deeply moving modern reflection on traditional Armenian design.
4421 Charles St., Carrollton
BONUS
Diners outside in the patio area at Kalachandji’s vegetarian restaurant on Gurley Avenue in east Dallas, on Aug. 28, 2021. Kalachandji’s is one of Dallas’ last buffets.
Ben Torres / Special Contributor
Radha Kalachandji Temple (originally, Mount Auburn Christian Church), c. 1940. Remade as the Kalachandji temple in 1981.
The courtyard seating is lovely on a warm (but not too warm) day, but the reason to visit this Christian church adapted to a Hare Krishna temple is the legendary Indian buffet. Don’t miss the fried potatoes with bitter melon.
5430 Gurley Ave., Dallas
What is that?! The most radical church in Texas gets a facelift
Mesquite’s St. Stephen United Methodist Church, an icon of organic modernism, is restored to its original grandeur.
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