Matthew Alderman - Furnishing Design & Interior Concepts
Matthew Alderman is the founder of Matthew Alderman Studios and a graduate of the prestigious traditional architecture and design program at the University of Notre Dame. As furnishing designer and interior consultant, he works closely with the other members of the design team to develop concepts for the altar, baldachin and other sanctuary furnishings and help select colors, patterns and materials for the new church's interior. In doing this, he draws on his extensive knowledge of historic church furnishing and liturgical planning gained through study, work and extensive travel.
While at Notre Dame, he studied under Thomas Gordon Smith and Duncan Stroik, two of the foremost church architects today, and won the Rambusch Prize for Religious Architecture for his thesis design. From 2006-2009 he designed a new set of furnishings, including altar, tabernacle stand, ambry, font and a forty-foot-tall organ case, for the historic Most Holy Mother of God Catholic Church in Vladivostok, Russia, recently restored and rededicated to sacred use. The project was reported in Sacred Architecture and Catholic World Report. In 2010-2011, he designed an altarpiece and shrines for a Catholic church restoration in the Rocky Mountains, and is also currently serving as design consultant for the exterior and chapel interior of the proposed new building for St. Paul's University Catholic Center in Madison, Wisconsin.
Matthew is also an accomplished illustrator, having produced numerous line art images, logos, bookplates, and other graphics for private collectors and insitutions across four continents. He has also undertaken the design of a tapestry, holy cards, and the packaging for two CD releases. Most recently, he produced a series of 15 original illustrations for the Liturgy Training Publications (LTP) edition of the Revised Roman Missal depicting events from Scripture and Salvation History connected with the great feasts of the liturgical year.
In addition to his artistic work, Matthew frequently writes on art and architecture in the Catholic press, is the architectural correspondent for the New Liturgical Movement news website. His art, design and writing have been featured in Dappled Things, First Things, Second Spring, Saint Austin Review, Antiphon, Sacred Architecture Journal, and The Christian Century. A list of his publications, with links to online editions of his work, can be found here. He has spoken at the 2006 Anglican Use Society National Conference and the 2008 Society for Catholic Liturgy National Conference, and has given presentations to the members of several monastic foundations, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary and Thomas More College in Merrimack, New Hampshire.
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