Catholic Business Spotlight

Architect designs with church’s ‘evolving’ needs in mind

By Tim Puet
Catholic Times Reporter

Architect Peter Krajnak says that when he designs a new church or works on renovating an existing one, he’s thinking beyond the immediate needs of the church’s current members.

“No congregation is static,” he said. “A church always is evolving. It has a past that goes back generations and sometimes centuries. It also has a future. When my architectural firm designs a new church or transforms an old one, we talk to the pastor and members of the congregation so that we can find out where they’ve been and who they are now, and who they may be becoming.

“We learn something from every congregation. By understanding the history of the congregation and its members, we can integrate elements from their past into the design of their future spaces. This challenges them to think forward, while comforting them with reminders of their past.”

Krajnak and fellow architect Darryl Rogers are the principals of Rogers Krajnak Architects, Inc., which they founded in 2001. Krajnak said the two were neighbors in Bexley for some time before realizing they both are architects. Their firm has seven employees and has been located since 2005 in a former muffler shop that they renovated at 264 S. 3rd St. in downtown Columbus. Krajnak previously had been with Feinknopf Macioce Schappa Architects in Columbus for 20 years and spent a year on the design staff at Walt Disney World.

He has been involved with the design or renovation of about 80 churches of various Christian denominations, as well as with synagogues and seminaries, including the Pontifical College Josephinum, the Methodist Theological School-Ohio in Delaware and Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus. He also has completed projects for mission-based clients, including the Mid-Ohio Food Collective in Grove City and Lifeline of Ohio’s building in Columbus.

Krajnak, 60, the son of Gene and Donna Krajnak of Worthington, grew up as a member of Worthington St. Michael Church. His father died last March, just when the effects of the coronavirus pandemic were starting to be felt. The family hopes to have a celebration of life for him in the summer.  

Peter Krajnak is a graduate of Columbus Bishop Watterson High School, where he said he first realized his calling was architecture. “The subjects I enjoyed most were math, science and art,” he said. “Architecture is a creative balancing of technical, scientific and artistic skills. It just seemed a natural for me. The University of Cincinnati’s architectural school had the most opportunities for internships of any college in Ohio, so I went to UC to take advantage of its co-op program.”

One of those internships was at Feinknopf Macioce Schappa, which was founded in 1928 and remains one of Columbus’ most prominent architectural firms. “Andy Macioce was my mentor,” Krajnak said. “I owe a lot of my design skills to Andy by listening to how he led conversations in meetings and on phone calls and how he did his architectural sketches.”

Much of his early knowledge of liturgical architecture came from working with Macioce on a variety of church projects. His first such project was an interior renovation of St. Mary, Mother of God Church in Columbus’ German Village neighborhood in the early 1980s with the late Msgr. Ralph Huntzinger, the parish’s pastor at the time. The church has been remodeled several times in its 153-year history and had a nearly complete makeover in 2016 and 2017 after a lightning strike in August 2016.

Other Columbus diocesan churches where Krajnak’s designs have been incorporated include Columbus St. Joseph Cathedral, St. Andrew, St. Catharine and St. Francis of Assisi; Dublin St. Brigid of Kildare; Worthington St. Michael; Danville St. Luke; and Marysville Our Lady of Lourdes. 

Area non-Catholic churches for which he has provided architectural services include Trinity Episcopal,  Broad Street Presbyterian and Broad Street United Methodist in Columbus and the United Methodist Church of the Messiah in Westerville.

“One of my most memorable commissions was the design of St. Andrew Church,” Krajnak said. “The parish was founded in 1955, and the congregation had been worshiping in a ‘temporary’ location for 40 years. Msgr. Frank Lane was the pastor there, and I knew him as a longtime friend of our family. 

“He told me that St. Andrew needed to build a church, and he wanted me to be the architect. When I asked him about the process for submitting a design in competition with other architects, he said, ‘No, I specifically want you to design the church.’

“He said the bishop had instructed him to build a large church which could seat 1,000 people but where everyone still would feel a personal connection to the Mass. Through the course of his studies in Europe, Msgr. Lane had visited several large churches that were successful in accommodating both corporate and individual connection to the liturgy. He suggested that we study them, so off we went to Germany, Austria and France, where we spent 10 days touring 66 churches.

“I took the best ideas from those churches and designed a church with many unique elements which reflected Msgr. Lane’s vision,” Krajnak said. 

“Some of those elements include a slightly sloped floor and slightly angled pews to provide great sightlines and make the worship space feel more intimate, even for people sitting in the back pews; bringing significant daylight into the nave (the east facade features 3,000 feet of stained glass); grounding the sanctuary with a strong visual and acoustical backdrop by creating a stone wall that incorporates the tabernacle and frames the church’s crucifix above; and warming the building up with a wood ceiling and arched beams overhead.”

Krajnak’s design to transform a former mattress factory into the Mid-Ohio Foodbank, now known as the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, was focused on showcasing the organization’s mission.  

“Our goal in designing that building was to understand the culture of the food bank and create the right kind of environment for that culture to thrive,” Krajnak said. “The design also has a built-in expandability, which was needed as the collective increased its annual food distribution from 28 million pounds in 2009 to almost 70 million pounds today. The building is evolving as the organization evolves. It is distributing a lot more fresh produce, and the building has been able to adapt to that.”

The Lifeline of Ohio building, on Kinnear Road near Ohio State University, also showcases the mission of the agency that occupies it. Lifeline promotes and coordinates the donation of human organs and tissue for transplants. 

“One of the most impactful parts of that project is a memorial to organ and tissue donors which includes a permanent display of the names of donors who have given the gift of life,” Krajnak said. “It’s a very inspiring, spiritual space located in front of the building, visible by drivers on State Route 315, passers-by, organ recipients, donor families and Lifeline’s staff. It’s very important that the memorial is there, especially for the staff, because it reminds them that their day-to-day tasks, while stressful, are saving lives.”

Krajnak and his wife, Ann, attend St. Catharine Church, have been married for 30 years and have three sons in their mid-20s. He is the chairman of his parish’s art and environment committee, and in his spare time, he has an architectural sort of hobby – building creative birdhouses and giving them away. His most recent birdhouse will hang above his father’s grave and features a cross made of model railroad tracks, honoring Gene Krajnak’s love of model railroading and his lifelong faith.

Peter Krajnak has been part of the diocesan Catholic Men’s Ministry for six years, beginning his involvement with the organization when St. Catharine was the host parish for the diocesan Catholic Men’s Conference at the state fairgrounds.

He is the director of this year’s conference, which will take place Saturday, Feb. 27 and will be unlike any of the 23 conferences that preceded it because it will be occurring virtually, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. More than 30 parishes in the diocese will serve as viewing sites for the event, with additional viewing sites at parishes in other Ohio dioceses. Participants also can watch at home.

 “We won’t have 3,000 people at one place for the conference, but I’m excited about having viewers registered from beyond our diocese – from 17 states including Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan and California, and even from Ontario and Ireland. We anticipate having more men participating in the conference than ever before,” Krajnak said.

“Word is spreading about the quality of the conference video, a pre-recorded format which will allow people to have access to the messages from the conference at any time, well after it concludes.”

Last year’s conference took place just before the pandemic halted large gatherings. “When we started planning this year’s event, we realized how uncertain the future was going to be and knew we didn’t want to be making plans for two possible conferences – one which would be an in-person event while the other would be online,” Krajnak said. “We went ahead with what we thought would be the safest plan, to make it all online. That proved to be the wisest choice.

“It took a lot of coordination to put together a video which could be distributed throughout the diocese and be available across the nation by Feb. 27. The conference video includes talks from Chris Stefanick, Devin Schadt, Father Donald Calloway and Bishop Robert Brennan, each of whom recorded their talks in different places; several segments from endorsing ministries; plus some fabulous music from The Neumann Project of Sunbury St. John Neumann Church to weave all these messages together. 

“With the efforts of a great conference planning team, everything worked out, and we are looking forward to the chance for the men of the diocese to see how the conference will reflect its theme, ‘Called to Be Saints.’”

To contact Krajnak, send an email message to pkrajnak@rogerskrajnak.com. Registration is still available for the men’s conference. The registration fee is $10. Go to www.catholicmensministry.com to register or for more information about the event.