The St. Theresa of Avila Roman Catholic Church is a church located at 8666 Quincy Street in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1989.

Description

The St. Theresa of Avila Roman Catholic Parish Complex consists of the church, rectory, school, and convent.Saint Theresa of Avila Roman Catholic Parish Complex
from the state of Michigan All of the buildings are essentially Neo-Romanesque in character, and are constructed of dark red brick trimmed with Indiana limestone. The church is in the Italian Romanesque style, with Byzantine and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

influences. It has a gable front facade with towers at the sides. The entrance is through a five-arched, two-story Romanesque arcaded portico. Above the entrance is a round window flanked with arched niches. The school is a three-story I-shaped building; the rectory is a five-bay center entrance house with

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

details. The three-story convent building, which was built during the Great Depression, features more modest ornamentation. A central pavilion containing the entrance divides the building into three elements.

Significance

The St. Theresa of Avila Parish was built as an Irish-American parish, built at a time when the prosperity of the community was such that this magnificent complex could be afforded. The need for this building reflects the population boom in the city brought about by the automobile industry. The parish was closed in 1989; the Allen Academy, a K-12

charter school A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...

, used the school building from 1999 to 2016.

References

External links

Allen Academy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Theresa of Avila Roman Catholic Church Roman Catholic churches in Detroit Irish-American culture in Michigan Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit Former Roman Catholic church buildings in Michigan Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Roman Catholic churches completed in 1919 National Register of Historic Places in Detroit 1919 establishments in Michigan 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States