Art: Whale of a Church

In profile on a hillside, the prismed First Presbyterian Church of Stamford, Conn, rests like a huge, stranded whale, its ribs exposed in transparent, jewel-colored flesh. Dedicated last week, the $1.5 million, six-story-high structure seats 800 people in a Gothic-spirited interior with a steel-reinforced frame standing out as part of the decor. There are no buttress-type supports, and the sharp-sloping walls, of interlaced, precast concrete panels, are embedded at midsection and tail with 20,000 inch-thick, stained-glass chunks. It is the first church designed by Skyscraper Architect Wallace K. Harrison (U.N. Building, Rockefeller...