The Cathedral That Rose From Rubble

In 1945, the people of Coventry, England, stood in the skeletal remains of their beloved St. Michael's Cathedral, reduced to blackened walls and open sky by German incendiary bombs five years earlier. The medieval stained glass was gone. The carved oak choir stalls were ash. Some wept openly, remembering what had been. When architect Basil Spence unveiled his design for a new cathedral in 1951, critics were ruthless.…