Architecture and religious outlook?

While spending the holidays with the Chief's family, we took a day trip to West Point. Beautiful day for it - mild for late November, and not a cloud in the sky, which made for some very impressive views of the Hudson. We also stopped inside the Catholic and Cadets chapels. The Catholic chapel is rather small - seats maybe 150 or 200? The interior is wider than it is tall, with ornamented wooden beams, and an architectural style common in the late 19th century. The interior is painted white or cream, and they've got lots of traditional stained-glass windows (mostly saints, dedicated to the memory of this or that alumnus). The overall effect was of an airy, fairly bright, cozy sanctuary.

The Cadets Chapel is much larger - probably has room to accommodate a congregation of several hundreds. It's modeled on Europe's 14th-century gothic cathedrals, with the stained-glass windows in the upper half of the walls and done in a preponderance of deep blues and dark reds. The layout is more what I associate with Episcopal churches, with a railed-off, slightly elevated altar area, where you also find the organ and seating for the choir. The whole building is in local stone, of a fairly dark gray. Between that and the dark colors in the stained glass, the sanctuary was quite dark, almost gloomy (though the sun had started playing hide-and-seek by then; might be different in full sun). The Chief pointed out how precisely the Bibles and hymnals were arranged at each place. Wonder if the cadets leave 'em that way or if someone goes down each row straightening them after each service?

After seeing the Catholic chapel, we were both struck by the contrast between the two - the Catholic chapel well-lit and almost intimate, the Cadets chapel huge, dark and imposing. Made us wonder if they were designed to reflect a loving, personal (New Testament) God and a stern, Old Testament view of God.

The Cadets' organ was something amazing - the organist was working on something from Handel's Messiah, maybe setting stops. The console had a good 6 rows (that I could see) of organ stops, and there were ranks and ranks of pipes in the front section, with more down the sides and in the rear of the church. I really enjoyed hearing it in action, though I couldn't get any pictures of the console for Mom, as I didn't want to disturb the organist while he was so obviously hard at work. The Catholics, on the other hand, have a much smaller, more modest organ, almost entirely contained in the organ/choir loft. Probably perfectly suited to the smaller space. Pity that chapel was empty - I'd've liked to hear the organ in action.