Photo by ekelly80

What’s up with the church in Southwest D.C. that’s been fully painted over?

There are plenty of churches in D.C., and there’s a fair number of murals too. What if the two joined forces? That was the idea with the Friendship Baptist Church, an old structure located at Delaware Avenue and H Street SW that was up for sale last year.

The church before being painted over.

Steve Tanner, the church’s owner, commissioned Atlanta-based graffiti artist Hense to use the building’s extensive exterior as a blank canvas. (Last year another national muralist practiced his craft in D.C.) Over the course of two weeks last year Hense took transformed the white church into a whimsical blend of colors and designs that brings the abandoned building back to life.

The church itself has an interesting history. Created in 1875 as the First Baptist Church and eventually renamed the Virginia Avenue Baptist Church, the building survived the urban renewal that razed most of Southwest D.C. in the 1950s. The church eventually became too small for the African American congregation that occupied it, so in 1965 a new building was dedicated only a block away. The Delaware Avenue building thereafter traded hands among two different churches, but it was eventually closed in 2001 due to deterioration. In 2004, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Since then, a planned redevelopment of the church and the surrounding area into a mixed-use building that would include residences and a new campus for the Corcoran College of Art and Design has been stalled.

Check out these fantastic pics of how the church was transformed.

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