St. Columba Church, Catholic church in Hamline-Midway, Saint Paul, United States

St. Columba Church is a 1949 Roman Catholic church in Saint Paul's Hamline-Midway neighborhood, designed by Chicago architect Barry Byrne. Its curved exterior walls are built of limestone with a large amount of concrete, and the bell tower was modeled on an Irish round tower. More than 24 slit-like clerestory windows light the interior, whose two overlapping circles form an elliptical plan and a fish-shaped overhead profile.

The parish was formed in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood in 1915, and after the mid-twentieth-century baby boom it needed a larger church. Pastor Michael Casey hired Chicago architect Barry Byrne, whose schooling ended in the ninth grade and who had worked under Frank Lloyd Wright and with the Prairie School before turning to Expressionist work. The 1949 building closely resembles Byrne's St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City, Missouri. The parish elementary school closed in 2004 after 82 years, citing falling enrollment and debt.

The bell tower was modeled on an Irish round tower at the request of pastor Michael Casey, and the church's plan of two overlapping circles gives the interior an overhead profile resembling a fish, an early Christian symbol. The parish school served the Hamline-Midway neighborhood for 82 years before closing in 2004.

The main entrance is under the bell tower, where metal doors open into the elliptical nave. Look up toward the ceiling cove to see the under-lit rim and the 24 slit clerestory windows that brighten the concrete interior. The parish elementary school closed in 2004, so the church grounds are quieter on weekdays.

Architecture critic Larry Millett singles out a grouping found nowhere else: the slots cut into the Irish round tower-style bell tower, granite crosses embedded in the curved limestone walls, and metal entrance doors instead of the polished glass used at Byrne's St. Francis Xavier Church in Kansas City.