Jan 25th
1.4 Sacred Spaces 3
Building Faith
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various religions, arch reflects faith and form
protective, exclusive space or one for a whole community
physical structures reflect spiritual ideas… universal idea
Christian Splendor?
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how can Christian churches both be humble like Jesus and express the triumph of Christ? Conflicting goals
-Hagia Sophia, Constatinople, Instanbul, Turkey, 532-537
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Dome created vast, spiritually grand spaces
Original covering of mosaics that were there are gone today
Lots of images were a crucial part
Faith and Visuality
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Christians and imagery: incarnation ends image prohibition (different from the Jews)… they want to use pics… God made
himself accessible to all the senses when he wasn’t incarnated anymore
Art as worship aid: churches filled with representations
“Spiritualized” environment that enhances faith visually
-Sant’Apollinare in Classes, Ravenna, CA. 549
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half dome, Christ is shown with 12 sheep (12 disciples)… further below are human believers
Domes go North
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square planned church surrounded by high dome (typical for Eastern Orthodox Christianity)
Ukraine and Russia: Byzantine Christitiany and Architecture
St. Sophia, Kiev, Ukraine, 1037-55
Ukraines didn’t have as good arch, so they created many smaller domes, more piers, and had greater verticality (could have
more spaces for saints)
Icons and iconostasis: sacred images as boundary, focus (divided the sacred from the profane… huge curtains with pics,
etc.)
o Also provides Icons (paintings of Saints, for veneration)
o Iconostasis in Uglich Cathedral, Russia
Faith and Engineering
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Western Europe entering long period of warfare aka Dark Ages
After Dark Ages, new arch/vocab was achieved… engineering achievements with art and light… “transcendent, heaven on
earth”
Stable enough to support monumental, arch culture was France
o Stone structures, larger and taller since ancient Romans
o Abbot Suger, head of Abbey of St. Denis, near Paris
o Very important church, religiously and politically
o Suger made mistake that would be arch momentus
o Christian philosopher said: God is LIGHT
 Suger wanted this idea in his design
o Wanted ways to bring daylight into building: so remodeled profile of arches… now pointed arches, which made it
much more stable, also needed less huge walls that would divide a space
o Remove chapel walls = more light, more open space, brighter
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Flood choir with light
Theology + sturucture = Gothic arch !!!
Heaven on Earth
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Gothic interiors: transcendent, “miraculous” spaces
Use of enormous windows, stained glass made them bright and colorful, glowing, etc.
Image of the heavenly Jerusalem, taste of paradise, tangible taste
Multimedia: light, color, music, incense, ritual… made this religion really exciting, etc. engaged all senses
Cathedral at Amiens, France c. 1220-1280, Cathedral at Chartres, France, 1194-1260
Theology in Stone and Glass
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Narrative, symbolic sculpture and images as you entered in the doors
Alters had devotional paintings
The stained glass also told stories, contained more portraits
Gothic churches were to designed to be instructive and inspirational, to support the faith
In an age where people couldn’t read, these Cathedrals were the “Bible for the Illiterate”
Grandeur and imagery aids to faith, reoccurs to the common people that this was in fact the “stairway to heaven”
North Portal and stained glass window, Chartres Cathedral
Tradition and Anti-Tradition
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Post-reformation Europe, Ca. 1590
Eastern Orthodox Christiainity and Western Roman Catholism each developed separately cause these two regions were
cut off from each other for several centuries
Few disagreements on theology, but the primary difference, was the Bishop of Rome in charge? Romans said yes,
Orthoxdox said no…
Reformation and Christianity: split faith vocab
Protestant reformation, Martin Luther, German Monk… became a much broader split, many terrible religious wars
across Germany, France, England
Divergent attitudes towards theology and architecture:
o Express affirmation of hierarcy and tradition
o Promote radical egalitarianism, avoid “distraction”, wanted to promote Christian humility
o Key question: boundary between sacred and everyday
Multiple Protestant reformations
Some wanted to return to the purity of the Catholic church
Some wanted to stay close to these ideas and keep these pretty churches
Amesbury Friends Meetinghouse, Amesbury, MD. 1851: Quakers built this, “Society of Friends”
o Commitment to simplicity and equality
o Domestic space, size, and flavor, plain and practical
National (Episcopal) Cathedral, 1907-1990, D.C.
Lots of religious differences in spaces stem from the various beliefs of sacraments
o Catholic and Orthodox, Christ is present in wine and bread
o Establishes space that is literally made sacred, requires certain degree of honor and dignitiy
“Spiritually competitive market”
Church expresses a communities values, spiritual and culture
The Non-Church
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Truest form of Christian arch is no arch at all
Tent Revival, Morgantown, KY, 1950
o L.A., freeways, sunshine, population growth in 1950s
o Creative young pastor: church in a drive-in theatre, Drive-In Church
o Richard Neutra, Garden Grove Community Drive-In Church, 1958-61
 Preached in the outdoor
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Wanted arch to capture the feeling of being outside with God
Inside/Outside Church
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Philip Johnson and John Burgee, Crystal Cathedral, Garden Grove, CA. 1977
Transparent walls, visual connection with outdoors during worship
Light filled interior, like Gothic interiors
Tower in pointed, Gothic like profile, declares it is a sacred spaces
A “non-church”, or a return to the gothic?
There is no alter here, only a pulpit… this design tells us that worship focuses on preaching and music
Central aisle isn’t used for processions
Open view to the outside world
Schuller: “Virtual church” in the media age
o This can’t work for churches that focus on the being there
High-Tech Anti-Cathedrals
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Calvary Baptist Church, Shrevenport, LA
Elaborate sound systems and TVS
Pulpit stands at center, but is transparent
Space designed so a group of people can hear and see what’s going on
No symbols or images that specify that it’s a church
Carefully avoids any obvious symbol of religion
Spiritual distraction avoidance
Religiously neutral design, make the worship spaces non-threatening to visitors
Spiritual marketing in modern America
Bases for the megachurch, late 20th century development in the U.S., Korea, Africa
Largest one, congregations of 2000-50000, usually unaffiliated Protestant
Multimedia auditoriums, mall-like amentites (cafes, bookstores)
Max amount of seating, projection screens, lighting and acoustical panels, that have become decorative
Architecturally “netural”, there are few signs of the “sacred”
Goal of simplicitiy and spiritual connective becomes a structure that can become difficult to distinguish from a mall
Reformed, engaged outreach or secular mass-marketing?
Main difference from other churches are just as modern as those in the 13 th century were
New Religion and Architecture
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What is the nature and role of sacred space?
Latter-Day Saints (LDS): 19th century American sect, Book of Morman
Now global religion
LDS (Mormon) Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1853-1892
o Temple: exclusive space for restricted ceremonies
o Like Jews, Book of Mormon, teaches return to stuff similar to Jews
o The design in general: links to Christianity, Judaism, and difference
o Very few windows, sacredness defined by solid boundary
o Proportions heavier, use round arches
o Rejects Gothic transparency
o How to use arch to define a religions relation to existing tradition, and what makes it new and different, an
improvement
The Birth of Islam
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610: Muhammad’s revelation from Angel Gabriel
Arabia: tribal, nomadic, polytheistic culture
“People of the Book”, base everything on a book of sacred scriptures
Islam: monotheistic, scriptural, simplified
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Five pillars of faith: direct, individual practice
o To believe in one god
o To accept that Mohammad was his prophet
o To pray 5 times a day
o To give charity
o To fast 1 month a year
o To make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in your life
Made this easy to teach and learn
622: Mohammed and followers left Mecca for Medina, teaches publicly
Religious and military control spread together, spread by conquest
Dome of Triumph
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Jersusalem conquested from the Byzantine control in the 638
Important city for Jews and Christians
Muslims also had a sacred site here
Temple Mount: where Muhammed ascended to heaven
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, 687-691
o Follows Byzantine domed model
Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, 326-333
o Close to Temple Mount
Aniconic decorations: geometry, botany, calligraphy (so no form of imagery, but would use lots of script and text)
o Lots of script on the outside of the building
Houses of Prayer
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Mosque: hall for prayer and preaching
Daily prayer: five times a day, Fridays are communal prayers
Qibla: wall pointing towards the Mecca
Mihrab: niche for Qur’an, in qibla wall
Prayer hall needs to hold an entire community
Dense grid of columns, hypostyle prayer hall: sound vs. sight
o Support a roof over large space
o Vision is much more important than sound in this religion
o Minaret: tower for sung call to prayer
 Provides platform for a guy to call everyone to pray
 Large tower, extra height of a tower makes sound easier to travel
A Mosque in Spain
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Great Mosque, Cordoba, Spain, 833-900
Cordoba: hypostyle hall with horseshoe arches
Ceiling raised by using arches and columns
Arches built in pairs, makes space in prayer hall much more open visually
Intricate dome geometry, mosaics, calligraphy, red and white colors mainly
Band of script around base
Sacred Spaces Embedded
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Multi-purpose urban complex
Sultan Hassan Complex, Cairo, 1356-63
Schools, etc. integrated into these complex
Perimeter: geometrically irregular
Outer walls: reflect street walls around
Spaces defined by scale and orientation, most important
Large interior spaces for public worship
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Carefully oriented towards Mecca
Fountain: used for washing before prayer
Mihrab in Qibla Wall and Minbar
Solid enclosed room is a Mausoleum
Mausoleum and Mosque
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Mausoleum, structure built to house a tomb
Mausoleum is the most visible from the city
o Tall, heavy masonry cube, stone, where the Sultan Hassan is buried
 Lies in between the believers and Mecca
 Connection between faith and politics in Islam
Persia: Domes and Iwans
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Shah Mosque, Isfahan, Iran, beg. 1611
A huge complex
All sacred spaces angeled to face Mecca
Enormous blue dome
Iwan: colossal half-domed niches: Muqarnas in vault
Dome exteriors: elaborate, visible glazed tile patterns
Sacredness and Commemoration
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Taj Mahal: sacred vocab for a Mausoleum
Domes, minarets, Iwans to commemorate a queen
Scriptures framing entries: describe Paradise (Heaven)
Holy City, Holy Wars
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Jersusalmen: sacred to three religions, so this is an issue!
Who has the control? Who has the access to the city?
Can sacredness be shared?
Church or Battleground?
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Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem, Shrine of the Tomb of Jesus
o Center of tug a war
o Monks actually getting in fist fights here!!!!
An Alternative Sepulcher
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“Garden Tomb”, Jerusalem
Better reflects their way of worship, this is a really simple site
Relationship between religion, arch, worship, etc. contributes to sense of difference between faiths
Houses of Worship
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Looking at early plans of a synagogue, church, and mosque, we realize there are a lot of similarities:
o All built to bring members of a community together
o Space is designed to create a visual and auditory focus on sacred writings
o Deliberately point towards a sacred city
o Have domestic function, serving as a home for faith