Transcending Architecture
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Transcending Architecture: Contemporary Views on Sacred SpaceEdited by Julio Bermudez
The Catholic Universit y of A mer ica Pr ess Washi ngton, D.C.
TRANSCENDING ARCHITECTURE
edited by jul io ber mudez Foreword by Randall Ott
Contemporary Views on Sacred Space
“Transcendence, Where Hast Thou Gone?” copyright © Duncan G. Stroik 2015
All other chapters copyright © The Catholic University of America Press 2015
Compilation copyright © The Catholic University of America Press 2015
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standards for Information Science--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Transcending architecture : contemporary views on sacred space / Edited by Julio
Bermudez ; Foreword by Randall Ott.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8132-2679-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Architecture and religion.
2. Sacred space. I. Bermúdez, Julio Cesar, editor.
NA4600.T73 2015
Acknowledgments xvii
PART I . DISCIPLINARY PER SPECTIVES
1 Introduction Julio Bermudez 3
2 Light, Silence, and Spiritualit y in Architecture 19 and Art Juhani Pall asma a
3 The Domestic and the Numinous in Sacred 33 Architecture Thomas Barrie
4 Nature, Healing, and the Numinous Rebecca Krinke 47
5 From Bioregional to Reverential Urbanism 63 Maged Senbel
6 The Risk of the Ineffable K arl a Cavarr a Britton 74
7 Le Corbusier at the Parthenon Julio Bermudez 88
viii Contents
8 The Christian Church Building Kevin Seasoltz 113
9 Ecclesial Architecture and Image in a Postmodern Age 130 Mark E. Wedig
10 Spiritualit y, Social Justice, and the Built Environment 143 Michael J . Sheridan
11 Ritual, Belief, and Meaning in the Production 160 of Sacred Space Sue Ann Taylor
12 Architectur al C atalysts to Contempl ation 170 Lindsay Jones
13 Tr anscending Aesthetics K arsten Harries 208
PART I I I . RESPONSE FROM ARCHITECTUR AL PR ACTICE
14 C alling Forth the Numinous in Architecture 225 Michael J . Crosbie
15 Elemental Simplicit y Suzane Reatig 231
16 Tr anscendence, Where Hast Thou Gone? 239 Duncan G. Stroik
17 Architectur al Quests into the Numinous 247 Tr avis Price
18 Reaching for the Numinous Richard S. Vosko 256
19 Exploring Tr anscendence Thomas Walton 260
Notes 269
Bibliography 299
Contributors 317
Index 323
ILLUSTR ATIONS
Figure 1-1. The Pantheon, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Brandon Ro, 2012. 5
Figure 1-2. Maggie’s Centre at Ninewells, Dundee, United Kingdom. 6 Designed by architect Frank Gehry. Photograph courtesy of Ydam, June 26, 2006
(Wikipedia Creative Commons license, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Figure 1-3. Étienne-Louis Boullée’s “Cenotaph to Newton.” Image in the 9 public domain.
Figure 1-4. Between Cathedrals, Cadiz, Spain, 2009. Designed 17 by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza. Photograph courtesy of
Alberto Campo Baeza.
Figure 2-1. Kaija and Heikki Siren, Student Chapel, Otaniemi, 21 Espoo, 1957. Photograph by Pietinen. Courtesy of the Museum of
Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-2. Juha Leiviskä, Myyrmäki Church, Vantaa, 1984. Photographer 25
not identified. Courtesy of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-3. Niemelä Croft from Konginkangas at the Seurasaari Outdoor Museum 27 in Helsinki. Photograph by Pekka Laurila. Courtesy of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-4. Alvar Aalto, the Three Crosses Church, Imatra, 1955–1958. Photograph 31
by Jussi Tiainen. Courtesy of the photographer and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 3-1. House for Two Artists, the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Photograph
by Michael Janiczck. 40
x Illustrations
Figure 3-2. House for Two Artists, the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Photograph 41 by Steven Rost.
Figure 3-3. First- and second-floor plans, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. Drawings by Jordan Grey. 43
Figure 3-4. Entrance and vista, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. 44 Photograph by Eric Morley.
Figure 3-5. The south-facing courtyard, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. 45 Photograph by Eric Morley.
Figure 4-1. Subtemple at the Ise Grand Shrine, Japan. Photograph by 51 Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-2. Woodland Cemetery near Stockholm, Sweden. Photograph courtesy of 51 Heinrich Hermann.
Figure 4-3. The Reflection Garden, Bloedel Reserve, near Seattle. Photograph 52 by Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-4. The National Library of France, Paris. Photograph by 53 Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-5. Ritual Series 5-79 by Michael Singer. Photograph courtesy of Michael Singer. 55
Figure 4-6. The Table for Contemplation and Action by Rebecca Krinke. 57 Photograph courtesy of Warren Bruland.
Figure 4-7. Unseen/Seen: The Mapping of Joy and Pain by Rebecca Krinke. 59 Photograph by Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 6-1. Church Corpus Christi in Aachen by Rudolf Schwarz, main entrance, 81 1930. Photograph courtesy of Moritz Benoully (Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 6-2. King Saud Mosque, the Sahn of the mosque, Jeddah, 1987, 84 Abdel El-Wakil, architect. Photograph courtesy of Zohair Harb, April 9, 2004 (Wikimedia
Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 6-3. Berlin Memorial. Memorial to the murdered Jews in Europe. Berlin, 85 2005, Peter Eisenman, architect. Photograph courtesy of Pim Zeekoers, December 23, 2005
(Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 7-1. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 90 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-2. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 92 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-3. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, “L’Acropole, Athènes,” Carnet du 99 Voyage d’Orient n°3, 103, 1911. Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-4. The Parthenon as seen from the Propylae. Charles-Édouard 101 Jeanneret, “Le Parthénon, Athènes,” Carnet du Voyage d’Orient n°3, 115, 1911. Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Illustrations xi
Figure 7-5. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret. Acropolis of Athens, steps and 104 colonnade. Watercolor (September 1911). Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-6. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 109 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 9-1. Exterior view of the Chapel of St. Ignatius with reflecting pool, Seattle 134 University. Photograph courtesy of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 9-2. Clerestory, Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University. Photograph courtesy 137 of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 9-3. Exterior wall and clerestory, Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University. 139 Photograph courtesy of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 10 -1. A resident looks out of a stairwell window in Ida B. Well Homes, a 146 housing project in Chicago, Illinois, 2005. Photograph by David Schalliol.
Figure 10 -2. Abandoned housing on Broad Street, North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 147 2009. Photograph by Benjamin David Ross.
Figure 10 -3. Joanne’s House, Faunsdale, Alabama, 2011. Photograph by 154 Danny Wicke, Rural Studio, Auburn University.
Figure 10 -4. Hunts Point Riverside Park, 2009, trellised seating area. Photograph 156 by the Bruner Foundation.
Figure 10 -5. Hunts Point Riverside Park, 2009, boat dock on the Bronx River. 156 Photograph by the Bruner Foundation.
Figure 10 -6. Children playing in the Inner-City Arts Courtyard, Los Angeles. 158 Photograph Copyright © Iwan Baan.
Figure 12-1. Great Plaza at the Zapotec site, Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. 179 Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-2. The Great Plaza of Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico. Photograph 180 by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-3. Maya building in the Initial Series Group at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, 187 Mexico. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-4. The Sunken Patio at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photograph 188 by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-5. Codz-Pop palace’s façade adorned with Chaac-masks at the Puuc Maya 197 site of Kabah, Yucatán. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-6. Geometric designs adorn a building interior façade at the 200 Zapotec-Mixtec site of Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 14-1. The west façade of Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany. Photograph courtesy 227 of Martin Kraft, October 19, 2008 (Wikipedia Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 3.0).
Figure 14-2. The interior of Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. 228 Photograph courtesy of Mstyslav Chernov, May 9, 2013 (Wikipedia Creative Commons
Attribution-Share alike 3.0 Unported).
xii Illustrations
Figure 14-3. The sundial at the top of the Brick Lane Mosque. Detail of photograph 229 courtesy of Lemur 12, December 19, 2008 (Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share alike 3.0
Unported).
Figure 15-1. Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. Quemado, New Mexico. 232 Collection Dia Art Foundation. Photograph by John Cliett. Courtesy of the
Dia Art Foundation, New York.
Figure 15-2. Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow, 1956. Copyright © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel 233 and Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Figure 15-3. Nooni Reatig, All Real All Steel #2, 2003. Galvanized steel. Photograph 235 courtesy of Artist Nooni Reatig.
Figure 15-4. Richard Serra, Equal (Corner Prop Piece), 1969–1970. Copyright © 2013 236 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Museum of Modern Art.
Figure 15-5. Main courtyard of the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. La Jolla, 237 California. Photograph courtesy of Shawn Benjamin.
Figure 15-6. Metropolitan Community Church by Suzane Reatig Architecture, 238 1993. Photograph courtesy of Robert Lautman.
Figure 16-1. Santa Maria in Trastevere. Rome, Italy. Photograph courtesy of Erik Bootsma. 240
Figure 16-2. Notre Dame du Haut. Ronchamp, France. Photograph courtesy of 243 Pieter Morlion, July 7, 2008 (Flikr Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 2.0
Generic [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]).
Figure 16-3. Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, Thomas Aquinas College. 244 Santa Paula, California, 2009. Photograph courtesy of Schafphoto.com.
Figure 16-4. Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine. LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 2009. 245 Photograph courtesy of River Architects.
Figure 17-1. The Kalevalakehto, Helsinki, Finland, 2010. Photograph courtesy 251 of Travis Price.
Figure 17-2. The Kalevalakehto, Helsinki, Finland. Dedication ceremony, 2010. 252 Photograph courtesy of Arno De Chapelle.
Figure 17-3. Memorial to James Hoban. Desart/Callan, Ireland, 2008. Photograph 253 courtesy of Travis Price.
Figure 17-4. The Magar Memorial to the Ancestors. Namje-Thumki, Nepal, 2011. 254 Photograph courtesy of Travis Price.
Figure 17-5. Travis Price residence. Washington, D.C., 2003. Photograph courtesy 255 of Ken Wyner.
xiii
FOREWORD
Since the mid-1960s, skepticism about organized religion has largely eliminated discussion of the sacred from architectural curricula. This secular turn did not mean that all consideration of transcendence evaporat- ed from our teaching and practice, but the operative program for such study decisively shifted. Despite orthodox modernism’s wish for an architecture founded on “pure” utility (on efficiency, science, production, technol- ogy, forthrightness, and so forth), architects and architectural educators still intuitively recognized that buildings had to serve “other” needs. Humanity yearned beyond the prag- matic, mechanical, or biological. Instead of the temple, cathedral, mosque, or synagogue, the art museum became the alternate venue for this—a typology in which transcendent experience could be had without mention of literal faith. Nor did the architectural profes-
sion begrudge this necessity. We embraced artistic typologies with fervor, sensing or at least hoping that the aesthetical could address the same human craving that the spiritual once did. Art museums appeared on every design student’s board—and often. A decade ago, I had an undergraduate at an institu- tion where I was teaching tell me that for four consecutive semesters of design studio, the program choices made available were all art oriented: “House for a Collector,” “Art School,” “Museum of This-or-That Famed Artist,” “The Photographer’s Studio,” and so on. The Guggenheim, Bilbao, and dozens of other prominent new art museums became the late twentieth century’s cathedrals. Soon enough, no one could hope for fame in the discipline without a major facility for art in their professional portfolio (and we naïvely had thought it would be housing instead).
xiv Randall Ott
Even modest, mid-sized cities eagerly entered and competed in the contemporary museum wars, fielding ever more gorgeous, one-off, rather strident creations. If nothing else, this strange outcome of modernity’s purported thrust toward pragmatism was to convince us, once and for all, that architecture cannot distill to budgets, footages, and building systems. Other profound needs cannot be addressed through those well-meaning areas. Pure utility as speechmaking led, remarkably, to pure aesthetics as a responding dream.
But in the end, did this swap of museum for temple still offer us transcendence? One senses we have already taken this transfer- ence as far as it can go, and come up short. Countertrends are becoming apparent. Why, though, doesn’t the museum as social or eth- ical or personal “cathedral” still work—still convince us that we have had our weekly expe- rience of transcendence? Is it a matter of sim- ple boredom or overkill? Have we now built so many museums that they stand on every corner in every city (as is colloquially said of the hundreds of churches of Baroque Rome, for example) and offer not so much a respite from an environment founded on instrumen- tal rationality but have become the surround- ing environment itself, fostering a desire for a new upheaval or breakout? Or, alternatively, have we, after fifty years of museums as guides to the “other,” perhaps simply discovered that aesthetics does not fully encapsulate that other? This seems closer to the truth. There is no dispute that aesthetics may open the door to an experience of transcendence, but in such a case it functions as a vehicle, not as the goal itself. The increasing hollowness of our ever more desperate museum-based pyrotechnics suggests such a realization. For millennia aesthetics and the sacred have had
a close if uneasy relationship—modernity’s recent efforts are really just another reprise of the Platonic tradition’s conflation of beauty with the holy. It seems we have begun to suspect that pleasing our eyes is not the same as pleasing our souls. Such thoughts drive us beyond the desire for aesthetic titillation and impel a search even among us blasé moderns for indelible meaning—perhaps the sacred’s core constituent.
Even just a decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine transcendence as the subject for a conference at a school of architecture. “Transcending Architecture,” a recent sympo- sium organized at the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America, highlights this emerging counter- trend. This symposium brought together architects, theologians, philosophers, plan- ners, scholars in anthropology, social work, and comparative religion, as well as critics and encouraged them to speculate about how the sublime ushering of built form into transcen- dent experience operates, and, crucially, what its meaning for humanity may be. How does architecture describe the indescribable and, in doing so, speak ably of things that are often considered most potent when left literally un- said? The sessions explored how we create the architecturally transcendent today and how it can still exert an influence in our contempo- rary, highly secular lives.
Of course there is the danger, given our re- cent history as a profession, that we will simply substitute the study of artistic cathedrals for artistic museums and find ourselves right back where we started, staring into aestheticism from the pews instead of standing in a gallery. The symposium, and the chapters published here from it, addressed that concern by avoid- ing a focus on the rising trend toward recent,
Foreword xv
evocative religious spaces and instead stressed more elemental themes: the “groundedness” of home, nature as recovery, ethics, the holiness of life itself, the primacy of people over things, the power of empty but enabling nothingness, social justice, how reality always exceeds us, the processes of hermeneutics, and related ideas.
One would hope transcendence, of all topics, might evade hasty exploitation and subsequent boredom. The sacred retains inherent mystery, which may afford it unique resilience here. It has a profound grassroots allure for citizens. The increasing number of autonomous studies of the sacred in architec- tural curricula across the country today is an optimistic sign of such renewed interest. If the sacred eventually reestablishes itself as a pri- mary force within architecture, that outcome will result more from these common, broadly based, grassroots efforts than from evocations of, and conversations about, the grandiose. Our profession’s disdain for storefront epiph- anies or megachurch mixers blinds us to this. History, of course, had its prestigious religious monuments that provoked architectural tour- ism, its sites of pilgrimage that bordered on consumerism. Yet what drove people toward such places was the honest belief in what they already experienced every day back home. The aesthetic power incumbent in history’s great religious buildings had a role, but it was that of further consummating the visitor’s prior experiences of life’s daily profundity. One doubts that dynamic can function in reverse. Can an architectural pilgrimage to a new cathedral, if driven solely by its beguiling aes- thetics, kindle anew a practical ethics offering meaning to one’s day-to-day life? Truthfully, the process begins elsewhere, with the day-to- day itself.
The “Transcending Architecture” sympo-
sium was an outgrowth of our larger mis- sion at the Catholic University of America, which stresses service to church and nation through the joint aegis of faith and reason, and our specific school mission of “building stewardship”—which we interpret as finding ways to create intersections between our role as stewards on this globe and our buildings. One outgrowth of that mission is our school’s sacred space and cultural studies concentra- tion in our MArch program—the only place in the country where an architecture student can spend several semesters studying the im- pacts of the sacred on our built environment. The graduate concentration is led by Associ- ate Professor Julio Bermudez.
Our appreciation goes to Professor Ber- mudez for organizing the symposium and editing the resulting volume now in your hands, and to the Catholic University of America Press for publishing these important contents so they can reach a wider audience. We also deeply appreciate and acknowledge the support of the Walton Fund for Sacred Architecture, which has made possible so many initiatives related to the study of sacred placemaking at our school, including this one.
R andall Ott Dean, School of Architecture
and Planning, The Catholic University of America
xvii
As I complete this project in late June 2013, I realize that it has been almost two years since the organization of the symposium “Transcending Architecture” got started. The result of this twenty-four-month journey, the book now in your hands, took much pa- tience, time, effort, and help. And regarding the latter, now is the appropriate moment to acknowledge all the people without whom this publication would have been impossible. First, I would like to thank my dean, Randall Ott, who encouraged, trusted, and support- ed me in the organization of the event and later on in the production of this book. My appreciation also goes to the CUA architec- ture undergraduate students Kelly Corcoran, Matthew Kline, and Tyler Thurston and graduate students Gina Longo, Benjamin Norkin, Ashley Prince, Chloe Rice, and Mandira Sareen, who generously assisted me
in a variety of ways before and during the symposium. In particular, I would like to show my indebtedness to graduate student Brandon Ro for his diligent, intelligent, and outstanding support in producing the final version of the manuscript for submission to CUA Press. I need to recognize several CUArch staff members for their various help as well: Associate Dean for Student and Academic Affairs Michelle A. Rinehart, past and present Assistants to the Dean Kathy Fayne and Patricia Dudley (respec- tively), Visual Resource Center Manager Bob Willis, Administrative Assistant Nora Petersen, and Systems Administrator Jerry Mosby. My thanks also go to all my faculty colleagues at CUArch for their honest inter- est, warm support, and active participation in the symposium. The Catholic University of America Office of Video Production and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xviii Acknowledgments
News Media should be acknowledged for their video recording and webcasting of all the keynote speeches. The financial generosi- ty of the Walton Family Distinguished Critic in Design and Catholic Stewardship program must be highlighted as it was instrumental in securing the event. Most generally, I want to publicly acknowledge and thank the Catholic University of America along with its…
The Catholic Universit y of A mer ica Pr ess Washi ngton, D.C.
TRANSCENDING ARCHITECTURE
edited by jul io ber mudez Foreword by Randall Ott
Contemporary Views on Sacred Space
“Transcendence, Where Hast Thou Gone?” copyright © Duncan G. Stroik 2015
All other chapters copyright © The Catholic University of America Press 2015
Compilation copyright © The Catholic University of America Press 2015
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standards for Information Science--Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Transcending architecture : contemporary views on sacred space / Edited by Julio
Bermudez ; Foreword by Randall Ott.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8132-2679-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Architecture and religion.
2. Sacred space. I. Bermúdez, Julio Cesar, editor.
NA4600.T73 2015
Acknowledgments xvii
PART I . DISCIPLINARY PER SPECTIVES
1 Introduction Julio Bermudez 3
2 Light, Silence, and Spiritualit y in Architecture 19 and Art Juhani Pall asma a
3 The Domestic and the Numinous in Sacred 33 Architecture Thomas Barrie
4 Nature, Healing, and the Numinous Rebecca Krinke 47
5 From Bioregional to Reverential Urbanism 63 Maged Senbel
6 The Risk of the Ineffable K arl a Cavarr a Britton 74
7 Le Corbusier at the Parthenon Julio Bermudez 88
viii Contents
8 The Christian Church Building Kevin Seasoltz 113
9 Ecclesial Architecture and Image in a Postmodern Age 130 Mark E. Wedig
10 Spiritualit y, Social Justice, and the Built Environment 143 Michael J . Sheridan
11 Ritual, Belief, and Meaning in the Production 160 of Sacred Space Sue Ann Taylor
12 Architectur al C atalysts to Contempl ation 170 Lindsay Jones
13 Tr anscending Aesthetics K arsten Harries 208
PART I I I . RESPONSE FROM ARCHITECTUR AL PR ACTICE
14 C alling Forth the Numinous in Architecture 225 Michael J . Crosbie
15 Elemental Simplicit y Suzane Reatig 231
16 Tr anscendence, Where Hast Thou Gone? 239 Duncan G. Stroik
17 Architectur al Quests into the Numinous 247 Tr avis Price
18 Reaching for the Numinous Richard S. Vosko 256
19 Exploring Tr anscendence Thomas Walton 260
Notes 269
Bibliography 299
Contributors 317
Index 323
ILLUSTR ATIONS
Figure 1-1. The Pantheon, Rome. Photograph courtesy of Brandon Ro, 2012. 5
Figure 1-2. Maggie’s Centre at Ninewells, Dundee, United Kingdom. 6 Designed by architect Frank Gehry. Photograph courtesy of Ydam, June 26, 2006
(Wikipedia Creative Commons license, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Figure 1-3. Étienne-Louis Boullée’s “Cenotaph to Newton.” Image in the 9 public domain.
Figure 1-4. Between Cathedrals, Cadiz, Spain, 2009. Designed 17 by Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza. Photograph courtesy of
Alberto Campo Baeza.
Figure 2-1. Kaija and Heikki Siren, Student Chapel, Otaniemi, 21 Espoo, 1957. Photograph by Pietinen. Courtesy of the Museum of
Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-2. Juha Leiviskä, Myyrmäki Church, Vantaa, 1984. Photographer 25
not identified. Courtesy of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-3. Niemelä Croft from Konginkangas at the Seurasaari Outdoor Museum 27 in Helsinki. Photograph by Pekka Laurila. Courtesy of the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 2-4. Alvar Aalto, the Three Crosses Church, Imatra, 1955–1958. Photograph 31
by Jussi Tiainen. Courtesy of the photographer and the Museum of Finnish Architecture.
Figure 3-1. House for Two Artists, the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Photograph
by Michael Janiczck. 40
x Illustrations
Figure 3-2. House for Two Artists, the Berkshires, Massachusetts. Photograph 41 by Steven Rost.
Figure 3-3. First- and second-floor plans, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. Drawings by Jordan Grey. 43
Figure 3-4. Entrance and vista, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. 44 Photograph by Eric Morley.
Figure 3-5. The south-facing courtyard, Mountain Retreat. Boone, North Carolina. 45 Photograph by Eric Morley.
Figure 4-1. Subtemple at the Ise Grand Shrine, Japan. Photograph by 51 Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-2. Woodland Cemetery near Stockholm, Sweden. Photograph courtesy of 51 Heinrich Hermann.
Figure 4-3. The Reflection Garden, Bloedel Reserve, near Seattle. Photograph 52 by Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-4. The National Library of France, Paris. Photograph by 53 Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 4-5. Ritual Series 5-79 by Michael Singer. Photograph courtesy of Michael Singer. 55
Figure 4-6. The Table for Contemplation and Action by Rebecca Krinke. 57 Photograph courtesy of Warren Bruland.
Figure 4-7. Unseen/Seen: The Mapping of Joy and Pain by Rebecca Krinke. 59 Photograph by Rebecca Krinke.
Figure 6-1. Church Corpus Christi in Aachen by Rudolf Schwarz, main entrance, 81 1930. Photograph courtesy of Moritz Benoully (Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 6-2. King Saud Mosque, the Sahn of the mosque, Jeddah, 1987, 84 Abdel El-Wakil, architect. Photograph courtesy of Zohair Harb, April 9, 2004 (Wikimedia
Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 6-3. Berlin Memorial. Memorial to the murdered Jews in Europe. Berlin, 85 2005, Peter Eisenman, architect. Photograph courtesy of Pim Zeekoers, December 23, 2005
(Wikimedia Commons/CC-BY-SA-3.0/GFDL).
Figure 7-1. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 90 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-2. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 92 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-3. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, “L’Acropole, Athènes,” Carnet du 99 Voyage d’Orient n°3, 103, 1911. Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-4. The Parthenon as seen from the Propylae. Charles-Édouard 101 Jeanneret, “Le Parthénon, Athènes,” Carnet du Voyage d’Orient n°3, 115, 1911. Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Illustrations xi
Figure 7-5. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret. Acropolis of Athens, steps and 104 colonnade. Watercolor (September 1911). Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS),
New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 7-6. Charles-Édouard Jeanneret at the Acropolis, September 1911. 109 Copyright © 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / FLC.
Figure 9-1. Exterior view of the Chapel of St. Ignatius with reflecting pool, Seattle 134 University. Photograph courtesy of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 9-2. Clerestory, Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University. Photograph courtesy 137 of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 9-3. Exterior wall and clerestory, Chapel of St. Ignatius, Seattle University. 139 Photograph courtesy of Paul Warchol (Copyright © Paul Warchol 2013).
Figure 10 -1. A resident looks out of a stairwell window in Ida B. Well Homes, a 146 housing project in Chicago, Illinois, 2005. Photograph by David Schalliol.
Figure 10 -2. Abandoned housing on Broad Street, North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 147 2009. Photograph by Benjamin David Ross.
Figure 10 -3. Joanne’s House, Faunsdale, Alabama, 2011. Photograph by 154 Danny Wicke, Rural Studio, Auburn University.
Figure 10 -4. Hunts Point Riverside Park, 2009, trellised seating area. Photograph 156 by the Bruner Foundation.
Figure 10 -5. Hunts Point Riverside Park, 2009, boat dock on the Bronx River. 156 Photograph by the Bruner Foundation.
Figure 10 -6. Children playing in the Inner-City Arts Courtyard, Los Angeles. 158 Photograph Copyright © Iwan Baan.
Figure 12-1. Great Plaza at the Zapotec site, Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. 179 Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-2. The Great Plaza of Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, Mexico. Photograph 180 by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-3. Maya building in the Initial Series Group at Chichén Itzá, Yucatán, 187 Mexico. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-4. The Sunken Patio at Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photograph 188 by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-5. Codz-Pop palace’s façade adorned with Chaac-masks at the Puuc Maya 197 site of Kabah, Yucatán. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 12-6. Geometric designs adorn a building interior façade at the 200 Zapotec-Mixtec site of Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photograph by Lindsay Jones.
Figure 14-1. The west façade of Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany. Photograph courtesy 227 of Martin Kraft, October 19, 2008 (Wikipedia Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 3.0).
Figure 14-2. The interior of Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. 228 Photograph courtesy of Mstyslav Chernov, May 9, 2013 (Wikipedia Creative Commons
Attribution-Share alike 3.0 Unported).
xii Illustrations
Figure 14-3. The sundial at the top of the Brick Lane Mosque. Detail of photograph 229 courtesy of Lemur 12, December 19, 2008 (Wikipedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share alike 3.0
Unported).
Figure 15-1. Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. Quemado, New Mexico. 232 Collection Dia Art Foundation. Photograph by John Cliett. Courtesy of the
Dia Art Foundation, New York.
Figure 15-2. Mark Rothko, Orange and Yellow, 1956. Copyright © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel 233 and Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Figure 15-3. Nooni Reatig, All Real All Steel #2, 2003. Galvanized steel. Photograph 235 courtesy of Artist Nooni Reatig.
Figure 15-4. Richard Serra, Equal (Corner Prop Piece), 1969–1970. Copyright © 2013 236 Richard Serra / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Museum of Modern Art.
Figure 15-5. Main courtyard of the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. La Jolla, 237 California. Photograph courtesy of Shawn Benjamin.
Figure 15-6. Metropolitan Community Church by Suzane Reatig Architecture, 238 1993. Photograph courtesy of Robert Lautman.
Figure 16-1. Santa Maria in Trastevere. Rome, Italy. Photograph courtesy of Erik Bootsma. 240
Figure 16-2. Notre Dame du Haut. Ronchamp, France. Photograph courtesy of 243 Pieter Morlion, July 7, 2008 (Flikr Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 2.0
Generic [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]).
Figure 16-3. Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, Thomas Aquinas College. 244 Santa Paula, California, 2009. Photograph courtesy of Schafphoto.com.
Figure 16-4. Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine. LaCrosse, Wisconsin, 2009. 245 Photograph courtesy of River Architects.
Figure 17-1. The Kalevalakehto, Helsinki, Finland, 2010. Photograph courtesy 251 of Travis Price.
Figure 17-2. The Kalevalakehto, Helsinki, Finland. Dedication ceremony, 2010. 252 Photograph courtesy of Arno De Chapelle.
Figure 17-3. Memorial to James Hoban. Desart/Callan, Ireland, 2008. Photograph 253 courtesy of Travis Price.
Figure 17-4. The Magar Memorial to the Ancestors. Namje-Thumki, Nepal, 2011. 254 Photograph courtesy of Travis Price.
Figure 17-5. Travis Price residence. Washington, D.C., 2003. Photograph courtesy 255 of Ken Wyner.
xiii
FOREWORD
Since the mid-1960s, skepticism about organized religion has largely eliminated discussion of the sacred from architectural curricula. This secular turn did not mean that all consideration of transcendence evaporat- ed from our teaching and practice, but the operative program for such study decisively shifted. Despite orthodox modernism’s wish for an architecture founded on “pure” utility (on efficiency, science, production, technol- ogy, forthrightness, and so forth), architects and architectural educators still intuitively recognized that buildings had to serve “other” needs. Humanity yearned beyond the prag- matic, mechanical, or biological. Instead of the temple, cathedral, mosque, or synagogue, the art museum became the alternate venue for this—a typology in which transcendent experience could be had without mention of literal faith. Nor did the architectural profes-
sion begrudge this necessity. We embraced artistic typologies with fervor, sensing or at least hoping that the aesthetical could address the same human craving that the spiritual once did. Art museums appeared on every design student’s board—and often. A decade ago, I had an undergraduate at an institu- tion where I was teaching tell me that for four consecutive semesters of design studio, the program choices made available were all art oriented: “House for a Collector,” “Art School,” “Museum of This-or-That Famed Artist,” “The Photographer’s Studio,” and so on. The Guggenheim, Bilbao, and dozens of other prominent new art museums became the late twentieth century’s cathedrals. Soon enough, no one could hope for fame in the discipline without a major facility for art in their professional portfolio (and we naïvely had thought it would be housing instead).
xiv Randall Ott
Even modest, mid-sized cities eagerly entered and competed in the contemporary museum wars, fielding ever more gorgeous, one-off, rather strident creations. If nothing else, this strange outcome of modernity’s purported thrust toward pragmatism was to convince us, once and for all, that architecture cannot distill to budgets, footages, and building systems. Other profound needs cannot be addressed through those well-meaning areas. Pure utility as speechmaking led, remarkably, to pure aesthetics as a responding dream.
But in the end, did this swap of museum for temple still offer us transcendence? One senses we have already taken this transfer- ence as far as it can go, and come up short. Countertrends are becoming apparent. Why, though, doesn’t the museum as social or eth- ical or personal “cathedral” still work—still convince us that we have had our weekly expe- rience of transcendence? Is it a matter of sim- ple boredom or overkill? Have we now built so many museums that they stand on every corner in every city (as is colloquially said of the hundreds of churches of Baroque Rome, for example) and offer not so much a respite from an environment founded on instrumen- tal rationality but have become the surround- ing environment itself, fostering a desire for a new upheaval or breakout? Or, alternatively, have we, after fifty years of museums as guides to the “other,” perhaps simply discovered that aesthetics does not fully encapsulate that other? This seems closer to the truth. There is no dispute that aesthetics may open the door to an experience of transcendence, but in such a case it functions as a vehicle, not as the goal itself. The increasing hollowness of our ever more desperate museum-based pyrotechnics suggests such a realization. For millennia aesthetics and the sacred have had
a close if uneasy relationship—modernity’s recent efforts are really just another reprise of the Platonic tradition’s conflation of beauty with the holy. It seems we have begun to suspect that pleasing our eyes is not the same as pleasing our souls. Such thoughts drive us beyond the desire for aesthetic titillation and impel a search even among us blasé moderns for indelible meaning—perhaps the sacred’s core constituent.
Even just a decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine transcendence as the subject for a conference at a school of architecture. “Transcending Architecture,” a recent sympo- sium organized at the School of Architecture and Planning at the Catholic University of America, highlights this emerging counter- trend. This symposium brought together architects, theologians, philosophers, plan- ners, scholars in anthropology, social work, and comparative religion, as well as critics and encouraged them to speculate about how the sublime ushering of built form into transcen- dent experience operates, and, crucially, what its meaning for humanity may be. How does architecture describe the indescribable and, in doing so, speak ably of things that are often considered most potent when left literally un- said? The sessions explored how we create the architecturally transcendent today and how it can still exert an influence in our contempo- rary, highly secular lives.
Of course there is the danger, given our re- cent history as a profession, that we will simply substitute the study of artistic cathedrals for artistic museums and find ourselves right back where we started, staring into aestheticism from the pews instead of standing in a gallery. The symposium, and the chapters published here from it, addressed that concern by avoid- ing a focus on the rising trend toward recent,
Foreword xv
evocative religious spaces and instead stressed more elemental themes: the “groundedness” of home, nature as recovery, ethics, the holiness of life itself, the primacy of people over things, the power of empty but enabling nothingness, social justice, how reality always exceeds us, the processes of hermeneutics, and related ideas.
One would hope transcendence, of all topics, might evade hasty exploitation and subsequent boredom. The sacred retains inherent mystery, which may afford it unique resilience here. It has a profound grassroots allure for citizens. The increasing number of autonomous studies of the sacred in architec- tural curricula across the country today is an optimistic sign of such renewed interest. If the sacred eventually reestablishes itself as a pri- mary force within architecture, that outcome will result more from these common, broadly based, grassroots efforts than from evocations of, and conversations about, the grandiose. Our profession’s disdain for storefront epiph- anies or megachurch mixers blinds us to this. History, of course, had its prestigious religious monuments that provoked architectural tour- ism, its sites of pilgrimage that bordered on consumerism. Yet what drove people toward such places was the honest belief in what they already experienced every day back home. The aesthetic power incumbent in history’s great religious buildings had a role, but it was that of further consummating the visitor’s prior experiences of life’s daily profundity. One doubts that dynamic can function in reverse. Can an architectural pilgrimage to a new cathedral, if driven solely by its beguiling aes- thetics, kindle anew a practical ethics offering meaning to one’s day-to-day life? Truthfully, the process begins elsewhere, with the day-to- day itself.
The “Transcending Architecture” sympo-
sium was an outgrowth of our larger mis- sion at the Catholic University of America, which stresses service to church and nation through the joint aegis of faith and reason, and our specific school mission of “building stewardship”—which we interpret as finding ways to create intersections between our role as stewards on this globe and our buildings. One outgrowth of that mission is our school’s sacred space and cultural studies concentra- tion in our MArch program—the only place in the country where an architecture student can spend several semesters studying the im- pacts of the sacred on our built environment. The graduate concentration is led by Associ- ate Professor Julio Bermudez.
Our appreciation goes to Professor Ber- mudez for organizing the symposium and editing the resulting volume now in your hands, and to the Catholic University of America Press for publishing these important contents so they can reach a wider audience. We also deeply appreciate and acknowledge the support of the Walton Fund for Sacred Architecture, which has made possible so many initiatives related to the study of sacred placemaking at our school, including this one.
R andall Ott Dean, School of Architecture
and Planning, The Catholic University of America
xvii
As I complete this project in late June 2013, I realize that it has been almost two years since the organization of the symposium “Transcending Architecture” got started. The result of this twenty-four-month journey, the book now in your hands, took much pa- tience, time, effort, and help. And regarding the latter, now is the appropriate moment to acknowledge all the people without whom this publication would have been impossible. First, I would like to thank my dean, Randall Ott, who encouraged, trusted, and support- ed me in the organization of the event and later on in the production of this book. My appreciation also goes to the CUA architec- ture undergraduate students Kelly Corcoran, Matthew Kline, and Tyler Thurston and graduate students Gina Longo, Benjamin Norkin, Ashley Prince, Chloe Rice, and Mandira Sareen, who generously assisted me
in a variety of ways before and during the symposium. In particular, I would like to show my indebtedness to graduate student Brandon Ro for his diligent, intelligent, and outstanding support in producing the final version of the manuscript for submission to CUA Press. I need to recognize several CUArch staff members for their various help as well: Associate Dean for Student and Academic Affairs Michelle A. Rinehart, past and present Assistants to the Dean Kathy Fayne and Patricia Dudley (respec- tively), Visual Resource Center Manager Bob Willis, Administrative Assistant Nora Petersen, and Systems Administrator Jerry Mosby. My thanks also go to all my faculty colleagues at CUArch for their honest inter- est, warm support, and active participation in the symposium. The Catholic University of America Office of Video Production and
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xviii Acknowledgments
News Media should be acknowledged for their video recording and webcasting of all the keynote speeches. The financial generosi- ty of the Walton Family Distinguished Critic in Design and Catholic Stewardship program must be highlighted as it was instrumental in securing the event. Most generally, I want to publicly acknowledge and thank the Catholic University of America along with its…
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