compass (for mecca)

tent revivals

...and the hotel drawer bible? would be coool to hear of any projects.

I used to work in a firm that designed a lot of Christian churches. in some of our interviews we began with an overview about church design and incorporated ideas based in Matthew 18:20 http://bible.cc/matthew/18-20.htm

With that in mind...hit the www and find the U.S. Military's portable chapel that used to be called the "lee portable chapel (or similar)" which essentially folded the whole mess up into a crate to be used as an altar or for use on a jeep's hood. these went out of style after WWII as evidenced here but it varies by the permanence of the base:

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/iraq/galleries/041303/07.htm

http://ct.dscp.dla.mil/ctinfo/mig49/items/field.html

Catholic Priests use similar methods to take the church to the parishoner whether it be on the battlefield, home or in a hospital:

http://www.christianexpressionsuperstore.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=390

Also you may want to look into airport chapels. All three of these 'temporary' or 'placemaking by object introduction' type of worship types were all things we used to discuss with the church committees as the project began.

as all the other posters have mentioned...the method of portability, scale and surroundings are often secondary to the notion of assembly and sense of worship. In the above cases, it was more important to create a little bubble within the world in which to worship, apart from but a part within. Good luck, Arild.

this is getting very interesting.

I almost forgot. I was going to include the work of Singeru Ban. He worked with cardboard tubes and designed a church in 1995. Here:

http://www.japan-architects.com/content/profiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile&architect=2488&lang=e&locale=e

thanks a lot!

It's cheesy as all f%ck but it's still kinda cool in a way...

http://www.inflatablechurch.com/mainpage.htm

I would have thought that any kind of item with religious significance was essentially a place of worship. How about a christians crucifix worn around the neck etc? I'd be quite intererested int he notions of icons. I think baudrillard has some good stuff on signifiers etc. I think instrumentOFaction makes some very good points there as well. Nice one.

yours open book or mind. why thing build, not need.

Steven...nice...and even air conditioned...wow? where did you go on your honeymoon after that? hahahaha...

While i've never been to vegas, i always had hoped to find some type of documentation/book of all the wedding chapels...i had hoped to leave it as a gift to my old firm but alas i never found an author/photographer who felt they were documentary-worthy.

speaking of the odd use of religious idolotry, be sure to come to the greater cincinnati/dayton area to view and kneel before:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/OHMONjesus.html

"the body is a temple,
the feet are planted to the earth,
as such, the whole world is a place of worship"

i love that thing, iOf. it scared me the first time i saw it, just driving by.

What did I just exclaim out loud when I saw that thing you posted, iOF? "Jeeesus Christ!!!!"

Indeed. Yikes.

the best/worst part is that JC is only about 200 yards of I-75 and for the first few months it was erected there was a dramatic increase in the number of high speed traffic accidents from ogglers...

it was so odd seeing that thing go up. the press had been covering it quite heavily...its Monroe, OH remember... so they ran a story when each part was delivered. i remember seeing a reporter detailing "jesus' head" as it laid on a flatbed...surreal. also, there exists a steel framework below the styrofoam and that was up for a while before the actual "art" arrived so for about two weeks we had our own burning man-type-thing going.

I think that your response is quite typical. the first time my parents came to visit me in Cinci since it went up i told them to just call me when they passed Jesus. they had no idea what i meant but my father's response was just the same...they called me from the car..."JEEESSUUSSS..." btw, here's a link to the church itself...don't forget to tithe online and be sure to download the mp3's of the bluegrass band the preacher fronts...

http://www.solidrockchurch.org/king.htm
http://www.lawrencebishop.org/
http://www.firechoir.com/mminister.html

this is really getting somewhere.

Arild, you have to understand...Monkeyboy worships the porcelain altar more than most people...to him its a viable religious experience;-)

I have been thinking of your problem, though, and my mind got stuck on the Japanese concept of Shikinen sengu or 'rebuilding ceremony'.

http://int.kateigaho.com/spr05/forests-ise.html
http://aggv.bc.ca/catalogues/page_detail.asp?catalogue=16&page=487

"rebuilding the shrine on an adjacent, alternate lot every twenty years to ensure ritual purity and to maintain it in a state of perfection. Once the new shrine was finished, the old one was dismantled. Shikinen sengu was carried out at many Shinto shrines throughout the country, but the enormous cost, the difficulty of getting the special lumber and of assembling experienced craftsmen eventually put an end to this practice between the fourteenth and sixteenth centures. From this time on, shrines were made of more permanent materials. The Ise Shrine alone has been regularly rebuilt every twenty years for the last thirteen centuries, except for a span of about 120 years in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."

while not 'modern' in terms of linear time, the concept and arrangement of the system is perfectly modern.

the hebrew sukkah (sukhot?) is a portable structure traditionally set up once yearly for passover, I think. I am not jewish, nor very familiar with the whole sukkah procedure, but every year once of the 3rd year design studios builds 3 sukkahs around campus and the stay up for the traditional period of time. Jewish student organizations help fund the bldg materials. Students design the structures, which have to be reasonably portable (picture a caravan) and in line with other religious texts that describe the nature of the roof, walls and other elements.

the hebrew sukkah (sukhot?) is a portable structure traditionally set up once yearly for passover, I think. I am not jewish, nor very familiar with the whole sukkah procedure, but every year once of the 3rd year design studios builds 3 sukkahs around campus and the stay up for the traditional period of time. Jewish student organizations help fund the bldg materials. Students design the structures, which have to be reasonably portable (picture a caravan) and in line with other religious texts that describe the nature of the roof, walls and other elements.

oops..."one of the 3rd year design studios..."

you holy, no need place/thing.

fight you, mine thing higher holy much your.

that gets old fast, cf.

How about the 'PrayStation', or the Mobile Confessional?

very interesting link, Bryan. -all too achieveable technology for the most part... the implementation of 'judgement', though, is a peculiar touch.

excerpt: "It also functions as a ‘soul meter’, its colour reflecting the state of a soul from pure white to a sinful black, thus informing the owner on their soul’s condition. The e-priest is a cognitive artificial intelligence that will learn and evolve the more you visit it, building up a profile."

Also, doesn't the 'praystation' remind anyone else of the similar construction/idea in Lucas' THX 1138?

if i remember correctly, the last archinect competition a few years back (?) around kiosks, had a proposal for a kiosk confessional (at least i think there was one, maybe that was some random burning man idea i had a while back and never got too). anyway I thought that was a cool idea.

but yeah, cubicleizing the place of worship, and adding an AI component to it, or some interdigitated soul prosthesis, like an embedded big brother/god head, a palm pilot guardian angel, getting your comfort from the iCross, there are some nutty futuristic notions to flush out in there.

i am curious about what mobile worship places mean for 'missionaries' in the modern age. making the worship place compact enough to appropriate anywhere, anytime, in any context. what happens to the church in the face of pocket altars?

i would check out India, and South east asia, where altars are floating down the rivers constantly, or the middle east, africa, where nomads are rampant. what does a mobile worship place mean for the pilgramage to mecca, or any pilgramage?

ok, i am seriously rambling now ... but an intersting topic.

Muslim Prayer Rug.
what could be more portable?

the ultimate worship cubie.. the ubiquitous digital jesus confessional in THX 1138 by george lucas...

I love that monkeyboy posted a port-a-potty... I'm doing a MDS (masters design thesis) next year and want to concentrate on sacred space... but also have always wanted to reinvent the public restroom. Trying to figure out how the two are related...monkeyboy has just affirmed my unfounded belief that they are (or should be) somehow...
think of traditional japanese bathrooms, little gardens set apart for the most private of functions.

btw that huge jesus and the inflatable church are sooooo scary.

check out this funky prayer carpet, not sure how portable it is though... but self-aware.



...also, Herzog's Fitzcarraldo comes to mind thinking about this topic, if you haven't already seen it...

take your bells anywhere to call your believers