what are the implications of an agnostic person designing a church? i've been confounded by this question for quite sometime now as i am agnostic leaning towards athiesm, yet feel strangely compelled to design spiritual spaces. do you have to believe in god to design a house of god? would the design be in vain? what are the deeper underlying issues? please. discuss.
but what do you mean by a 'spiritual space'?
do you mean a space that makes you feel a certain way?
or do you mean a space where something supernatural occurs?
your question implies that spirituality and supernaturality are seperated. interesting, but by spiritual spaces, i mean places of worship - churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, etc.
beautiful title for a thread. should be the title of a book. Of course an agnostic can design a 'house of god'. You can be a theologian or an architect but very difficult to be both and do each discipline justice. some spiritual spaces have a way of living on generating feelings of the numinous long after the nominal 'God' that was the seed has died. I think for instance of the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge. It has a cult following both within and without the UK. Cambridge a very atheistical place. Despite that, tons of people go to the Christian services there to 'get the experience'. For Blake god was an architect, so don't be put off by your feelings of atheism. I may be all wrong here, seeing as I am not an architect. someone correct me.
been there. at the office where i worked until recently i was the church guy. primarily because i'm very patient - a necessary characteristic when working with church committees. (i also didn't balk when asked to attend evening meetings. sucker.)
all flippancy aside: i think it's an advantage to be coming from outside the church/temple culture.
1. you're not tied to any one denomination. i worked on lutheran, presbyterian, christian (disciples of christ), etc.
2. you're more sensitive to what the congregation thinks that their worship space should be (because these communities are all very different really) instead of any notions gathered from your own church experience.
3. you're not taken in by the symbols and trinkets and can concentrate your efforts on making a space for contemplation.
I find that much of what you just wrote holds true for other places of assembly. These things are often useful in the nightclub & strip club projects that I'm currently working on. Except, point #3, there's always some dancer getting in your way when you're taking as-builts.
I'm with Steven on this, and from a similar background. My former office did 50-70% church work, despite the staff being something like 90% agnostic.
It's all about being a good architect for your client - hear their needs and desires, research the history that might be influencing those needs as well as the functional requirements of a contemporary version of the space, and proceed understanding that working for a "community" is much more challenging than working for a single-headed client.
If you understand any kind of human yearning for a higher level of being or knowledge or connectedness, (aka "spirituality") then you can understand the requirements of the project.
Aug 11, 05 11:04 am ·
·
The original Cedar Grove Church just up the street is now a gymnasiun. Over on Rising Sun Avenue, the old Murianka Funeral Home used to be a Portugese church, but is now the base of a Black congregation, Trinity-something-something-something. Then up the road, the old Kolping House, a Catholic home for German immigrant men was knocked down to make way for the RiteAid. And directly across the street, the quondam Fleur's Funeral Home is now the Lutheran Family Community Center, whose neighbor, once a big single house, is now a Cambodian Buddhist Temple. Gosh, from where I'm at, architects, agnostic or otherwise, aren't needed at all when it comes to making a spiritual space.
i have always seen that it is really the best space when you can see the architect working through his spirituality (whether through the appropriate faith or another). it is really that process that then becomes the sacredness most embraced by the congregation.
as for RN's comment...you are right the typical religious building regardless of faith is very representative of culture in general...no care for the space itself. does this relate to the fact that we now see the sacredness (god, spirituality, etc) in everything...(much like duchamp's urinal did for art), making space no more than a black box theater???
Aug 11, 05 11:34 am ·
·
Not cheesy at all.
The weirdest thing about all the "spiritual spaces" of my immediate neighborhood is that they are clustered around the intersection of Rising Sun Avenue and Tabor Road, which actually may have been a Lenni-Lenape (summer) solstice celebration site. (Hence my living in what used to be an ancient burial site.)
The Lenni-Lenape trail that is now Rising Sun Avenue culminated at the high-point where Tabor Road crosses Rising Sun Avenue. Tabor Road dates back to 1776, albeit still under George III. Its purpose was to give the Church of England faithful living in Germantown access to Trinity Episcopal Church (many miles east) on Oxford Avenue (which was another Native American trail).
le corbusier minded
father coutourier did not mind
notre dame chapel, beyond the feel good cliches, must have been an excercise in irony (the first moments of modernist abstraction seem to be all about being ironical)
' does this relate to the fact that we now see the sacredness (god, spirituality, etc) in everything' eilade says the very opposite thing,
, the impossibility of sacredness in the profane world, but isnt it a delicious ...irony...that as a modern man he thinks he could straddle the fence between the sacred and the profane.
'you're not taken in by the symbols and trinkets ' light/dark,verticality/horizontality...isnt there
symbolism behind them, especially with regard to mentioned spaces?
i do a lot of contemplation going down to the tube...but how does a place 'designed for contemplation' incur it? and finally what is a spiritual space?
there is a ruin of a building that still stands at the then-known-as Green Line partitioning Beyrouth
the stairs have lost their baulastrades, they rise up in air, greenery all around
in the apartments you will still find limbless dolls cutlery and such
on one wall there is a poster of a soldier, head down, it has almost merged into the wall and is now more like a mural
the light seeps in through bulletholes
it has been described as being a rather spiritual space
so, is there an underbelly of violence to spiritual spaces? the
necessary sacrifice to sanctify
I'm in this position now. I'm part of a team working for a church and I'm, err... an atheist I reckon. I'd like to think that it's nothing but good for an impartial person to give a project like this a look. Another person in the team is a Christian and seems to want to participate more than observe. It's precisely because churches need third party analysis that it's good to have 'non-believers' looking at the problem of building a church and the roll churches play. The traditional model of church growth is just dumb expansion, more square feet + fountains. Churches are big on self congratulation and are apt to think they do everything right when often their slogans don't match their reality.
(someone should really teach me how to link and be cool)
the blood comes with the asiatic Bellona and alters the date from the roman bellona's 3rd of june to the 24th of march ,day of blood
the same designation, day of blood, is also used for the 23rd of march with the death of attis and his mourning by cybele (a phrygian version of adonis and aphrodite) the high priest also draws blood from his arm as a symbolic sacrifice
easter roughly occurs in that period of time, March 25th is Good Friday (every 30 or so years Easter coincides with Good Friday ... death and birth)
and the greek model, Eris/Enyo (Homer doesnt differentiate) started the Greek-Trojan war with an apple
she is described as bathing and revelling in the blood of the fallen men and that reminds me of the bacchants described by euripides
liber pater, an italian dionysus, is celebrated on 17th march just when the attis cermemony begins (opens up the week and the day of blood ends it)
thats the world of mythology, in one myth you find all myths
Aug 11, 05 4:28 pm ·
·
Bombing of Baghdad 20 March 2003.
[Don't worry whore, you'll never be cool.]
And isn't that Islamic feast(?) when men march through the streets whipping their backs right around the vernal eqinox as well?
anyone ever hear of this guy, last name Aalto.....
If I am remembering correctly he was not a spiritual man however, was crafty with the church stuff.......
Aug 11, 05 5:54 pm ·
·
Yeah, another crafty reenactor of Helena and Eutropia.
feast?
the ashoura it is specific to shiites and it is in memory of the fall of hussein, ali's son and the prophet's grandson in the karbala battle
it occurs on the 10th of muharram and that varies, the islamic calendar being purely lunar, it travels (against the gregorian)
the sacrifice-ressurection model
from ali/hussein to the al-mahdi (he who shall come after issa inb mariam (jesus son of mary)
like www.adishakti.org/_/mahdi.htm
i see the grey, but
the [url=http://www.link.com] ?
link as in that which turns out red
/url?
an example?
so many urls and links (www.link.com must be popular with al qaeda surfers)
ta
first. athiests think more about god than anyone else. secondly, one doesnt need to believe in god to design churches. here is all one needs to know when designing churches.
1.fire suppression.
2.making sure there is enough storage for all the folding tables and chairs.
3. making sure there is enough counterspace and outlets for the crockpots.
spirituality seldom enters into it
to recognize yourself as part of one belief or another and constantly question what you believe requires a lot of introspective thought that i think makes one a more respectful person towards others beliefs.
i believe in religion but i don't believe in the politics that seems to come along with it nowadays. if you have enough respect for others beliefs than, as many others have noted, it is easier to take a step back and look at the most important aspects of a religion rather than interpreting minute details to conform to anyone's specfic beliefs.
also.. i've always felt that religion was more of an outlet for comfort. it removes doubt about death and if there is an after-life, creates a personality(ies) for people to unfailingly believe in, provides a scapegoat for responsibility... and offers someone an ideal to work towards. i wouldn't be surprised that the design of spiritual places is fascinating to you... because i think that the idea of creating a space that provides comfort to people is something that most architects would ascribe to.
when i was back in the states a couple years ago i was visting some family in the fantastic city of Lakeland FL, and of course was requested to go churchin` on sunday. I think it may be one of the best ones i've been to. Basically, they bought an old mall and converted it to a church,, (i think the old sears was the sanctuary)..too funny for words so I'll try and find some pics..
in Detroit you can find a former movie theater made into a church a couple blocks from a former bank made into a strip club - bringing the disussion full circle to mystery man's post/point (or non-point)...
In Christian Orthodoxy, the art of creating religious spaces and icons, in particular, is reserved for the penitent and the deeply religious, mainly because of the Christ's teachings. Icons which mainly adorn Orthodox Church walls are meant to be created with utter reverance for the materials used, because that precious matter was put here on earth by God for humans to utilize in their worship of Him. In fact, it isn't idolatry if you worship the idea of creation and not the structure and/or art itself. So in only makes sense that only true believers should be able to use God's materials to create a house dedicated to the veneration of God...
Then if you are an athiest, none of that really matters, so theoretically, you can do whatever you want....but to me, it's all about respect....
pasha apparently thinks agnosticism=self-worship. typical reaction of those who think only THEIR belief is worth consideration. (maybe THAT's self-worship?)
imagine, pasha, that some people in fact really want to know what the truth is but don't think they've found it in any of the dogmas they've been shown so far. these people are searchers, not narcissists.
wait... isn't rejecting jesus but accepting god... judaeism?
i think the best agnostic spiritual space would look like a planetarium..... portrays the endless possibility without defining the 'thing' you believe in specficially.
lenav, i like that, and i'm not trying to be a git, really, but pasha is also an escort service in london...... i dont' know, i thought it kind of humorous...
the agnostic design of spiritual space
what are the implications of an agnostic person designing a church? i've been confounded by this question for quite sometime now as i am agnostic leaning towards athiesm, yet feel strangely compelled to design spiritual spaces. do you have to believe in god to design a house of god? would the design be in vain? what are the deeper underlying issues? please. discuss.
my feeling is that you can't have it both ways.
but what do you mean by a 'spiritual space'?
do you mean a space that makes you feel a certain way?
or do you mean a space where something supernatural occurs?
your question implies that spirituality and supernaturality are seperated. interesting, but by spiritual spaces, i mean places of worship - churches, temples, synagogues, mosques, etc.
beautiful title for a thread. should be the title of a book. Of course an agnostic can design a 'house of god'. You can be a theologian or an architect but very difficult to be both and do each discipline justice. some spiritual spaces have a way of living on generating feelings of the numinous long after the nominal 'God' that was the seed has died. I think for instance of the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge. It has a cult following both within and without the UK. Cambridge a very atheistical place. Despite that, tons of people go to the Christian services there to 'get the experience'. For Blake god was an architect, so don't be put off by your feelings of atheism. I may be all wrong here, seeing as I am not an architect. someone correct me.
been there. at the office where i worked until recently i was the church guy. primarily because i'm very patient - a necessary characteristic when working with church committees. (i also didn't balk when asked to attend evening meetings. sucker.)
all flippancy aside: i think it's an advantage to be coming from outside the church/temple culture.
1. you're not tied to any one denomination. i worked on lutheran, presbyterian, christian (disciples of christ), etc.
2. you're more sensitive to what the congregation thinks that their worship space should be (because these communities are all very different really) instead of any notions gathered from your own church experience.
3. you're not taken in by the symbols and trinkets and can concentrate your efforts on making a space for contemplation.
I find that much of what you just wrote holds true for other places of assembly. These things are often useful in the nightclub & strip club projects that I'm currently working on. Except, point #3, there's always some dancer getting in your way when you're taking as-builts.
lol very clever...
ya, that makes sense Steven.
David, as far as "deeper underlying issues" go... catharsis?
I'm with Steven on this, and from a similar background. My former office did 50-70% church work, despite the staff being something like 90% agnostic.
It's all about being a good architect for your client - hear their needs and desires, research the history that might be influencing those needs as well as the functional requirements of a contemporary version of the space, and proceed understanding that working for a "community" is much more challenging than working for a single-headed client.
If you understand any kind of human yearning for a higher level of being or knowledge or connectedness, (aka "spirituality") then you can understand the requirements of the project.
The original Cedar Grove Church just up the street is now a gymnasiun. Over on Rising Sun Avenue, the old Murianka Funeral Home used to be a Portugese church, but is now the base of a Black congregation, Trinity-something-something-something. Then up the road, the old Kolping House, a Catholic home for German immigrant men was knocked down to make way for the RiteAid. And directly across the street, the quondam Fleur's Funeral Home is now the Lutheran Family Community Center, whose neighbor, once a big single house, is now a Cambodian Buddhist Temple. Gosh, from where I'm at, architects, agnostic or otherwise, aren't needed at all when it comes to making a spiritual space.
hmmm
"the body is a temple,
my feet are planted to the earth,
as such, the whole world is a place of worship"
-KS
*this is at least the 3rd time I have posted this same poem, and perhaps the last, 'cause it's starting to sound cheesy...
i have always seen that it is really the best space when you can see the architect working through his spirituality (whether through the appropriate faith or another). it is really that process that then becomes the sacredness most embraced by the congregation.
as for RN's comment...you are right the typical religious building regardless of faith is very representative of culture in general...no care for the space itself. does this relate to the fact that we now see the sacredness (god, spirituality, etc) in everything...(much like duchamp's urinal did for art), making space no more than a black box theater???
Not cheesy at all.
The weirdest thing about all the "spiritual spaces" of my immediate neighborhood is that they are clustered around the intersection of Rising Sun Avenue and Tabor Road, which actually may have been a Lenni-Lenape (summer) solstice celebration site. (Hence my living in what used to be an ancient burial site.)
The Lenni-Lenape trail that is now Rising Sun Avenue culminated at the high-point where Tabor Road crosses Rising Sun Avenue. Tabor Road dates back to 1776, albeit still under George III. Its purpose was to give the Church of England faithful living in Germantown access to Trinity Episcopal Church (many miles east) on Oxford Avenue (which was another Native American trail).
What places strike you as spiritual, not as sacred places of worship, but as those spaces that just feel 'at peace' ?
Much of Ando's work in Japan feels like this for me. Taliesen in WI is another.
le corbusier minded
father coutourier did not mind
notre dame chapel, beyond the feel good cliches, must have been an excercise in irony (the first moments of modernist abstraction seem to be all about being ironical)
' does this relate to the fact that we now see the sacredness (god, spirituality, etc) in everything' eilade says the very opposite thing,
, the impossibility of sacredness in the profane world, but isnt it a delicious ...irony...that as a modern man he thinks he could straddle the fence between the sacred and the profane.
'you're not taken in by the symbols and trinkets ' light/dark,verticality/horizontality...isnt there
symbolism behind them, especially with regard to mentioned spaces?
i do a lot of contemplation going down to the tube...but how does a place 'designed for contemplation' incur it? and finally what is a spiritual space?
there is a ruin of a building that still stands at the then-known-as Green Line partitioning Beyrouth
the stairs have lost their baulastrades, they rise up in air, greenery all around
in the apartments you will still find limbless dolls cutlery and such
on one wall there is a poster of a soldier, head down, it has almost merged into the wall and is now more like a mural
the light seeps in through bulletholes
it has been described as being a rather spiritual space
so, is there an underbelly of violence to spiritual spaces? the
necessary sacrifice to sanctify
I'm in this position now. I'm part of a team working for a church and I'm, err... an atheist I reckon. I'd like to think that it's nothing but good for an impartial person to give a project like this a look. Another person in the team is a Christian and seems to want to participate more than observe. It's precisely because churches need third party analysis that it's good to have 'non-believers' looking at the problem of building a church and the roll churches play. The traditional model of church growth is just dumb expansion, more square feet + fountains. Churches are big on self congratulation and are apt to think they do everything right when often their slogans don't match their reality.
Q; What comes after museum?
A: Pre-shrine.
dies sanguinis
Otherwise a story about someplace that used to be a Lenni-Lenape camp site.
Ironically, I watched Sunshine State for the first time last night.
(someone should really teach me how to link and be cool)
the blood comes with the asiatic Bellona and alters the date from the roman bellona's 3rd of june to the 24th of march ,day of blood
the same designation, day of blood, is also used for the 23rd of march with the death of attis and his mourning by cybele (a phrygian version of adonis and aphrodite) the high priest also draws blood from his arm as a symbolic sacrifice
easter roughly occurs in that period of time, March 25th is Good Friday (every 30 or so years Easter coincides with Good Friday ... death and birth)
and the greek model, Eris/Enyo (Homer doesnt differentiate) started the Greek-Trojan war with an apple
she is described as bathing and revelling in the blood of the fallen men and that reminds me of the bacchants described by euripides
liber pater, an italian dionysus, is celebrated on 17th march just when the attis cermemony begins (opens up the week and the day of blood ends it)
thats the world of mythology, in one myth you find all myths
Bombing of Baghdad 20 March 2003.
[Don't worry whore, you'll never be cool.]
And isn't that Islamic feast(?) when men march through the streets whipping their backs right around the vernal eqinox as well?
whore: to post a link is not so hard: follow instructions in faint gray beneath the 'Post a response...' box.
put at the end of URL, then type in your link what you want to apppear in red, then type in
It helps to preview post before you submit to make sure your spacing is OK.
whoops! Just follow instructions in faint grey
anyone ever hear of this guy, last name Aalto.....
If I am remembering correctly he was not a spiritual man however, was crafty with the church stuff.......
Yeah, another crafty reenactor of Helena and Eutropia.
feast?
the ashoura it is specific to shiites and it is in memory of the fall of hussein, ali's son and the prophet's grandson in the karbala battle
it occurs on the 10th of muharram and that varies, the islamic calendar being purely lunar, it travels (against the gregorian)
the sacrifice-ressurection model
from ali/hussein to the al-mahdi (he who shall come after issa inb mariam (jesus son of mary)
like www.adishakti.org/_/mahdi.htm
i see the grey, but
the [url=http://www.link.com] ?
link as in that which turns out red
/url?
an example?
so many urls and links (www.link.com must be popular with al qaeda surfers)
ta
ibn
[This link was second at google after a website in Arabic. The images are graphic. The blog comments "got out of hand."]
Not a feast, but very much a reenactment.
7 is an intense cutie
also for another blood ritual -again blood drawn out of the arm and also the mother-son as well as son-whore model
and the miming...very reenacting
7 is an intense cutie
also for another blood ritual -again blood drawn out of the arm and also the mother-son as well as son-whore model
and the miming...very reenacting
(so you are cool after all)
why sanks johndevlin
first. athiests think more about god than anyone else. secondly, one doesnt need to believe in god to design churches. here is all one needs to know when designing churches.
1.fire suppression.
2.making sure there is enough storage for all the folding tables and chairs.
3. making sure there is enough counterspace and outlets for the crockpots.
spirituality seldom enters into it
to recognize yourself as part of one belief or another and constantly question what you believe requires a lot of introspective thought that i think makes one a more respectful person towards others beliefs.
i believe in religion but i don't believe in the politics that seems to come along with it nowadays. if you have enough respect for others beliefs than, as many others have noted, it is easier to take a step back and look at the most important aspects of a religion rather than interpreting minute details to conform to anyone's specfic beliefs.
also.. i've always felt that religion was more of an outlet for comfort. it removes doubt about death and if there is an after-life, creates a personality(ies) for people to unfailingly believe in, provides a scapegoat for responsibility... and offers someone an ideal to work towards. i wouldn't be surprised that the design of spiritual places is fascinating to you... because i think that the idea of creating a space that provides comfort to people is something that most architects would ascribe to.
when i was back in the states a couple years ago i was visting some family in the fantastic city of Lakeland FL, and of course was requested to go churchin` on sunday. I think it may be one of the best ones i've been to. Basically, they bought an old mall and converted it to a church,, (i think the old sears was the sanctuary)..too funny for words so I'll try and find some pics..
it seems like that is becoming quite a trend. move your church into an empty big box retail space. helps ya to get right with god.
If you'd really like to see "church" architecture change, just imagine religious institutions without tax exemption.
You can thank Constantine for starting that law.
in Detroit you can find a former movie theater made into a church a couple blocks from a former bank made into a strip club - bringing the disussion full circle to mystery man's post/point (or non-point)...
ultimate big box spiritual space is King's College Chapel: simply 40' wide x 80' high x 289' long.
'first. athiests think more about god than anyone else'
?
So the question, so the answer.
go figure
reject Jesus but follow God
In Christian Orthodoxy, the art of creating religious spaces and icons, in particular, is reserved for the penitent and the deeply religious, mainly because of the Christ's teachings. Icons which mainly adorn Orthodox Church walls are meant to be created with utter reverance for the materials used, because that precious matter was put here on earth by God for humans to utilize in their worship of Him. In fact, it isn't idolatry if you worship the idea of creation and not the structure and/or art itself. So in only makes sense that only true believers should be able to use God's materials to create a house dedicated to the veneration of God...
Then if you are an athiest, none of that really matters, so theoretically, you can do whatever you want....but to me, it's all about respect....
idolatry is worshiping creation instead of creator.
i think a good space for agnostic spiritual space would be a 2x2x7 black box with a mirrored ceiling..
pasha apparently thinks agnosticism=self-worship. typical reaction of those who think only THEIR belief is worth consideration. (maybe THAT's self-worship?)
imagine, pasha, that some people in fact really want to know what the truth is but don't think they've found it in any of the dogmas they've been shown so far. these people are searchers, not narcissists.
wait... isn't rejecting jesus but accepting god... judaeism?
i think the best agnostic spiritual space would look like a planetarium..... portrays the endless possibility without defining the 'thing' you believe in specficially.
the best temples outlive their gods
"i put a capital "N" in front of Nature and that is my temple"
we are all spiritual beings, wether we're atheist, agnostic, religious, or hungry.
pasha: the idea of creation = creator
lenav, i like that, and i'm not trying to be a git, really, but pasha is also an escort service in london...... i dont' know, i thought it kind of humorous...
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