The design of religious architecture challenges the creative capacities of prominent architects, yet this domain has largely gone unnoticed within the field. In an inter-religious and inter-disciplinary context, this seminar offers a fresh examination of the history of modern architecture through a close analysis of a single building type—the religious building (mosques, churches, synagogues, and temples). Drawing on guest speakers, this course opens a discourse between the disciplinary perspectives of philosophy, theology, liturgical studies, and architectural history and theory on the influence religion has come to exert in contemporary civic life, and the concretization of that role in the construction of prominent religious buildings. Questions addressed include: How can the concept of the “sacred” be understood in the twenty-first century, if at all? In what contexts is it intelligible? In a pluralist society, in which the spiritual is often experienced individually, how can architecture express communal identity or tradition? How are concepts of the ineffable realized in material form? Architects discussed included Perret, Plecnik, Lutyens, Wright, Le Corbusier, Mendelsohn, El-Wakil, Tange, Kahn, Ando, Barragan, Moneo, Eisenman, Hadid, and Shim.

All Semesters

3225b
Spring 2017
Religion and Modern Architecture
Karla Britton
3225b
Spring 2016
Religion and Modern Architecture
Karla Britton