ARCADE DESIGN A r c h i t e c t s - D e s i g n / B u i l d
C O R P O R A T I O N 1681 GREEN OAK CIRCLE - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA 30043
J O S E F . J I M E N E Z OFF. 770.338.9938 FAX. 770.338.1264 CEL. 770.527.1429
C O R P O R A T I O N 1681 GREEN OAK CIRCLE - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA 30043
J O S E F . J I M E N E Z OFF. 770.338.9938 FAX. 770.338.1264 CEL. 770.527.1429
Your Subtitle text
RELIGIOUS BLDG.
SERVICES:
- ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN.
- DESIGN / BUILD.
- CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT.
- MASTER PLANNING.
PROJECTS:
- SANCTUARIES.
- MULTIPURPOSE BUILDING.
- SCHOOLS.
- DAY CARE CENTERS.
- ADMINISTRATION WINGS.
THE NEED TO RESPOND:
PUBLISHED BY THE JOURNAL OF THE INTERFAITH FORUM ON RELIGION, ART & ARCHITECTURE.
Religion isn't dead, and neither is religious architecture, but both face the need to respond to a changing world.
Over the last 30 years, people in both the religious and the architectural communities have begun to grumble about the state of religious architecture. Social changes and liberalization in Christian and Jewish denomination have led, some say, to an architecture that takes great care to emphasize the secular and communal aspects of religion, but fails to celebrate the transcendent nature of God. Such a shift in emphasis should not necessarily result in lesser architecture - a celebration of community ought to be a rich subject for an architect - but too often, new churches fail to inspire, whether because of the architect's failure to meet the design challenge, budget constraints, divisive building committees, or an unclear definition on the part of a church as to what it wants to be. Architects and congregations are dealing with these problems in several different ways; these range from traditional plans and images, to hybrid efforts, to abstract designs that call on light and space - not traditional forms or iconography - to achieve transcendent presence.
The Christian church began to shake itself up in the 1950s, when people such as liturgical consultant Frank Kasmarczyk began considering ways the church could better serve its members as a community rather than as individual worshippers under the guidance of the church hierarchy. Some of Kazmarczyk's innovations - a centrally oriented "community" seating arrangement around the altar, a large secular gathering space outside the sanctuary, less formal areas for confession, among others - were adopted as policy by the Catholic Church under the Vatican II conference, and the ideas also spread to other denominations. This was true especially in the 1960s, when social and political upheaval made the authoritarian nature of the church seem dated.
One of the most significant of these changes, architecturally, was the advent of the community seating arrangement. While not without precedent in early Christian and Reformation tradition, the arrangement challenged the basic Basilican form that was common among Catholic and most mainline Protestant churches. Community seating is now the rule rather than the exception in new churches and with it has come the need to endow the new plan configurations (usually fan shapes, squares, or rectangles with the altar on the short axis) with a "churchlike" quality. In many congregations, there is a conflict between the desire for community seating and the desire for traditional features such as a long aisle for processions.
Most of churches... are liturgically based. This is not entirely coincidence; liturgically based churches (Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, and Orthodox, for example, as opposed to more word-based Protestant denominations) tend to place more importance on buildings, since physical procession and physical elements are a large part of their service. Word-based churches lean philosophically toward more utilitarian structures, and it is rare that significant architectural content is found in their new buildings.
The biggest growing sector of organized religion in America, the loosely affiliated or non-denominational evangelical Christian church, favors large, arena-like auditoriums of little architectural distinction.
Where the church is going in the future is an issue that poses a challenge for architects. Betty Meyer, editor of the magazine faith & Form, sees churches becoming more ecumenical (Christian an Jewish worship services seem to be moving ever closer), but having to respond to the demand by younger recruits for an air of transcendent and spirituality. Accomplishing the latter without falling back on traditional iconography (which would be inappropriate for an exclusive church), Meyer believes, is what religion and architects are going to have to do.
