Modern Architecture and the Sacred: Religious Legacies and Spiritual Renewal

Description

Modern Architecture and the Sacred provides a timely reappraisal of architecture's manifold engagements with notions of the sacred in the twentieth century. A wide range of case material is presented over sixteen contributed essays - including the work of iconic modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe - which together demonstrate that sacred or semi-sacred buildings should not be dismissed as peripheral phenomena in modernism. On the contrary, such works have much to reveal to us about the deeper motivations and complexities at the core of the modernist project. The case material is not limited simply to discussions of explicitly religious buildings (churches, synagogues, etc). The chapters look outwards to invocations of the 'semi-sacred' within secular buildings too - museums, exhibition pavilions, and memorials - which can all make claim at times to a form of sacred space. This expansion of the notion of sacred space sets this collection apart, providing a deeper insight into the role that spirituality plays in modern architecture's philosophical foundations, whether explicitly religious or otherwise. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Illustrations Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Notes Part 1: Beginnings and transformations of the modern sacred Chapter 1: Architecture and the question of ‘the’ sacred Notes Chapter 2: Romantic Kunstreligion and the search for the sacred in modern architecture: From Schinkel’s Altes Museum as ‘aesthetic church’ to Zumthor’s Bruder Klaus Field Chapel as Gesamtkunstwerk and ‘heavenly cave’ Notes Chapter 3: The Ordinary as the extraordinary: Modern sacred architecture in Germany, the United States and Japan Notes Chapter 4: Città dei Morti: Alvar Aalto’s funerary architecture Ancient typologies and topographies Walled enclosures Ritual and representation Conclusion Acknowledgements Archival sources Notes Part 2: Buildings for modern worship Chapter 5: Light, form and formación: Daylighting, church building and the work of the Valparaíso School Renewing architectural education: The first two decades at Valparaíso The 1953 Los Pajaritos chapel project: A ‘battle for the cube of light’ Reconstruction of the church of Corral, 1961 The Open City’s co-operative life, 1971–present The Open City oratory The travesías, 1984–present Sacred architecture, light and formación/Bildung Notes Chapter 6: Reading, storing and parading the book: Between tradition and modernity in the synagogue Introduction Synagogue characteristics Varieties of modern Judaism, and their respective synagogues The nineteenth century: Upper Berkeley Street and South Hackney The twentieth century: South Hampstead United and Belsize Square (Reform) Conclusion Acknowledgements Notes Chapter 7: Compacting civic and sacred: Goodhue’s University of Chicago Chapel and the modern metropolis Developing a site plan Adapting Gothic precedent Symbolizing the modern city Notes Chapter 8: A diaspora of modern sacred form: Auguste Perret, Le Corbusier and Paul Valéry Auguste Perret: The church as ‘sovereign shelter’ The unity of the architectural act: Perret and Valéry Le Corbusier and ineffable space Architecture as pure creation of the spirit: Le Corbusier and Valéry Conclusion Notes Chapter 9: Structure for spirit in The Architectural Review and The Architects’ Journal, 1945–70 Introduction: Primacy of the machine and the functionalist canon Post-war Modernism in Britain The new cathedral projects Rediscovery 1957– Conclusion Notes Part 3: Semi-sacred settings in the cultural topography of modernity Chapter 10: Revelatory earth: Adolphe Appia and the prospect of a modern sacred Notes Chapter 11: Anagogical themes in Schwitters’ Kathedrale des erotischen Elends Merz and the Merz cathedrals Zukunftskathedrale Anagogical themes in the Gothic cathedral and in Merz Conclusion Notes Chapter 12: Modern medievalisms: Curating the sacred at the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne (1932–9) Notes Chapter 13: Architecture, politics and the sacred in military monuments of Fascist Italy Context Aims Means Conclusion Notes Chapter 14: Atmosphere of the sacred: The awry in music, cinema, architecture Discomfiture Awry Undecidable Shudder Notes Bibliography Index