Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Being versus Nonbeing

Sacred Spaces matter. A lot.

"Christianity places the priority on man's soul transcending his surroundings, not blending with it (a la Zen). Man is large, not small. Churches should be ornamented and highly symbolic, teeming with life, not stark and barren. It all has to do with Being not Nonbeing. The church is a foundation, it's heavy, it imitates the eternal."

And this:

"When one has done away with symbols, theology, and the act of worship, there's little else to inspire a credible work of sacred art or architecture. Piano, like any committed Modernist, is left with little more than a preference for abstraction, technology and some vague nostrums about nature and space."

One more:

"Sacred spaces achieve much of its effect by emphasizing mystery. This is at the core of any religion, in which divine truth is revealed beyond any logical or rational framework. As is often said, God is revealed in mysterious ways, and the purpose of any sacred space is to embody this reality. It is inherent that a secular space is completely counter to this and thus adopts an architectural language devoid of mystery or even ambiguity. Secular spaces instead embrace the language of the engineer..."

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