Dennis Fleisher
A native of Rochester, NY, Dennis Fleisher has served as an acoustics consultant and a designer of spaces for worship, music performance, and education since 1981. The majority of his work has been in liturgical spaces including over 250 churches and chapels and 30 cathedrals. Dennis@musonics.org
Articles by Dennis Fleisher
The Nature of Sound
Worship space acoustics is a branch of architectural acoustics which deals with the audible effects imparted to sounds produced within architectural spaces.
| Nikolaos Karydis
Nikolaos Karydis
Nikolaos Karydis studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens and received his Ph.D in the Conservation of Historic Buildings at the University of Bath. His book on Earlly Byzantine Architecture was published by the British Archeological Reports.
Articles by Nikolaos Karydis
Byzantine Outpost in the West
The preservation in Ravenna of more than twelve churches from the fifth or sixth century offers a rare opportunity to study the history of a major urban center of the Late Antique period.
| John J. Coughlin, OFM
John J. Coughlin, OFM
Rev. John J. Coughlin, OFM, serves as Professor of Law and Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He received his doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and his J.D. from Harvard University. His latest book, Law, Person and Community will be published by Oxford University Press in late 2011.
Articles by John J. Coughlin, OFM
The Perennial Value of the Traditional Confessional
From at least the time of the Council of Trent, the usual venue for the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance has been the confessional situated in a church or oratory.
| John Varriano
John Varriano
John Varriano is Emmeritus Professor of Art History at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA.
Articles by John Varriano
Via Crucis in the Garden State
The 2011 Venice Biennale was flooded with non-representational works that were, as The New York Times reviewer put it, engaged in “an unforgiving contest between the memorable and the forgettable.”
| William Dowdy
William Dowdy
William Dowdy is an associate with Anderson | Kim Architecture + Urban Design. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Chico, California.
Articles by William Dowdy
Ecclesiastical Sprawl Repair
Churches once were recognized as pillars of the community, a distinction manifested in the pride of place granted to the church buildings: from simple white churches on village greens to grand cathedrals on city plazas, the church was integral to civic life.
| Kathryn Schuth
Kathryn Schuth
Kathryn Schuth is a practicing architect in South Bend, Indiana.
Articles by Kathryn Schuth
| Domiane Forte
Domiane Forte
Dom Forte is an architect in Santa Barbara, California.
Articles by Domiane Forte
| Renee Kohler-Ryan
Renee Kohler-Ryan
Renee Kohler-Ryan is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Her dissertation is on the topic of “Sacred Space.”
Articles by Renee Kohler-Ryan
| Thomas Norman Rajkovich
Thomas Norman Rajkovich
Thomas Norman Rajkovich is the founder and Director of a highly respected practice in Evanston, Illinois undertaking commissions for classical architecture, formal landscape and urban design. He studied at the University of Notre Dame and the American Academy in Rome, has been recognized as one of the top forty architects of his generation in the United States and dedicates substantial time to academic pursuits, including university teaching.
Articles by Thomas Norman Rajkovich
| Anne Husted Burleigh
Anne Husted Burleigh
Anne Husted Burleigh is a free lance writer, the author of two books and numerous articles for a variety of journals. She lives on a farm in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, overlooking the Ohio River, near Cincinnati. She is married to Bill Burleigh, a long-time journalist, and they have three children and seven grandchildren.
Articles by Anne Husted Burleigh
The Kentucky Holy Land: Sacred Sites of Kentucky and Southern Indiana
If you love old churches, and if you want a flavor of the history of the Catholic Church in America after it crossed the eastern mountains and expanded into the American frontier, you will want to add to your library Clyde F. Crews’s lovely book, A Benediction of Place: Historic Catholic Sacred Sites of Kentucky and Southern Indiana.
| Danielle Joyner
Danielle Joyner
Danielle Joyner Ph.D is a medievalist and art historian whose interests range from mythological and religious imagery to medieval art, architecture and manuscript studies. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Articles by Danielle Joyner
A Biography of Chartes
A Gothic cathedral is more than the sum of its individual stones, and Philip Ball’s Universe of Stone, Chartres Cathedral and the Invention of Gothic elucidates with clarity and depth the history of this captivating monument and its place in the evolution of Gothic architecture.
| Hendrik Dey
Hendrik Dey
Hendrik Dey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Hunter College, CUNY. He is the author of The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome, A.D. 271-855, with Cambridge University Press.
Articles by Hendrik Dey
Medieval Rome
In their introduction, the editors succinctly state the case for the city of Rome’s striking preeminence in the collective cultural consciousness of western Christians during the Middle Ages, a manifestly important premise which has received less attention than might be expected in the over a century since the appearance of Arturo Graf’s monumental Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo.
| Daniel Gallagher
Daniel Gallagher
Father Daniel Gallagher is currently stationed at the english desk at the Vatican Secretariat of State. A priest of the Diocese of Gaylord, he taught philosophy and theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
Articles by Daniel Gallagher
Melodious Beauty in Art
Although beauty has held the interest of philosophers ever since Plato acceded to it a place of privilege among the Forms, the field of “aesthetics”, at least in the sense used by professional philosophers today, is a rather late development.
| Paolo Portoghesi
Paolo Portoghesi
Paolo Portoghesi is an Italian architect, theorist, historian and professor of architecture at the University of La Sapienza in Rome, author of multiple books and frequent contributor to L’Osservatore Romano.
Articles by Paolo Portoghesi
To Make These Stones Live: Aesthetics is Not Enough
In his “keynote” delivered last Monday [January 17] to the Faculty of Architecture of the University La Sapienza of Rome by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture issued a warning, among other things, regarding contemporary church architecture.
| James O’Brien
James O’Brien
James O’Brien is a priest in Ireland.
Articles by James O’Brien
The Cathedral of Saint Mel: Longford, Ireland
Longford Cathedral, one of the finest Neoclassical buildings in Ireland, was reduced to ashes on Christmas morning 2009 by a fire, originating in an over-extension of the heating system.
| Pablo Alvarez Funes
Pablo Alvarez Funes
Pablo Alvarez Funes practices architecture in Madrid, Spain, and has written and lectured on the history and theory of Spanish Architecture.
Articles by Pablo Alvarez Funes
Barcelona Catechism
A few days after the consecration of the Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona by His Holiness Benedict XVI, the famous Gaudí building was awarded with the Barcelona Prize for Architecture and Planning as the best project built in the city in 2010.
| Bernardo Aparicio Garcia
Bernardo Aparicio Garcia
President of Dappled Things
Articles by Bernardo Aparicio Garcia
| John W. Stamper
John W. Stamper
John Stamper Ph.D is an architect and architectural historian in the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture and the author of several books including The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire and Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue: Planning and Development 1900-1930.
Articles by John W. Stamper
A Grand Survey
Books on ancient architecture are typically focused on a specific region or culture, whether it is Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman or pre-Columbian. They are written by specialists in a particular field and published for specific audiences. G. J. Wightman’s Sacred Spaces, in contrast, covers virtually every geographic region, time period and culture from the ancient world.
| John Cluver
John Cluver
John Cluver practices archicture and historic preservation in Philadelphia, PA as a partner in the firm Voith & Mactavish Architects LLP.
Articles by John Cluver
The Ethics of Preservation
Just like our most revered religious practices, our best buildings are imbued with a deep sense of history and tradition. Any historic building, however, needs to be periodically updated in order to remain useful and relevant, which leads to the fundamental question of how to do so in a manner that is both meaningful today and respectful of its past.
| Christopher Burgwald
Christopher Burgwald
Chris Burgwald PhD is the Director of Evangelization and Catechesis for the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls in South Dakota. He earned his doctorate in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. Email: chris.burgwald@gmail.com
Articles by Christopher Burgwald
Saved by Beauty
In Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel the Idiot, protagonist Prince Myshkin states, “I believe the world will be saved by beauty.” In the Beauty of Faith, Jem Sullivan makes a similar proposal, arguing that it is imperative that we employ the beauty of Christian art to spread the good news of Jesus Christ and his Church.
| Andrea Pacciani
Andrea Pacciani
Andrea Pacciani practices architecture and urban design in Parma, Italy. www.andreapacciani.com
Articles by Andrea Pacciani
Architectural Violence in Umbria: "The Fuksas Church"
In some modern churches, not only do the faithful struggle to find the physical entrance, but seemingly even Jesus Christ struggles to find a means of entering…
| Craig S. Lewis
Craig S. Lewis
Craig S. Lewis is the Principal of Lawrence Group Town Planners and Architects in Davidson, NC. www.thelawrencegroup.com
Articles by Craig S. Lewis
Authentic Urbanism and the Neighborhood Church
From our earliest beginnings as a country, we have always reserved the most important and prominent spaces for our civic buildings…
| Jordan Wales
Jordan Wales
Jordan Wales is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Notre Dame, studying patristic and medieval theology.
Articles by Jordan Wales
A House to be Dedicated is a Soul to be Sanctified: Sacred Architecture According to Hugh of Saint Victor
Hugh lived 1097/1101 – 1141. Hugh’s time as an Augustinian Canon at the Parisian abbey of St. Victor left its mark on medieval Europe…
| Justin Cardinal Rigali
Justin Cardinal Rigali
Cardinal Rigali, former papal chamberlain to His Holiness Paul VI and Archbishop of St. Louis, currently serves as the Archbishop of Philadelphia. He is a member of the Committee on Diving Worship, the Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of Scripture Translations and is President of the Board of Directors of the Black and Indian Mission Office.
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Rigali a member of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops in September 2007. The Cardinal is also member of the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. He is also a member of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See.
The Cardinal is on the Board of Trustees of The Catholic University of America. He is also on the Board of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. and the Chair of the Iconography Committee.
Articles by Justin Cardinal Rigali
Address to Conference on Sacred Architecture
The mystery which we gather to reflect upon today is at once timely and timeless. Timely, because as Aimé-Georges Martimort has noted, “In our day the faithful have greater difficulty in achieving prayerful recollection and a sense of God’s presence.”
| Virginia C. Raguin
Virginia C. Raguin
Virginia Chieffo Raguin is professor of art history and the John E. Brooks Chair in the Humanities at the College of the Holy Cross. She has published widely on stained glass and architecture, including Stained Glass from its Origins to the Present, 2003. Her exhibition “Pilgrimage and Faith: Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam,” will appear in Worcester, Chicago, Richmond, and New York from 2010 through 2011.
Articles by Virginia C. Raguin
Picturing the Celestial City: The Medieval Stained Glass of Beauvais Cathedral
This is a richly researched and beautifully produced book, welcome among the studies on Beauvais…
| Thomas D. Stroka
Thomas D. Stroka
Thomas D. Stroka is an architectural designer in Indiana.
Articles by Thomas D. Stroka
Contemporary Church Architecture
Unlike any other building, a church is “an accessible public space amid an increasingly, and occasionally frighteningly commercial and privatized world...”
This Paradise Restored
Architectural historians might easily overlook the Emerald Isle as a source of classical innovation, especially during a century scourged by the Great Potato Famine and mass emigration.
| Riccardo Vicenzino
Riccardo Vicenzino
Riccardo S. Vicenzino is an architect in New York City.
Articles by Riccardo Vicenzino
Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy
For those who have borne witness to the architectural and liturgical vandalism that has occurred over the last half century, there will be comfort in this groundbreaking work…
| Thomas M. Dietz
Thomas M. Dietz
A Minnesota native, Thomas M. Dietz received his education in the history, theory, and criticism of architecture and art at MIT. He is currently an architect in Chicago.
Articles by Thomas M. Dietz
Sonte and Glass: The Meaning of the Cathedral of Saint Paul
Excepting scholarly articles and occasional references in monographic studies of Cass Gilbert, texts addressing the architecture of Minnesota classicist Emmanuel Masqueray are typically hard to come by…
The Life of the City
This densely written and well-researched book is unlikely to adorn the shelves of most practicing professionals. This is unfortunate, as Politics of the Piazza offers a unique analysis of a subject that should be a matter of concern to all practitioners—the purpose and origins of the piazza, a component of urbanism that, although particularly significant in Italy, remains recognizable throughout the western urban tradition.
In the Field
This book is self-described as a “pocket primer for decoding the structure and purpose of ecclesiastical buildings.”
| Evan McWilliams
Evan McWilliams
Evan McWilliams holds a M.A. in Architectural History from the Savannah College of Art and Design. His primary interests are the confluence of architecture and liturgy and the influence of nineteenth and twentieth-century scholar-architects on the production of church art.
Articles by Evan McWilliams
An Offering of Beauty: Saint Mary the Virgin, Wellingborough, and Stylistic Catholicity
The history of architecture is, on the whole, a history of revivals and imitations. Each epoch has admired past principles and reworked older ideas…
| Heidemarie Seblatnig
Heidemarie Seblatnig
Heidemarie Seblatnig is an art historian and painter who lectures at the University of Technology in Vienna, Austria. She completed studies in the history of art and archeology at the University of Vienna.
Articles by Heidemarie Seblatnig
A Response to Ottokar Uhl’s Church Building as Process
This article, by art historian Heidemarie Seblatnig of Vienna, is a response to quotations from Ottokar Uhl’s original essay “Church Building as Process” from 1969, in the form of a debate:
| Dr. Janet Rutherford
Dr. Janet Rutherford
Dr Janet Rutherford is an author in the fields of church history and patrology, specializing in the Eastern Fathers. She is Honorary Secretary of the Patristic Symposium in Maynooth, Ireland; Irish Correspondent to the International Association for Patristic Studies; and an editor of the Fota Liturgical Conference Series.
Articles by Dr. Janet Rutherford
Back to the Future: Ecclesiastical Art after Postmodernism
Is there a future for ecclesiastical art that continues in the traditions of the past…
| Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch
Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch
The above selection is an excerpt from one of seven articles on the Maronite liturgy available on the website of the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East: www.bkerkelb.org. Based in Bkerke, Lebanon, the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East is the head of the Maronite Catholic Church.
Articles by Maronite Patriarchate of Antioch
Praise with Majesty and Reverence: Ecclesiastic Art and Feast Days
The holy building is a sign that leads us to the Master of the creation, the Holy One, who came and dwelt among us to lead us to the Kingdom, the true promised land in heaven…
| Daniel P. DeGreve
Daniel P. DeGreve
Daniel P. DeGreve is an architect in Columbus, Ohio holding a Master of Architectural Design & Urbanism degree from the University of Notre Dame and a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Cincinnati. Email: ddegreve@alumni.nd.edu
Articles by Daniel P. DeGreve
Retro Tablum: The Origins and Role of the Altarpiece in the Liturgy
An altarpiece is a framed artistic representation of a sacred subject or combination of subjects typically situated behind and above an altar…
Heaven’s Backdrop
A brilliant study suffused with vivid historical commentary, this book elucidates the morphological, spatial, and communicative causes of the retable altarpiece in the late medieval and early Renaissance kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.
| Catholic University of America
Catholic University of America
School of Architecture
Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.
Articles by Catholic University of America
| Norman Crowe
Norman Crowe
Norman Crowe is Professor Emeritus at the the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture. He is the author of Nature and the Idea of a Man-Made World (MIT Press, 1995).
Articles by Norman Crowe
New Mexico Regionalism
John Gaw Meem, while relatively unknown outside New Mexico, is regarded among New Mexicans as their most significant interpreter of regional forces in architecture. Lehmberg’s book, the first to focus on the architect’s ecclesiastical designs, provides a careful account of Meem’s engagement with church commissions from about 1920 until his last church design in 1949. Meem began his career not by designing, but by restoring churches, especially very venerable ones—such as the San Estevan del Rey Mission, the only surviving church built prior to the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and Saint Francis Cathedral of Santa Fe, erected by Bishop Lamy in the 1860s. It is likely that this early involvement in restoration set Meem’s approach to both sacred and secular architecture throughout his career.
| Gretchen Buggeln
Gretchen Buggeln
Gretchen Buggeln holds the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair of Christianity and the Arts at Valparaiso University. She is the author of Temples of Grace: The Material Transfomation of Connecticut’s Churches, 1790-1840 (New England, 2003).
Articles by Gretchen Buggeln
Monumental Assembly Halls
In 1955, Per Gustaf Hamberg published in Swedish his Temples for Protestants, an extraordinarily well-researched, nuanced study of the early (sixteenth- and seventeenth-century) Reformed and Lutheran Churches of Northern Europe and Scandinavia. Now, finally, this illuminating and useful book is available in English. As a scholar of early American Protestant architecture, I found myself wishing I had had access to this book years ago. It contains numerous, thorough descriptions of churches and fascinating discussions of important relevant primary texts of the period, many of which are unavailable in English. The translation is fluid, despite minor inaccuracies. Lengthy quotes in Latin, German, French, and Italian are not translated, which is a bit frustrating for the provincial. Nonetheless, this is a necessary book for anyone interested in the religious architecture of this period and its influence on later buildings.
Iconoclash
Reformation iconoclasm “stripped the altars” of northern Europe, the story goes, leaving bare and colorless churches in its wake.
| Hans S. B. Roegele
Hans S. B. Roegele
Hans Roegele graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science in History and Architecture. He received a Masters in Architecture from the University of Notre Dame, where he wrote his thesis on the development of town planning and ecclesiastical architecture in New England.
Articles by Hans S. B. Roegele
The Luminosity of Peruvian Churches
In November of 2008 I went up into the mountains of Peru for a month. There I saw over fifteen towns and villages, traveling by a combination of train, bus, minivan, station wagon, motorcycle, and my own two feet. Much of my transportation was older than I am, and had a disturbing tendency to stall. Yet even as I watched the miles go by, it seemed as if time as well were slipping by. In those areas of desperate poverty, I saw houses built from adobe mud without windows or doors, streets with no paving, and people pulling plows in fields. Men with typewriters set up business in the streets to produce letters, and knife sharpeners wandered with their wheels on their backs. At the center of almost every village, and often enough the village life, was a Catholic church, usually from the colonial period, with its original altarpieces, pulpits, and decorations. As the weeks went by, I noticed extraordinary similarities between them on several levels. While at first glance, they seemed similar to Spanish churches, I quickly saw I was wrong, and that these were Andean churches: particular products of convulsive shifts in Christianity, architecture, global balances of power, and Andean building traditions and religious customs.
| Philip Nielsen
Philip Nielsen
Philip Nielsen has studied both theology and architecture at the graduate level at the University of Notre Dame. He has written on aesthetics for various journals, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Ignatius Press.
Articles by Philip Nielsen
Depicting the Whole Christ: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Sacred Architecture
The theological work of twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has only recently begun to take its proper place in Catholic theology. In his lifetime he certainly took a back seat to contemporaries such as Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, and those men who were known as the theological architects of Vatican II. Balthasar never attended Vatican II, unlike so many of his fellow theologians and friends. This absence, combined with the difficulty inherent in classifying such a diverse corpus as his, has slowed his acceptance as a theological authority in the Church. But for the past thirty years—since the election of John Paul II to the Holy See—Balthasar’s star has risen as one of the great theologians after Trent, a status that the election of Balthasar’s close personal friend and theological sympathizer Joseph Ratzinger to the Chair of Saint Peter seemingly stamped with an imprimatur of the highest rank. At Balthasar’s funeral, Henri Cardinal de Lubac described him as “probably the most cultured man in the Western world.” Indeed, when one looks at the cultural topics that Balthasar treated, Cardinal de Lubac’s statement becomes hard to refute: Balthasar wrote his doctoral dissertation on German literature; his first major work was on music; he was one of the foremost patristic scholars of his time; and, thanks to his father’s practice of church architecture in Switzerland, he loved the visual arts and architecture.
America’s First Cathedral
In America’s First Cathedral, Mary-Cabrini Durkin presents a beautifully illustrated history of the Baltimore diocese’s cathedral from Latrobe’s original designs through its rise as a national symbol of American Catholicism, culminating in years of restoration that have only recently been completed.
| Kevin C. Manning, Nicholas J. Watkins, and Kathryn H. Anthony
Kevin C. Manning, Nicholas J. Watkins, and Kathryn H. Anthony
Kevin C. Manning is an architect in the office of Jaeger, Nickola & Associates, a Chicago architecture firm specializing in church design.
Dr. Nicholas J. Watkins is Director of Research & Innovation at Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum (HOK).
Dr. Kathryn H. Anthony is a Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Articles by Kevin C. Manning, Nicholas J. Watkins, and Kathryn H. Anthony
The People or the Steeple? An Examination of Sacramental Architecture among Parishioners
Designs among Catholic churches in the post-Vatican II era have been diverse.
| Christopher Longhurst
Christopher Longhurst
Christopher Longhurst, born in New Zealand, received his doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Angelicum University, Rome, with a specialization in theological aesthetics. He was a member of the faculty at the Marymount International School in Rome starting in 2004, and currently writes on the intersections of art and religion and works as a docent at the Papal Galleries at the Vatican Museums.
Articles by Christopher Longhurst
A Roman Christmas Ritual: Micro-Architecture and the Theatre of the Presepio
The celebration of Christmas in Rome has its own unique flavor, combining sumptuous liturgical celebrations and festive religious and cultural traditions. One of the most renowned traditions during this joyful time is the construction of the presepio. The Italian word “presepio” comes from the Latin “praesaepe,” a combination of “prae” (in front of) and “saepire” (to enclose), which is rendered in English as “manger,” or “stall.” The Christmas ritual of constructing a presepio is a tradition that has been passed down for generations, possessing an important place in symbolic Christmas representation and devotional practice. At Christmastime these displays attract visitors to the city of Rome from all over the world. They are usually artistic masterpieces, spectacular, dramatic, and adorned with delightful figurines and stunning landscapes.
An Architectural and Theological Interface: The Dominican Complex at Magnanapoli
The Dominican Complex at Magnanapoli, Rome, is an architectural composite from the mid sixteenth century in the heart of the ancient city currently housing the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, along with the adjacent monastery, convent and adjoining gardens, and the church of Saints Dominic and Sixtus.
| Carroll William Westfall
Carroll William Westfall
Carroll William Westfall is the Frank Montana Professor at the University of Notre Dame’s School of Architecture. He has written extensively on the history of the city with particular attention to the reciprocity between the political life and the urban and architectural elements that serve the needs of citizens.
Articles by Carroll William Westfall
Awe for the Noble Things: Leon Battista Alberti and the Meaning of Classical Architecture
Churches such as Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome that were built by adapting pagan Roman building practices served the early Christian community…
The Beauty of Holiness: Angicanism and Architecture in Colonial South Carolina
This book sparkles with erudition and clarity worthy of its title…
| Ralph Muldrow
Ralph Muldrow
Ralph Muldrow is an architect and the Simons Professor of Architecture and Historic Preservation at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina. His design and preservation work includes numerous churches.
Articles by Ralph Muldrow
The Elusive Spire: The Cathedrals of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Finbar
The golden glow of late-day sunlight bathes the hand-carved stars on the ruddy brownstone ashlar of Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Charleston, SC. The astral allusions merge with the robust pinnacles lining the sides of this fine cathedral, designed by the prolific nineteenth-century church architect Patrick Keely. As the pinnacles and buttresses march down the side of the church, we come to Broad Street, where there is space enough to stand back and view the tower of the church, which climbs to a great height—over eighty feet—and yet still longs to regain much more height.
| Lauren Beaupre
Lauren Beaupre
Lauren Beaupre is a Ph.D. student in the History Department at the University of Notre Dame. She is currently researching the relationship between religion and urban development in Memphis, Tennessee.
Articles by Lauren Beaupre
A Sense of Sacrality: From Meetinghouse to Megachurch
Do the increasingly ubiquitous evangelical megachurches that dot the national landscape represent something new in either Protestant architecture or American culture? In their book, From Meetinghouse to Megachurch: A Material and Cultural History, authors Anne C. Loveland and Otis B. Wheeler respond to this question with an emphatic “No.” Rather than representing something new, Loveland and Wheeler contend that evangelical megachurches are part of an ongoing evolution whose antecedents include Puritan meetinghouses, revival tents, tabernacles, and mainline Protestant churches. A sense of continuity that persists even as American church architecture changes is the book’s major theme.
| Michael J. Lewis
Michael J. Lewis
Michael J. Lewis is Faison-Pierson-Stoddard Professor of Art at Williams College. His most recent book is American Art and Architecture (2006)
Articles by Michael J. Lewis
A Life in Architecture: Ralph Adams Cram and His Office
The historian and the artist bring different questions to a figure like Ralph Adams Cram. The historian wants to understand what social and cultural forces compelled a modern businessman-architect, practicing in the twentieth century, to make buildings in the style of the fourteenth; the artist merely wants to know if they are any good. Do his buildings live—live in the artistic sense—or are they merely clever writing in a dead language, like someone writing Latin verse today? If the answer is that his buildings do not live, then there is hardly any point in trying to answer the first question.
| His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
By His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Articles by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
All Great Works of Art are an Epiphany of God: From Pope Benedict XVI’s Dialogue in Bressanone
On August 6, 2008, during his two-week retreat at the seminary near Bressanone, Italy—a town at the foot of the Alps near the Austrian border and a long-time vacation locale for Benedict XVI and his brother Monsignor Georg Ratzinger—the Holy Father met with four hundred priests of the Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone at the Cathedral of S. Maria Assunta for an open question-and-answer session. The questions on beauty and the protection of creation and the pontiff’s responses are reproduced below.
Seeking the Light of True Faith: Homily from the Reopening of the Pauline Chapel
“Today, a few days after the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul and the conclusion of the Pauline Year, my wish to reopen the Pauline Chapel for worship is fulfilled...”
Meeting with Artists: Address in the Sistine Chapel
“With great joy I welcome you to this solemn place, so rich in art and in history...”
La Sagrada Familia Dedication Homily
Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Lord, ‘This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep… The joy of the Lord is your strength’ (Neh 8:9-11). With these words from the first reading that we have proclaimed, I wish to greet all of you taking part in this celebration.
| Uwe Michael Lang
Uwe Michael Lang
Rev. Uwe Michael Lang, a native of Germany and priest of the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in London, is the Coordinator of the Master’s program in “Architecture, Sacred Art and Liturgy” at the Università Europea di Roma/Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum and a Consultor to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff. He has published in the fields of Patristics and liturgical studies, including Turning Towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2nd edition 2009.
Articles by Uwe Michael Lang
Tamquam Cor in Pectore: The Eucharistic Tabernacle Before and After the Council of Trent
In recent years, historical research has paid considerable attention to the relationship between liturgy and architecture. Much of this scholarship has focussed on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, but there is also growing interest in the periods of the Renaissance and of the Catholic Reform both before and after the Council of Trent (1545-1563), as is evident from the proceedings of a conference held at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence in 2003. The editor of the volume, Jörg Stabenow, identifies two main developments that transformed the typical church interior in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. First, elements that divided the building into different sections were removed in order to create a unified space. By contrast, medieval churches were structured by a complex system of partitions, especially the rood screen separating the nave from the choir. Secondly, the tabernacle placed in a central position on the high altar was adopted as the common form of Eucharistic reservation and became the focal point of Baroque church architecture.
Louis Bouyer and Church Architecture: Resourcing Benedict XVI's The Spirit of the Liturgy
The present Holy Father’s thought on liturgy and church architecture was considerably influenced by Louis Bouyer
| Eric Osth
Eric Osth
Eric R. Osth, AIA, LEED AP is a principal and the architecture studio director at Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh, PA. He is a member of the Congress of New Urbanism and the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America and a member of the Board of Directors for the Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Articles by Eric Osth
The Church and the Neighborhood: Past, Present, and Future
Over the past two centuries, Pittsburgh’s beautiful churches have made significant contributions to the city’s architectural character and quality of life. Great neighborhoods across the country, as in Pittsburgh, grew up around active churches. However, over the past few decades, many of our nation’s once-thriving churches have declined or even been shuttered. While the question of church health is undoubtedly complicated, the story of two Pittsburgh churches may provide some clues as to the connection between neighborhood context and congregation vitality.
| Steen Heidemann
Steen Heidemann
A native of Denmark, Steen Heidemann was educated in England earning degrees in art and architecture at Oxford and an MSc in management from Reading. A convert, he later married a French woman. He currently organizes international art exhibitions.
Articles by Steen Heidemann
Sacred Art of Today: Is It Art and Is It Sacred?
Born in Denmark in the 1950s, I headed straight for the typical 1960s society with its clichés of liberal atheism resulting in a spiritual void. This void was not filled until I converted to the Catholic Faith many years later at Westminster Cathedral in London. Being in the arts and having been deeply involved in the staging of a large exhibition on the Jesuits and the Baroque, I came to realise the importance of the sacred image in promulgating the Faith, so vital today, where the young no longer read.
| John Alexander
John Alexander
John Alexander is an architectural historian (Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2001) who concentrates on the architectural patronage of Carlo Borromeo, and the architecture of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. Fellowships and teaching positions afforded him several years in Rome, and his research takes him back to Milan and northern Italy regularly; since 2006 he has been on the faculty in the Department of Architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Articles by John Alexander
Architectural Unity and Rhetoric: The Patronage of Carlo Borromeo
As in the period that followed the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563), the Catholic Church has redefined herself following the Second Vatican Council. In both the sixteenth and twentieth centuries changes in church architecture accompanied reforms to the liturgy, and today we are still trying to come to terms with attempts to redefine our sacred space. One way to evaluate contemporary churches is to understand the model that so many of them react against, which had been developed after Trent. However historians still debate the significance of that historical architecture; indeed, they disagree about its very qualities.
| Meredith J. Gill
Meredith J. Gill
Meredith J. Gill is Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of Notre Dame.
Articles by Meredith J. Gill
Altarpieces and Iconography
Following completion of construction in the 1620s, and reaching a peak in the first half of the 1630s, a dazzling array of artists worked side by side creating a series of some twenty-four works of art, primarily altarpieces, which, in their programmatic relationship to one another and to the hagiographic traditions of the Church, proclaimed the complex identity of the Papacy and the liturgical mission of “the cathedral of the world.”
| Christopher Carstens
Christopher Carstens
Christopher Carstens is the Assistant Director of the Office of Sacred Worship for the Diocese of Lacrosse, Wisconsin.
Articles by Christopher Carstens
Counter-Reformation 2000
Taking to heart the final words of the current Code of Canon Law, that “the salvation of souls, which in the Church must always be the supreme law,” the recent book by Michael S. Rose gives clarity and advice to the troubled soul experiencing a church renovation project. The Renovation Manipulation: The Church Counter-Renovation Handbook attempts, in the words of its author, to “give the average lay Catholic a clear understanding of the renovation process and ultimately the knowledge necessary to bring about honesty and integrity in the renovation of existing churches as well as in the construction of new ones” (p.6).
| Fr. Dan Scheidt
Fr. Dan Scheidt
Fr. Dan Scheidt is pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, IN, as well as Chaplain and theology instructor at Marian High School, Mishawaka.
Articles by Fr. Dan Scheidt
Creating a Family Album: The American Catholic Monument
At first glance, Gregory W. Tucker’s America’s Church: The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception might seem to be yet another attractive religious shrine commemorative volume destined to take its place in that inexorably horizontal, closed position where picture book meets coffee table. But both the National Shrine and Tucker’s volume, which lovingly recounts its history, are indeed well worth our more sustained attention.
| Matthew Alderman
Matthew Alderman
Matthew Alderman is an architect who lives and works in Concord, MA.
Articles by Matthew Alderman
Pinnacles and Onion Domes of New York: Manhattan's Houses of Worship
David W. Dunlap’s From Abyssinian to Zion: A Guide to Manhattan’s Houses of Worship taps into a very elemental part of my New York—its oft-neglected churches, synagogues, and temples
The Lonely God: Oakland Cathedral in the Light of Tradition
The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland fuses Christian symbolism and modernist architecture in a luminous yet vacant church for the Diocese of Oakland.
Lost Between Sea and Sky: Looking for Padre Pio in Renzo Piano's Pilgrimage Church
It is a perilous thing to ask the saints for design advice. The apostle Thomas earned his patronage of the architectural profession by giving away most of his construction budget to the poor and was nearly martyred for his trouble…
David Mayernik’s San Cresci Cycle
While new construction is a significant aspect of the present revival of ecclesiastical architecture and design, the enrichment of existing churches is equally important.
A Faceless Santo Volto: Mario Botta's Conference Room Tomb
That churches are still being built in Italy, a nation where regular mass-goers make up less than 30 percent of the population and that possesses a birthrate that would make your Sicilian grandmother weep, is news not unlike Dr. Johnson’s comment about a dog walking on its hind legs: one is surprised it is being done at all, never mind questions about quality.
| Daniel McInerny
Daniel McInerny
Dr. Daniel McInerny is associate director of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture.
Articles by Daniel McInerny
To Manifest Transcendence: Sacral Aesthetics
Readers of this journal, passionate about the ability of architecture to “speak” the glory of God, have every reason to rejoice at this new publication by Aidan Nichols, O.
| Paul G. Monson
Paul G. Monson
Paul G. Monson is a graduate student in theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Articles by Paul G. Monson
The Christian Scandal in Dialogue: A Return to Sacred Images
On September 12, 2006, in Regensburg, an Italianized German called secularism’s bluff. In his address, Pope Benedict XVI pinpoints secularism’s false objectivity as it holds reason hostage and presupposes its incompatibility with faith.
| Hugh J. McNichol
Hugh J. McNichol
Hugh J. McNichol is a freelance Catholic author, businessman, and educator. He writes daily for the Catholic News Agency in his column, “Nothing Left Unsaid!” He received his education in philosophy and theology at the Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, and is an enthusiast of American Catholic culture and Philadelphia history.
Articles by Hugh J. McNichol
Sacred Art Institute… Now!: A Mandate of Vatican II
One of the most important teachings of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council was the provision for the establishment of schools or academies of sacred art in order to train artists.
| Carol Anne Jones
Carol Anne Jones
Carol Anne Jones holds a Masters in Medieval and Renaissance Literature from the University of Virginia and is currently pursuing a Masters in Systematic Theology at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. Her writing credits include articles in Crisis, Catholic Faith, Celebrating Life, and America. She serves as director of religious education at St. Louis Parish in Alexandria, VA.
Articles by Carol Anne Jones
Shine Forth Upon Us in Thine Own True Glory: Lights of Faith: Stained Glass Windows as Tools for Catechesis
For the first thousand years of Christian catechesis (as well as thousands of years of Hebrew tradition), oral witness was the primary means of passing on the Faith. In medieval Europe, a new type of catechesis synthesized oral teaching with visual representations and became the standard for teaching, reinforcing, elucidating, and experiencing the Faith, a pedagogy that, to this day, is still intimately associated with the truths of the Catholic Faith: stained-glass windows.
| Denis McNamara and Duncan Stroik
Denis McNamara and Duncan Stroik
Denis R. McNamara, an architectural historian who specializes in American church Architecture, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He is the assistant director and faculty member at the Liturgical Institute of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake / Mundelein Seminary, and serves as a liturgical design consultant. His recent book, Heavenly City, was published by Liturgy Training Publications, Chicago.
Duncan Stroik is director of the Institute for Sacred Architecture and a Professor at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture.
Articles by Denis McNamara and Duncan Stroik
The Virgin and the Heavenly Hosts: Is There a Conflict between Liturgical and Devotional Art?
While it is not forbidden to display an image of Christ, Mary or a saint behind the main altar, in modern churches this is usually reserved for the church’s patron. At the same time, the apse may be decorated with murals and mosaics figuring several personages. Therefore, I would say that the image of Divine Mercy would not normally be set up behind the main altar unless the church was dedicated to this devotion.
| Christopher Zehnder
Christopher Zehnder
Christopher Zehnder is a journalist and the Editor of the L.A. Catholic Mission.
Articles by Christopher Zehnder
| Peter M.J. Stravinskas
Peter M.J. Stravinskas
...
Articles by Peter M.J. Stravinskas
Architecture and the Mystery of the Incarnation
...
| Michael R. Carey
Michael R. Carey
...
Articles by Michael R. Carey
Veiling the Mysteries
The instinct to veil the sacred or to be veiled from it has roots planted deeply in Sacred Scripture.
Sacred Art as Inner Reality
John Saward’s graceful and insightful book was developed from the Bernard Gilpin Lectures which he delivered at the University of Durham in 1996. The “theological meditations,” and this is the phrase Saward correctly uses to describe his prose, “lead us to understand what beauty is, and how it can be recognized in works of art and holy lives
| Camilian Demetrescu
Camilian Demetrescu
..
Articles by Camilian Demetrescu
Symbols in Sacred Architecture and Iconongraphy
The church is not a work of engineering. It is a symbol. A building of stone becomes a church only after it has been consecrated, in the same way that a child becomes a Christian in baptism. To see the church as only a building, a material structure, is like deconsecrating it, emptying it of its fundamental significance as a symbol.
| Thomas Gordon Smith
Thomas Gordon Smith
...
Articles by Thomas Gordon Smith
Fearful of Our Architectural Patrimony
The draft document of Domus Dei was presented to the Catholic Bishops of the United States at their November 1999 meeting. It is intended to be a properly sanctioned replacement for Environment and Art in Catholic Worship, a 1978 tract that is generally acknowledged to be outdated in its promotion of bland Modernist structures and iconoclastic liturgical settings. The current draft of the more aptly titled Domus Dei is an improvement on its predecessor. However, the draft document falls short of its purpose. This is particularly clear in view of the growing body of architects who prefer to speak the Church’s timeless Latin in contemporary ecclesiastical buildings, rather than the trendy vernacular of Modernism.
| Franz Bauer
Franz Bauer
Franz Alto Bauer and Michael Heinzelmann are scholars with the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, Italy.
Articles by Franz Bauer
The Constantinian Episcopal Basilica
Then the emperor Constantine built in the city of Ostia close to the Portus Romanus the basilica of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul and of John the Baptist, where he presented the following gifts: ...”
| Giles R. Dimock
Giles R. Dimock
...
Articles by Giles R. Dimock
Saint Thomas Aquinas and Church Architecture
Now older and I hope wiser, I rejoice in the modest Thomistic revival we now experience, although I don’t wish to return to the triumphalistic Thomism of the forties and fifties. It’s a bit ironic that I’m writing to explore the connection between the Angelic Doctor and architecture; not arbitrarily creating a nexus, but pleasantly surprised to find that he actually had something to say on the matter.
The Living Heart of Our Churches: The Placement of the Tabernacle
Everywhere I go, I hear people speaking of churches, the churches of today, the churches of their youth, or the great churches of Europe. They often express the desire to see “churches that look like churches.” They mourn the loss of statues, murals, stained glass, marble altars, etc., but most of all, they ask why the tabernacle was moved.
| M. Francis Mannion
M. Francis Mannion
...
Articles by M. Francis Mannion
Eucharistic Tabernacles: A Typology
An examination of the art of Eucharistic tabernacles in Catholic liturgical history yields a considerable variety of operative meanings. In this brief essay, I want to suggest that tabernacle design may be categorized under a five-fold typology: ark, building, treasury, tower, and a
| Patrick James Riley
Patrick James Riley
Patrick James Riley holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art History and a Master’s Degree in Architecture from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. He has practiced architecture in Milwaukee, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He currently works for the firm of Michael Ross-Charles Drulis Architects and Planners in Sonoma, CA.
Articles by Patrick James Riley
The New Church of San Juan Capistrano
The spirit of Torquemada is alive and well in the world of architectural criticism. Books already are being burned, and altars defaced and overturned. What treatment will be reserved for the architects and built work of a true Classical revival in ecclesiastical architecture, especially as this movement gathers more disciples?
| James C. McCrery
James C. McCrery
...
Articles by James C. McCrery
Catholic Architecture and New Urbanism: An Interview with Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk
Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture and a partner in the design firm Duany Plater-Zyberk and Company. She is an ardent promoter of New Urbanism, a movement that has been successful in designing new communities as towns rather than subdivisions and revitalizing older communties. Among Duany Plater-Zyberk’s best known projects are the towns of Seaside in Florida, Kentlands in Maryland and downtown West Palm Beach, Florida, all designed to be pedestrian-oriented with schools, churches, libraries and shops within walking distance of homes.
| Ralph McInerny
Ralph McInerny
Ralph McInerny (+ 2009) served as director of the Jacques Maritain Center at the University of Notre Dame, founded numerable journals, and wrote innumerable books on St. Thomas Aquinas and Father Dowling.
Articles by Ralph McInerny
On Beauty
Beauty, like the beast, is something objective. It is a property of natural or artificial things—a complex property that a thing has because of the disposition of other properties.
| John A. Perricone
John A. Perricone
...
Articles by John A. Perricone
Lex Orandi Lex Aedificandi
...
| Moyra Doorly
Moyra Doorly
...
Articles by Moyra Doorly
Relativism by Any Other Name
...
| Michael Enright
Michael Enright
...
Articles by Michael Enright
Identity and Longevity
...
| Peter Dobrowski
Peter Dobrowski
...
Articles by Peter Dobrowski
Let the Children Come to Me: On the Cry Room
...
| Milda Richardson
Milda Richardson
...
Articles by Milda Richardson
Gem of the Boston Archdiocese: St. Catherine of Genoa
...
| John Bergsma
John Bergsma
...
Articles by John Bergsma
First Fruits & the Sanctification of Space
...
| Jamie Hottovy
Jamie Hottovy
...
Articles by Jamie Hottovy
Sacred Scripture and Tradition
...
| Jean Corbon
Jean Corbon
...
Articles by Jean Corbon
The Sacramental Space of the Celebration
...
| Nikos Salingaros
Nikos Salingaros
...
Articles by Nikos Salingaros
Anti-Architecture and Religion
...
| Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
...
Articles by Pope John Paul II
Ecclesia de Eucharista
...
| Most Rev. Raymond Burke
Most Rev. Raymond Burke
...
Articles by Most Rev. Raymond Burke
The Church from the Eucharist
...
| Jan Maciag
Jan Maciag
...
Articles by Jan Maciag
Polite and Charged with Wit: Campion Hall at Oxford
...
Rediscovering Tradition in Twentieth Century Liturgical Architecture
| Roderick O’Donnell
Roderick O’Donnell
...
Articles by Roderick O’Donnell
Pugin in America
...
A Broad Canvas: Sacred Architecture in Britain
Christopher Martin’s A Glimpse of Heaven is a spectacularly illustrated gazetteer of over one hundred Catholic churches in England and Wales, photographed in color by Alex Ramsey
| Brian D. Boosel, O.S.B.
Brian D. Boosel, O.S.B.
..
Articles by Brian D. Boosel, O.S.B.
Saint Vincent Archabbey Basilica: One Hundred Years
...
| Krupali Uplekar
Krupali Uplekar
...
Articles by Krupali Uplekar
The Reconstruction of the Frauenkirche
...
| Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J
Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J
Sister Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J., writes from New York City. Her scholarly research focuses on the relationship between the arts, faith, and culture. She holds PhDs in musicology and in liturgical studies.
Articles by Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J
Fordham’s “Jewel in the Crown”
...
Called to Beauty through Iconography
Iconography proclaims the Christian faith in color and form. It is visual theology capable of moving people at their very core. Icons give pleasure and deep satisfaction, but by their very nature, they have been designed to mediate the presence of God and to call the Church to worship.
| Peter Grant
Peter Grant
...
Articles by Peter Grant
The Purpose of a Church
...
| Thomas Owen
Thomas Owen
...
Articles by Thomas Owen
Los Angeles and the Mission Revival
For many people, the tradition of church architecture in Los Angeles is seen as being predominantly of the Spanish style before the advent of Modernism. However, this is partly due to the great revival of interest in Mediterranean and Mission architecture which began in the late Nineteenth century. Interest in California’s missions—a time period beginning in 1769 with the founding of the first mission through their demise in the 1840’s—was not only to inspire buildings, but also books, poetry, “romance,” tours to the extant buildings, and eventually scholarship.
| John Burns
John Burns
...
Articles by John Burns
Architecture of a Cloister- The New Benedictine Monastery
Dom Gerard has established a form of primitive Benedictine life at Le Barroux. There is no abbey school nor parish ministry. Life at the abbey revolves around the liturgy, fully sung every day in Gregorian chant. Manual labor, study, and the reception of guests and retreatants round out the life of the monks.
| William A Marra
William A Marra
...
Articles by William A Marra
A Philosopher Looks at Beauty
Beauty is an ultimate datum, distinguishable from other things which are sometimes related. There are all sorts of spectacular things, such as huge explosions, fearful things, such as earthquakes and interesting things—all of them have their place—but they are not the same as beaut
| Piotr Choynowski
Piotr Choynowski
Piotr Choynowski is an architect practicing in Oslo, Norway.
Articles by Piotr Choynowski
Change and Eternity
The British architect, Quinlan Terry’s beautiful invocation of the old myth of the divine origin of the Classical orders, certainly expresses the most profound truth. The truth about dependence and grounding of the classical tradition in the Absolute, in God. This grounding must of necessity be even more important in the case of Sacred architecture.
| Noah A Waldman
Noah A Waldman
Father Noah Waldman is priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, and has written extensively on art and architecture.
Articles by Noah A Waldman
Sculpturalism and Skeletonism
Shown is one of my favorite architectural drawings. It is Thomas Gordon Smith’s interpretation of the five Orders of architecture. Using Vitruvius as his model, Thomas shows how each of the five Classical Orders of architecture can be related to a five physical types of men and women.
| John S. Stroik
John S. Stroik
...
Articles by John S. Stroik
| Duncan McRoberts
Duncan McRoberts
Duncan McRoberts is an architect living and working in Seattle.
Articles by Duncan McRoberts
Tectonics and the Chapel of St. Ignatius
In building this building, Seattle University and the Catholic Church have failed to question what Modernism is unable to express.
| Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee is an architect in private practice in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.
Articles by Daniel Lee
Christian Architecture from a Protestant Perspective
In the past, churches were often the most prominent architectural edifices of a community, and Christians gladly served as patrons of church architecture because it proclaimed their faith and affirmed their world view. But today things have changed.
| Catesby Leigh
Catesby Leigh
Catesby Leigh is a writer and architectural critic residing in Washington, DC.
Articles by Catesby Leigh
The John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, DC: Will the Medium Be the Message?
Strictly speaking, the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, which soon will be under construction in the nation’s capital, does not qualify as sacred architecture. It is conceived, first and foremost, as a high-tech museum of the Catholic faith which will educate and inspire Catholic and non-Catholic visitors alike.
| Archbishop Francesco Marchisano
Archbishop Francesco Marchisano
Archbishop Francesco Marchisano is Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Conservation of the Artistic and Sacred Patrimony. The Commission, which was founded by Pope John Paul II in 1988, was instituted to look after the wide areas of the Church’s cultural heritage.
Articles by Archbishop Francesco Marchisano
On the Church’s Historic and Artistic Heritage
The Pontifical Commission was instituted by John Paul II back in 1988, so that an entire Decastery of the Curia could look after the area of the cultural heritage of the Church, which includes, by our definition, Church monuments and sites; artistic collections and Church or diocesan museums; historical collections and Church archives; and Church libraries.
| David T. Mayernik
David T. Mayernik
David Mayernik is an urban designer, architect and fresco painter who divides his time between the United States and Europe. He has designed the TASIS school campuses in Switzerland and England, and painted frescoes in the US, Italy, and Switzerland (for the church of San Tommaso, Agra). He has a website at www.davidmayernik.com.
Articles by David T. Mayernik
A Vast, Immeasurable Sanctuary: Iconography for Churches
The subject of iconography, the creation or study of images with specific narrative or symbolic intent, raises complex aesthetic and philosophical questions for the modern world about the universal legibility of pictorial messages.
| Cristiano Rosponi
Cristiano Rosponi
Cristiano Rosponi is an architect, director of the Agenzia per la Citta in Rome, Italy and co-editor of the catalog “Reconquering Sacred Space: the Church in the City of the Third Millennium” which accompanied an exhibition of new traditional churches exhibited in Rome during the Jubilee year.
Articles by Cristiano Rosponi
The Church in the City of the Third Millennium
In recent years in Italy, all debate on the design of new churches has been focused almost exclusively on technical aspects.
| James M. Thunder
James M. Thunder
James M. Thunder is an environmental lawyer who reviewed two books about his ancestor, A.W. Pugin, for SACRED ARCHITECTURE (Summer 1999). He is writing a book on Faith-Based Land Use Planning and welcomes comments.
Articles by James M. Thunder
Faith-Based Land Use Planning
Faith-Based Land Use Planning proposes that our churches, synagogues and mosques become the central buildings of our lives. Why?
| Bruce Harbert
