TRANSCENDING ARCHITECTURE.

Contemporary Views on Sacred Space

Edited by Julio Bermudez, PhD
Published by CUA Press (2015)
Architecture is called to do a lot more than to guarantee the public health, safety and welfare of building
users. In fact, the promise of architecture begins fulfillment when such expectations have been met and
transcended. At its highest, architecture has the ability to turn geometric proportions into shivers, stone
into tears, rituals into revelation, light into grace, space into contemplation, and time into divine presence.
A transcending architecture disappears in the very act of delivering us into the awesome and timeless
nonspace of the holy. Louis Kahn called it the immeasurable, Le Corbusier the ineffable, and Rudolf
Otto the numinous.
In an age obsessed with speed, consumerism, technology, immediacy, and quantity, an architecture that
transcends constitutes a radical and risky act of love and compassion born out of a spiritual and cultural
awakening. By providing us with a respite, such environments afford us the rare opportunity to re-discover
our bearings and, in so doing, frame our existential condition within the larger matters of life and the
divine. This book thus considers the aesthetics and ethics that move us from the ordinary to the
extraordinary, from the profane to the sacred. Far from avoiding the charged issues of subjectivity, culture
and intangibility, it examines the phenomenological, symbolic, and designerly ways in which the holy gets
fixed and transmitted through buildings, landscapes, and urban forms, and not just in institutionally
defined religious or sacred places.
Acknowledging that no individual voice or discipline can exhaust the topic, Transcending Architecture
brings together a stellar group of scholars and practitioners from within and without architecture to share
their insights. The result is the most direct, clear, and subtle scholarly text solely focused on the
transcendental dimension of architecture available. The ultimate goal is that, by engaging such a
provocative and timely topic, readers will find ample opportunities for intellectual, spiritual, and
professional growth. For more information, visit: http://www.sacred-space.net/transcending_architecture/
For more on the editor, visit: http://faculty.cua.edu/bermudez/

Photo credit: Between Cathedrals, Cadiz (2009), project by architect Alberto Campo Baeza

TRANSCENDING ARCHITECTURE . Contemporary Views on Sacred Space

Edited by Julio Bermudez, PhD

Published by CUA Press (2015)

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Foreword | Randall Ott
Acknowledgements
Introduction | Julio Bermudez
Part I: Disciplinary Perspectives
Light, Silence and Spirituality in Architecture and Art | Juhani Pallasmaa
The Domestic and the Numinous in Sacred Architecture | Thomas Barrie
Nature, Healing and the Numinous | Rebecca Krinke
From Bioregional To Reverential Urbanism | Maged Senbel
The Risk of the Ineffable | Karla Cavarra Britton
Le Corbusier at the Parthenon | Julio Bermudez
Part II: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
The Christian Church Building | Kevin Seasoltz
Ecclesial Edifice and Image in a Postmodern Age | Mark E. Wedig

Spirituality, Social Justice, and the Built Environment | Michael Sheridan

Ritual, Belief, and Meaning in the Production of Sacred Space | Sue Ann Taylor
Architectural Catalysts to Contemplation: | Lindsay Jones
Transcending Aesthetics | Karsten Harries
Part III: Response From Architectural Practice
Calling Forth The Numinous in Architecture | Michael Crosbie
Elemental Simplicity | Suzane Reatig
Transcendence, Where Hast Thou Gone? | Duncan Stroik
Architectural Quests into the Numinous | Travis Price
Reaching for the Numinous | Richard Vosko
Exploring Transcendence | Thomas Walton
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Index

For more information, on the book visit: http://www.sacred-space.net/transcending_architecture/

For more information on the editor Julio Bermudez, visit: http://faculty.cua.edu/bermudez/ or
https://cua.academia.edu/JulioBermudez