To Those Curious About the Built Environment
A letter to those considering the sacred beauty of the everyday built environment.
Where is the intersection of Architecture + Faith?
Is it in lofty barrel vaults or in stained glass depicting the saints? Is it in the transept, the steeple or the altar? Of course, the pairing of Architecture + Faith conjures up a sacred typology; one rooted in portraying scripture to those who could not read it for themselves. Throughout the ages, cathedrals, temples, synagogues, and mosques embodied a deliberate pictorial language to illuminate, educate and appeal to the senses conjuring an emotional response. Style, detail, and ornament were intimately attached to the particular culture and faith traditions of an era.
Sacred Architecture
With the Reformation and the proliferation of the printed bible, the language of sacred Architecture became more subtle and re-presented a humble, approachable, and restrained language. Without the compulsory pictures, houses of worship became increasingly centered on gathering to hear and participate in the spoken and sung word. Regardless of the nuances, complexity, or the current style of sacred Architecture, light prevails as a primary and timeless medium to stir the curious toward belief.
Architecture holds the sublime capacity to pulse, encircle, lift, and inspire. In the composition of patterns, volumes, textures and frames the occupant is engaged in a participatory movement. Examples like Sagrada Familia, the Sistine Chapel, and Ronchamp are exceptional illustrations of the sacred typology that provokes a response, but are places of worship the only instances where an authentic Faith might swell within the built environment?
Southwark Cathedral, London
Everyday Architecture
Everyday Architecture, and the imagery surrounding it, are woven throughout scripture. We see references to the cornerstone, the foundation, the door, the lintel, the gate, the tower, the stable, and of course the house. Jesus conducted much of his ministry in people’s homes. His every day, every moment ministry used a common agrarian and household language. His Gospel was not confined to the sabbath or the temple mount. It was on the road, at the well, at the table, at the bedside, in the breaking of bread and washing of feet, and even descending through a broken roof on a palette.
Ancient Doorway
And ultimately when Jesus left this earth, the veil in the tabernacle was torn from top to bottom and Faith flooded beyond the temple courts into the everyday. God is not, and was never in fact, confined to things made of human hands, nor was He sequestered to sacred places. His gospel permeates and overflows, dwelling within and around those he has gifted with Faith. In His humanity and with the Spirit, the sacred entered the everyday.
Artistic Inklings
Much has been written about the intersection of Art + Faith, and the subsequent creative disciplines of literature, poetry, music and songwriting, visual arts and the traditions of functional pottery and fiber arts. As an architect I delight in these writings, and I can easily append the creative discipline of Architecture. However, I recognize that other creatives may not instinctively consider the critical role of the built environment as art or as an expression of Faith. It is from this prompt to speak to fellow creatives, and to find kinship in the gratitude we share for our artistic inklings, that I offer these thoughts on Architecture + Faith.
A Living Art
I believe Architecture is a living art, one in which we dwell and abide. It is an authentic and tangible touchpoint to who we are and Who made us. Furthermore, the deep mystery of Architecture + Faith is this: that the one who crafts the walls does so for another, whether for the future self or occupant, it is generative and an act of service. Both the creator and the user are affected, guided, held, and even changed as they engage and commune within the creation.
The Stewardship of People and Place
In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus was asked by the Pharisees which is the greatest commandment of the Law. In His words is shrouded a deep calling to not only commune with God with all our capacities, but to also overflow these talents and skills to others:
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew 22:37-39
Architect + Architecture
Here I will draw a distinction between the architect and Architecture. The gifting of an architect is the stewardship of place, people, and resources. Through a disciplined and iterative practice of listening, reclaiming, sketching, modeling, editing, collaborating, and finally re-presenting and binding, the architect aspires to create a structure that holds commission and possibility. Both unknowingly and by intention an architect leaves an imprint on her Architecture. It's in these fingermarks, scaling a creation based on personal experience in order to fit and serve, that structures align and sing to those who enter.
And a faithful architect, like many faith-filled creatives, “rearrange{s} raw material of God’s creation in such a way that it helps the world in general, and people in particular, thrive and flourish” Tim Keller. The architect participates in the divine act of creation, answering a deep calling while gifting the vessel to another.
I too am compelled by a quiet hope
that those who consider my handiwork
might sense in it, some rippling echo of
the symmetry with which you imbued
your creation, some small reflection
of the beauty that whispers and shout
and sings of you.
From Ever Moment Holy, Vol. 3,
A liturgy to begin the days labors
Farmhouse Roof Framing
Waiting for Light
The built environment apart from the architect or the carpenter, and sometimes in spite of them, has a spiritual life all its own. Architecture is a living art. In place making an architect may try her best to anticipate and speak to a function or occupant, but the walls and emptiness exist in time and space apart from the architect. They wait for light, for gathering, for souls to abide. The doorframes may prompt, the steps may lift, the windows may frame, but the built environment finds beauty in both its intention and its possibility.
A meaningful interaction with the built environment may be heightened by some institutional function like a museum or church or monument. But I believe that an even deeper meaning is latent in seemingly ordinary places like our homes, our workshops or writing studios. The everyday structure can hold both the tangible and intangible within its edges and patterns.
The Imprint of the Maker
Christians believe the imprint of our maker is in our hearts, and because we are each unique this print primes us for distinctive ways to abide and see. The way light knows a room, God enters our hearts and experiences. My Pastor, Michael Flake, describes this mark as Christ’s blood on the doorframe of our lives. And as we peer through these frames whether it be at the pub, the workshop, the kitchen sink or from our porch at the end of a day's labors, the built environment faithfully frames our every day and our every moment just so.
Where Faith Enters
It is in our personal and collective experience of a place that Faith enters. And if the built environment reflects us in some way, in brokenness and wear, leaning or light-filled, all the better. Aren't we drawn to the authenticity, patina and worn edges from leaning elbows? The hand-hewn beam or a river of blue in a stone hearth? Here we see how to enter, a legacy of creation, utility and community in how a place breathes, bends and serves. In the light echoing through a barn roof or in the hum and movement of a gathering’s footfall, whirls the welcome brokenness of the everyday. In its utility a structure engages us and in its emptiness the soul enters. The intentional openness of Architecture is a threshold and invitation to abide. As Amy Baik Lee writes in her book This Homeward Ache, “In my own corner of this earth a doorway between the visible and the invisible now stands permanently open for me to come before the throne of grace.”
Reclaimed beams
Architecture is a whisper of our everyday
Where is the intersection of Architecture + Faith? Is it in the arc of a garden gate or the boot shelf in a mudroom? Is it in the window seat of a nursery, the bend of a stair, or in the morning light across a breakfast table? In the realm of this present garden, Faith meets us at the door, in the threshold, in washing and cooking, place-making, and in our labor and rest. The places authentically crafted for these actions house our everyday. As we specifically consider our built environment as a vessel of utility and possibility, a living art; we find this beautiful parallel to the Christian life. As we enter a place we become part of it, we are changed by it and in fact participate in the making of and purpose of it. It's in this communion between Architecture and its people that Faith swirls and overflows. That empty room designed for a purpose, just waiting for light and for weary and hopeful souls to illuminate its edges and spill through cracks, is as sacred as a sanctuary, a poem, or melody.
Architecture is a whisper of our every day; how we labor, rest, serve and celebrate. In the frames we find a home, in the engaging and rearranging we find purpose and communion, and in the emptiness we find Faith.
An Architecture
Like a room, the clear stanza
of birdsong opens among the noises
of motors and breakfasts.
Among the light's beginnings,
lifting broken gray of the night's
end, the bird hastens to his song
as to a place, a room commenced
at the end of sleep. Around
him his singing is entire.
Wendell Berry, 1964
A Welcome Conversation
To those curious about the built environment, and who are eager to explore how Faith intersects or grows within, I welcome this conversation, this opportunity to share my thoughts. To focus and authentically voice my experiences in the realm of Architecture + Faith, I’ve found it inspiring to imagine my fellow creative and friend sitting across from me, maybe in front of a fire sharing a cup of tea in handmade mugs. In future letters I will speak to these souls: the potter, the songwriter, the woodworker, the gardener, the poet, the painter, the cook, the homemaker, and to the one who feels called to mend the broken. To these friends who seek to unearth the beauty and Holy in everyday moments, I am encouraged and delighted to share a communal calling to faithfully create.
