sacred architecture examples

(1864–1944), consecrated it as the new cathedral church of Tianjin. So when Catholic missionaries first began constructing churches in China, the cosmological liturgical orientation of the design was familiar to Chinese Christians, for the correlations of space and worship were already taken for granted in their own indigenous religious architecture. by Anthony E. Clark and Amanda C. Roth Clark, appearing in Volume 25. We render our gratitude to several persons and agencies who helped support the research conducted for this study, including Thomas Coomans, Fr. The outcome of this ideal was his North Church, built in Gothic Revival style and boasting an elaborate façade and a richly ornamented Gothic interior.9 One notable characteristic of Favier’s design, however, was that he supplemented the church grounds with the placement of two Chinese-style pavilions (tingzi 停子) that flank the façade. 6 (Charleston, SC: Nabu Press, 2010), 20. Chinese Catholics were free to choose their own designs, and to restore and build churches according to their own tastes and sensibilities. Overhead you behold carved rafters, painted with dragons.”2 China and the West have shared the historical belief that to stir the human soul sacred architecture must be, as Leland Roth phrased it, “architecture for the senses.”3 In the context of Chinese architecture, sacred spaces have historically been constructed according to an understanding that heaven (tian 天), earth (di 地), and humanity (ren 人) all exist within a correlative cosmology; the physical alignment and proportion of buildings is believed to be directly related to the spiritual alignment of humans. The sacred must come to us through all the senses, to surround us with intimations of what Abraham felt in front of the burning bush, King David in front of the ark, Mary with the angel Gabriel, and the disciples at the feet of Jesus and at the foot of his cross. In the 19th century, Hindu and Buddhist grottos were built in the caves and tunnels running through the mountains. 20 See Henrietta Harrison, The Missionary’s Curse and Other Tales from a Chinese Catholic Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 105–7. Local Chinese architects not only desire their church architecture to assert a continuity with traditional Catholic design in the West, but they are also increasingly interested in producing direct analogues. The Gothic Revival, Romanesque, and Baroque styles that had been preferred by Western missionaries were the styles now favored by the Chinese who were rebuilding their sacred architecture out of the ashes. Xuanhua Catholic Cathedral, designed by Alphonse De Moerloose. 1081–1151), who envisioned the Gothic church as a celestial city on earth, “a spectacle in which heaven and earth, the angelic hosts in heaven and the human community in the sanctuary, seemed to merge.”11 Perhaps one of the more striking French Gothic Revival churches in China is the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Guangzhou. 18 Interview with Fr. Perhaps the most famous example of a Catholic church built in an entirely Chinese style is the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Yunnan Province, at Dali, designed by a French missionary and built by experienced local contractors who understood Chinese architectural forms. Among Moerloose’s most famous commissions in China is his church in Xuanhua, located in Hebei, 170 kilometers from Beijing. Constantini actively advised the construction of more Sino-Christian churches, but missionaries and native Chinese persistently preferred churches with a Western aesthetic. The new structure had to accommodate three thousand people in attendance at each of the three Sunday Masses, it had to somehow reflect the Catholic connection to the Pope in Rome, and it had to satisfy the local expectation of what a “Catholic church should look like.” The outcome of these requirements is what Denis McNamara calls a massive “Eclectic Revival” church with an unusually long nave; the façade is Gothic Revival while the sanctuary is crowned with an enormous Baroque dome modeled after the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.19. 24 For a brief architectural description of Beijing’s imperial Altar of Heaven and Forbidden City, see Fu Xinian et al., Chinese Architecture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 221–25, 262–68. Joseph Rykwert et al. In fact, with very few exceptions, Chinese Christians have primarily chosen to build their churches in either Gothic, Baroque, or Romanesque revival styles, which were, not surprisingly, the principal styles employed by Western missionary architects who first designed churches in China. One of the most ambitious recent commissions in China is the red brick replica of the celebrated Sacré-Coeur Basilica on Montmartre, Paris, built in a Roman-Byzantine style.25 While the French original, completed in 1914, was built using white travertine quarried in Château-Landon, the Chinese reproduction was constructed with red brick, making it a towering landmark on a vast, flat plain. By 1976, the year of Mao’s death, China’s remaining Christian churches were in terrible disrepair; those that had survived the Red Guard attacks and seizures of the “Destroy the Four Olds Movement” were being reused as state warehouses, schools, factories, or restaurants. Many cultures devoted considerable resources to their sacred architecture and places of worship. Liuhecun Catholic Church at Liuhecun Village, Shanxi. Mosques, houses and gardens provide the best examples of Islamic architectural principles, displaying distinctive arches, tile designs, towers and interior gardens. In 1924, Constantini assembled China’s first nation-wide synod of Catholic bishops to discuss Maximum Illud, which met (similar to council gatherings) in the Gothic Revival nave of Saint Ignatius Church in Shanghai.14 During the synod, Constantini determined to commission a Chinese-style church at Sheshan, but Alphonse De Moerloose, as noted above, designed the basilica in an admixture of Gothic Revival and Romanesque styles; the church was decidedly Western. The Dongergou baldacchino consists of three ascending, circular roofs, tiled in imperial yellow. It was reopened as a Catholic church in 1979, and the spires were rebuilt according to Dowdall’s original vision in 1980. With its 27 marble-sheathed “leaves” shining white above verdant landscaping, the Lotus Temple is one of the most prominent and celebrated examples of architectural biomimicry on Earth. Augustine Li Jianhua, S.V.D., Rome, January 21, 2012. With its seclusion and dedication, this is truly a mystical place. 15 Celso Constantini, “L’universalité de l’art chrétien,” Dossiers de la Commision synodale. Photo: Anthony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. With funds provided by Napoleon III (1808–1873), the cathedral church was designed by Léon Vautrin (1820–1884) with a monumental façade modeled after Paris’s famous Basilique Sainte-Clotilde. Sacred Architecture – PDF We thought it would be helpful to share examples, so that we can all begin to see and more deeply understand what it is that makes us Shambhala. Photo: Anthony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. Photo: Antony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. 14 For an account of the 1924 synod in Shanghai, see Wang Jiyou [Paul], Le premier Concile plénier chinois (1924): droit canonique missionaire forgeé en Chine (Paris: Les edition du Cerf, 2010). Also see Lewis Mumford, “Monumentalism, Symbolism and Style,” Architectural Review 105 (April 1949): 173–80. In such a gathering — that united academia with pragmatic examples of artistic and architectural realities — it was visibly evident that the future success of Catholic Sacred Art and Architecture is on the right path and is poised for remarkable success with the designs and plans of inspiring Catholic artists and architects. 21 Materials related to the Portiuncula Holy Mother Church (聖母天主教堂), Taiyuan Diocese Archive (太原天主教教區檔案館). Western architects largely preferred to build in Gothic Revival and Romanesque styles until Archbishop Celso Constantini (1876–1958), the first apostolic delegate to China, promoted the use of indigenous Chinese church architecture during his time in China, from 1922 to 1933. This Lutheran church is spectacular in its incorporation of natural elements, the rays of light that flood through the skylights, the ice-age crevice as an altar piece, overarching copper dome, and the solid rock walls. A couplet (duilian 對聯) was placed on both sides of the west façade, ‘Smash old thoughts, bomb the black church,’ while a portrait of Mao hung from the center of its arches.17. Built to honor the martyrdoms of Shanxi’s local saints, the hall is topped with a Christian cross to identify its religious affiliation. 12 Pope Benedict XV, Maximum Illud (1919), 16. With the ‘Avenue of the Dead’ running through its center, surrounded with many impressive structures, including two great pyramids, one for the Sun, one for the Moon, and famous as being sites of both human and animal sacrifice, Teotihuacan, in Mexico, was one of the largest pre-Columbian cities in the Americas. And while the local government often provides seed money to help fund the construction of such churches, most of the capital for Shanxi’s Sacred Heart church was provided by local peasants. 22 See Anthony E. Clark, China’s Saints: Catholic Martyrdom during the Qing (1644–1911) (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2011), 129, 220, n.130. Hagia Sophia, the most famous and most spectacular example of Byzantine architecture, was built between 532 and 537 to… Wu urged all China’s Christians to openly support the communist movement, and he promoted the separation of Chinese churches from foreign involvement. Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh. Find and save ideas about sacred architecture on Pinterest. Sacred Geometry is the art of incorporating nature into modern architecture. ARCHITECTURE, SACRED. 1838) is one of the earliest examples extant in the nation of the Gothic Revival style. Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church (pilgrimage site) at Dongergou Village, Shanxi. Photo: Anthony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. Thierry Meynard, S.J., the Beijing Center Special Collections and Library for Chinese Studies, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. View Gallery 20 Photos Getty Images. The supreme builder Vishvakarman of the Indian Rigveda, whose name can be rendered from the Sanskrit language as ‘all-creating’, is the architect god described as the creator of the universe and the ‘maker of all things’, is often portrayed alongside building tools. Dongergou claims to be the oldest Roman Catholic parish in the Diocese of Taiyuan, boasting a continuous history of worship for more than 220 years. There were, however, a few rare examples of Chinese-style churches built before Constantini’s 1927 essay; Guiyang’s Saint Joseph Cathedral, built in 1849, for example, followed the style of southern Chinese ancestral temples. Photo: Anthony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. It remains his most famous work in China today. Example sentences with "sacred architecture", translation memory Sacred architecture spans a number of ancient architectural styles including Neolithic architecture, ancient Egyptian architecture and Sumerian architecture. The first step of “making architecture” begins by putting a stone on Sacred Architecture after Mao: Looking to the Past and Building for the Future, Catholic architecture in modern China can be said to have passed through three historical stages: the pre-1930s, when churches were designed by Western missionaries, mostly French-speaking, who often sought to build in French Gothic Revival; the 1930s to 1950, when the apostolic delegate to China, Archbishop Celso Constanini, urged Catholic architects to design in a “Sino-Christian” style that reflected “Chinese aesthetic tastes”; and the post-Mao period of reconstruction from 1980 until the present, during which Chinese architects and builders have chosen to restore and build new churches in modified traditional Western styles. Catholic edifices, old and new, were now controlled by the state. From Neolithic labyrinths and Shinto shrines to Mayan ball courts and Greek temples, this colorfully illustrated handbook offers a contrarian, non-liturgical perspective on religious expression, ceremony, and ritual. Its structure and design influenced that of the Blue Mosque, completed in 1616. A wide, stone staircase now leads pilgrims through a monumental Chinese-roofed archway to the summit of the hill, where they first catch sight of an open-air altar beneath a massive baldacchino, here modeled after the imperial Altar of Heaven, famously used in Beijing by historic emperors to make annual offerings to heaven (tian 天). Take a look at 20 of the most sacred places on the planet. In his encyclical, Maximum Illud (On the Propagation of the Faith Throughout the World), Pope Benedict XV (1854–1922) asserted, “The Catholic Church is not an intruder in any country; nor is she alien to any people.”12 His desire was that Catholic missions grow sensitive to non-Western sensibilities. John Pedley, Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge University Press, 2005). Winston S. Churchill (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1944), 317. Islamic Art and Architecture (Thames &Hudson, 1998). One of the central concepts of Islamic architecture is that of privacy, and for this reason it … These classically religious qualities are made further atmospheric by the seclusion of being in hidden caves, accessed by stone steps leading up into the mountains. Jiang Jiehong recounts what happened: In the summer of 1966, this Roman-styled building was seen as a symbol of imperialist and colonial power and was besieged by thousands of Red Guards. As Saint Maximus the Confessor (ca. Photo: Anthony & Amanda Clark Collection, Spokane, Washington. A place of worship to Balinese sea gods, it was constructed in the 16th century. This monumental Gothic Revival structure, completed in 1910, was designed by the Scottish architect William Dowdall (b. This was disastrous for Catholic Christians, who viewed this as an act of disobedience to the Pope; Mao and his fellow cadres, on their part, insisted that Catholics, like Protestants, conform to the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Beneath the cathedral’s three large domes, each surfaced with green copper, the church’s interior clearly displayed French tastes; the nave, with its fourteen square piers that led to an octagonal dome, was adorned with Western-style murals depicting biblical stories. In the footsteps of missionary architects such as Moerloose and Favier, other Western architects designed churches in China after the ideals of Augustus Pugin, John Ruskin, and the exponent of French Gothic Revival, Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1814–1879). 9 See W. Devine, The Four Churches of Peking (Tianjin: The Tientsin Press, 1930), 184–185, and Joseph A. Sandhaas, S.V.D., Catholic Peking (Beijing: The Catholic University Press, 1937), 14–17. 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