Catholic Side of House: Any Catholic Church Architecture Resource
There's a good one on the Orthodox side (part of Starter, all 4 books!)
The Architecture, Icons, and Music of the Orthodox Church
Is there similar for Catholic? I'm referring to the historical development, etc. as eventually displayed in southwest missions (plans from Spain).
Not advertising the big A, but my next step:
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Well, probably not.
Amazon's assortment is quite extensive ... apparently folks really like to document the history of their diocese.
So, I ended up with: https://www.amazon.com/Theology-Stone-Architecture-Byzantium-Berkeley-ebook/dp/B00UNRO9NE/
Not quite the nuts and bolts, but a good discussion, especially looking at the early Catholic and moving into Protestant and Modern.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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I'm taking a class right now called "Visual Art as Theology" and we had one week on "spatial theology" which is what our professor calls church architecture that is designed with theological purpose. Here's the excerpt of the syllabus for that unit. Looks like you already found Theology in Stone which was on our optional reading list.
Spatial Theologies and the Body of the Church
• church architecture as spatial theology
• case studies: church buildings across Christian traditions
Required Reading
• Sigurd Bergmann, “God’s Here and Now in Built Environments: Introductory Remarks on Architecture as Theology,” and “Can Churches Fly? The Liturgy of Architecture: An Aesthetic and Theological Perspective,” in Theology in Built Environments: Exploring Religion, Architecture, and Design, ed. Sigurd Bergmann (New York: Routledge, 2017), 9–22, 281–309.
• *Continue reading 30+ pages per week toward your research project...
Optional sources for further study (referenced in class)
• Alexei Lidov, Hierotopy: Spatial Icons and Image-Paradigms in Byzantine Culture (Moscow: Дизайн Информация Картография, 2009), 304–309 (English trans. of chap. 1).
• Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis (1922), trans. Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000), esp. 59–70.
• Richard Kieckhefer, Theology in Stone: Church Architecture from Byzantium to Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
• Denis R. McNamara, How to Read Churches: A Crash Course in Ecclesiastical Architecture (New York: Rizzoli, 2011).
• Horst Schwebel, “Regarding the Relation between Church and Architecture,” in Theology in Built Environments, 247–258.0 -
I wish I could remember the name but there is a great book on reading Biblical history in the frescos of the churches in Southern Italy which I'm sure you would enjoy.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Rosie, thank you for those titles!
The McNamara one rang true .. we could tell which version of our not-a-denomination by the building outside. Yesterday, we saw a church and immediately knew a Latter Day Saints building. I'm sure their design is careful. We've visited our local synogogue many times, but each, 'looking'.
The whole subject of your class belongs in Logos. Of course more grousing would just be more grousing. But early Christianity decried textual sources in favor of speaking/hearing ... and eventually its enclosure in space and art.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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