COURSES

HISTORY AND THEORY COURSES

CONSTRUCTING SACRED SPACE 

Concepts in religious and symbolic architecture will be studied including sacred cities, places of worship, and symbolic sites, both past and present in Eastern and Western thought and tradition. Students create design projects involving cultural and religious influences on the forms and technology of sacred spaces.    

In architecture there is the possibility of creating places that represent the idea of sacredness and the vision of the origin and history of a community.  These places include sacred cities, memorial sites, religious places of worship and assembly, and meditation spaces.  These places are created in relationship to the natural world and represent a human-made construction and form that bring nature, symbols, rituals, beliefs, and traditions into a arrangement of form and space, structure and materials, and assembly.  Sacred time and sacred space are created involving the experience of an inner space in relationship to the outer world.  Between the two is a passage in time of preparation and anticipation.  Light and darkness, silence and music, path and center, and the recreating of symbols and rituals are elements of sacred time and space. 

Selected examples of precedent buildings and places are presented.  These include sacred cities, sacred sites, memorials, gardens, and places of worship and assembly.  Underlying concepts of philosophy, religion, and culture are explored along with the precedent  examples.  Students undertake the research, analysis, and documentation of precedent examples.  In addition, students partake in drawing, designing, and site visits as part of the explorations of constructing sacred space.

 

All Images and Text © Weldon Pries 2017