Christian Architecture: Reference Materials

Examining church architecture from the third century to the twenty-first,"Theology in Stone" is a thoughtful,fresh,and informative work that addresses questions vital to the present while shedding a great deal of light on the past.The conception of church architecture that emerges is one that moves beyond the polemics of the "worship wars"to embrace the best of both the traditional and the modern.

Conceived as a "primer" for local building or renovation committees,"Building from Belief" describes the climate surrounding Catholic church architecture in the United States.It offers an optimistic view of the future of Catholic church-building,but stresses the need for comprehensive liturgical catechesis.-from back cover.

In this unique ,Groundbreaking book by "one of this generation's finest architectural historians", Dr. Denis Mcnamara delves into the deep meaning of liturgical art and architecture,and the Sacred Liturgy itself.
This richly illustrated study finds its immediate inspiration in the 2000 book "The Spirit of the Liturgy" by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,now Pope Benedict XVI.Taking his cues from scripture and the Church fathers,Ratzinger describes liturgical time,calling the current age the "between-time" which comes after the shadowy typologies of the Old Testament and before the "reality" at the end of time when God is all in all and the world is completely transformed and fully divinized.The current age,then,is the time of "image",an "already but not yet" period in which we have genuine access to the things of heaven,but in the mode of sacrament.In this great meta-narrative of the Bible,the heavenly realities are indeed ours,but are mediated through material things in the liturgy of the Church.

"Houses of God" is a fascinating look at how Americans shape their places of worship into multifaceted reflections of their culture,beliefs,and times.Peter Williams divides the nation into seven distinctive regions-New England,the Mid-Atlantic states,the South,the Old Northwest,The Great Plains and Mountains,the Spanish Borderlands,and the Pacific Rim-and traces the historical development of and geographic influence on religious building in each.

There have been many histories of Christian art and architecturebut none written be a theologian such as Kevin Seasoltz. Following a chapter on culture as the context for theology, liturgy, and art, Seasoltz surveys developments from the early church up through the conventional artistic styles and periods. Comprehensive, illuminating, ecumenical.

The Oxford Companion to Christian Art and Architecture is a unique and fascinating exploration of the art and architecture that has been influenced and inspired by biblical stories and Christian history and beliefs. Richly illustrated the Companion combines general essays on the periods and styles important in the history of Christian art with hundreds of shorter entries that describe specific works, artists, themes, and visual images and which give the reader practical guidance on where in Europe to locate the works described.

In 1928,the Liturgical Arts Society was established to "devise ways and means for improving the standards of taste,craftmanship,and liturgical correctness in the practice of Catholic art in the United States."The organization was founded and led by men and women whose express purpose was to implement their view that Christian art and architecture should be in tune with the liturgy and that improvement in the ecclesiastical arts could bring about cultural reform.

Early Christianity seems not to have had a highly developed institutional character. Christians met in the homes of individual members, and there was no such thing as a church building. By the fourth century, however, Christianity had become an official Roman religion, and a new architectural form, the basilica, would soon become the standard throughout the Roman world. In this volume Michael White uses literary, archaeological, and documentary sources to set the architectural history of the early church within its wider cultural context, showing how the change from house churches to public basilicas coincided with crucial developments in the social aspects and religious practices of the emergent Christian movement.

By means of documentary and graphic evidence, such as Roman coins and mosaics, medieval manuscripts, tapestries, and medallions, this study traces the stages by which both political and religious ideologies were associated with castrum, city-gate, towered facade, cupola, orbis, royal ciborium, and domical vestibule. In addition to showing the influence of the Sacrum palatium upon the church architecture and graphic symbolism of the Middle Ages should be visualized, and whether the imperial tradition of palace symbolism did not persist in the Islamic East as late as the Moghul Empire in India.

This book establishes architectural aesthetics as a legitimate subject of philosophical inquiry. Characterizing the "aesthetic understanding" of architecture as a rational and conscious activity, Roger Scruton maintains that much contemporary architectural theory mistakes the nature of its subject and that a return to first principles is necessary. Consequently, he develops a theory of aesthetic judgment and its place in the understanding of buildings and in practical matters generally. In applying this theory to architecture, he argues for both the objectivity and the moral significance of aesthetic taste. As a result many ways of building can be shown to be right and others wrong.