The Society of the Faith was founded in 1905 to promote a catholic (and ecumenical) understanding of the Church of England. In 1916, the Society created Faith Craft, a subsidiary company dedicated to the best design in every area of church furnishing. Its products were also meant to be affordable by ordinary parishes - unlike the extravagances of craftsmen like William Burges. Faith Craft used a wide variety of designers in wood, metal, textiles, and stained glass. This work became ubiquitous in the Church of England, but has never before been chronicled. The chapters of this book grew out of a symposium sponsored by the Society of the Faith in 2013, the first ever attempt to study Faith Craft and its works. Beautifully illustrated, this book provides the first scholarly examination of Faith Craft - its work, and also its place.

Religion in Britain after the Reformation was remarkably unstable and places of worship were the focus of dispute and regular change. This book is the first substantial synoptic account of Nonconformist church architecture in England and aims to provide a history of Nonconformist architecture, using existing buildings wherever possible. It includes examples from the 17th century to the present day, covering all parts of the country and each of the main religious traditions within Nonconformity. Despite the loss of very large numbers of chapels in the past half-century, there are still around 20,000 Nonconformist congregations in England. The book includes some of the smallest wayside chapels as well as some grand urban structures and aims to mention the most influential Nonconformist buildings as well as giving examples of the most common types. These examples are set in the architectural, religious and cultural context of the development of English Nonconformity. The chronological arrangement allows the reader to follow the main architectural development in the Nonconformist world The range and varied nature of the architecture is illustrated with new photographs of both interiors and exteriors.

With the increasing disappearance of stained glass in medieval churches, the surviving wood carvings on church misericords and bench ends are extremely important in providing an insight into the medieval mind. The carved images were often used to convey the messages of the Christian faith in the Middle Ages but they were not just concerned with religion and religious symbols - they also told stories of mythology, humour and satire, showing illustrations of everyday life and people. This book outlines the history of church seating and discusses the craftsmen and the influences behind their work. Using illustrations, the author then explains the subject matter of these wood carvings, revealing how one can discover so much about medieval life - the spiritualism, moralism and the wit - within the carvings still found in churches today.

Norwich is blessed with more surviving medieval churches than any other city north of the Alps. Architect David Luckhurst worked in the city for more than 40 years before turning to painting and drawing in his retirement, and many buildings he designed are to be seen there. This high-quality paperback reproduces his 32 paintings of Norwich's medieval churches (including the lone surviving tower of the bombed St Benedict), with an emphasis on their street setting. Each painting is accompanied by David's handwritten notes on the surrounding buildings and how the church interacts with them. The book is completed by David's hand-drawn map showing the location of each church and his pen drawing of their combined towers.

Considered on of the most important religious structures of the twentieth century, the Chapel of the Rosary in Vence was regarded by Matisse himself as his great masterpiece. He dedicated four years to the creation of this convent chapel on the French Riviera, and the result is one of the most remarkable and comprehensive ensemble pieces of twentieth-century art. Every element of the chapel bears the artists touch, from the vivid Mediterranean hues of the stained glass windows to the starkly powerful murals; even the vestments and altar were designed by Matisse. This beautifully illustrated volume captures the chapel in exquisite detail, allowing an unparalleled view of this iconic and sacred space. With stunning new photography that captures the dramatic effects of the changing light in the building throughout the day, this book is the first to present the experience of being within the chapel exactly as Matisse himself envisaged it, while Marie-Therese Pulvenis de Selignys authoritative and insightful text explores the extraordinary story of the chapels creation and the challenges faced by the 77-year-old artist in realising his great vision."

The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Enormously talented and ambitious artists, they met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome, became the greatest architects of their era by designing some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and ended their lives as bitter enemies. Engrossing and impeccably researched, full of dramatic tension and breathtaking insight, "The Genius in the Design" is the remarkable tale of how two extraordinary visionaries schemed and maneuvered to get the better of each other and, in the process, created the spectacular Roman cityscape of today.

A glorious illustrated history of sixteen of the world's greatest cathedrals, interwoven with the extraordinary stories of the people who built them. 'An impeccable guide to the golden age of ecclesiastical architecture' The Times 'Vivid, colourful and absorbing' Dan Jones 'An epic ode to some of our most beautiful and beloved buildings' Helen Carr The emergence of the Gothic in twelfth-century France, an architectural style characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, flying buttresses, large windows and elaborate tracery, triggered an explosion of cathedral-building across western Europe. It is this remarkable flowering of ecclesiastical architecture that forms the central core of Emma Wells's authoritative but accessible study of the golden age of the cathedral. Prefacing her account with the construction in the sixth century of the Hagia Sophia, the remarkable Christian cathedral of the eastern Roman empire, she goes on to chart the construction of a glittering sequence of iconic structures, including Saint-Denis, Notre-Dame, Canterbury, Chartres, Salisbury, York Minster and Florence's Duomo. More than architectural biographies, these are human stories of triumph and tragedy that take the reader from the chaotic atmosphere of the mason's yard to the cloisters of power. Together, they reveal how 1000 years of cathedral-building shaped modern Europe, and influenced art, culture and society around the world.

Inside Christian churches, natural light has long been harnessed to underscore theological, symbolic, and ideological statements. In this volume, twenty-four international scholars with various specialties explore how the study of sunlight can reveal essential aspects of the design, decoration, and function of medieval sacred spaces. Themes covered include the interaction between patrons, advisors, architects, and artists, as well as local negotiations among competing traditions that yielded new visual and spatial constructs for which natural light served as a defining and unifying factor. The study of natural light in medieval churches reveals cultural relations, knowledge transfer patterns, processes of translation and adaptation, as well as experiential aspects of sacred spaces in the Middle Ages. Contributors are: Anna Adashinskaya, Jelena Bogdanovic, Debanjana Chatterjee, Ljiljana Cavic, Aleksandar Cucakovic, Dusan Danilovic, Magdalena Dragovic, Natalia Figueiras Pimentel, Leslie Forehand, Jacob Gasper, Vera Henkelmann, Gabriel-Dinu Herea, Vladimir Ivanovici, Charles Kerton, Jorge Lopez Quiroga, Anastasija Martinenko, Andrea Mattiello, Ruben G. Mendoza, Dimitris Minasidis, Maria Paschali, Marko Pejic, Iakovos Potamianos, Maria Shevelkina, Alice Isabella Sullivan, Travis Yeager, and Olga Yunak.

The Drosten stone - one of Scotland's premier monuments - came to light during restoration work at St Vigeans church, near Arbroath, in the 1870s. A rare example of Pictish writing, the Drosten stone is just one in an astounding collection of exquisitely preserved Pictish sculptures discovered in and around the church. The carvings on these stones revel in Pictish inventiveness, teeming with lively naturalistic animals and innovative compositions of monsters and people, as well as both Pictish symbols and everyday objects. The sculptures' iconography also draws on a deep knowledge of Christian and classical literature, witness to a highly literate and cosmopolitan society. This definitive study of St Vigeans' Pictish stones, generously illustrated with plates of the full collection, begins in the recent past, when the sculptures began to emerge as a remarkable historic entity. It then explores the history of the sculptures, including an analysis of the carvings, the geology of the stones and attempts to extract meaning and context for this unique stone collection as part of a powerful ecclesiastical landscape.

This book, the first of three, offers an anthology of Western descriptions of Islamic religious buildings of Spain, Turkey, India and Persia, mostly from the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries, taken from books and ambassadorial reports. As travel became easier and cheaper, thanks to viable roads, steamships, hotels and railways, tourist numbers increased, museums accumulated eastern treasures, illustrated journals proliferated, and photography provided accurate data. The second volume covers some of the religious architecture of Syria, Egypt and North Africa, while the third deals with Islamic palaces around the Mediterranean. All three deal with the impact of Western trade, taste and imports on the East, and examine the encroachment of westernised modernism, judged responsible for the degradation of Islamic styles.

A series of meditations and prayers focusing on the spiritual history of 22 cathedrals around the UK.

Temples for a Modern God is one of the first major studies of American religious architecture in the postwar period, and it reveals the diverse and complicated set of issues that emerged just as one of the nation's biggest building booms unfolded. Jay Price tells the story of how a movement consisting of denominational architectural bureaus, freelance consultants, architects, professional and religious organizations, religious building journals, professional conferences, artistic studios, and specialized businesses came to have a profound influence on the nature of sacred space. Debates over architectural style coincided with equally significant changes in worship practice. Meanwhile, suburbanization and the baby boom required a new type of worship facility, one that had to attract members and serve a social role as much as it had to to honor the Divine. Price uses religious architecture to explore how Mainline Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, and other traditions moved beyond their ethnic, regional, and cultural enclaves to create a built environment that was simultaneously intertwined with technology and social change, yet rooted in fluid and shifting sense of tradition. Price argues that these structures, as often mocked as loved, were physical embodiments of a significant, if underappreciated, era in American religious history.

What value do we place on our cultural heritage, and to what extent should we preserve historic and culturally important sites and artefacts from the ravages of weather, pollution, development and use by the general public? This innovative book attempts to answer these important questions by exploring how non-market valuation techniques - used extensively in environmental economics - can be applied to cultural heritage.The book includes twelve comprehensive case studies that estimate public values for a diverse set of cultural goods, including English cathedrals, Bulgarian monasteries, rock paintings in Canada, statues in the US, and a medieval city in Africa. The authors demonstrate the potential utility of these techniques, and highlight the important social values that cultural heritage can generate. Given limited resources, such studies can help set priorities and aid the decision making process in terms of their preservation, restoration and use. The authors conclude by reviewing the majority of cultural valuation studies done to date, and draw some general conclusions about the results achieved and the potential benefits, as well as the limitations, of valuing these types of goods. This highly original book will be of great use and interest to academics in the fields of environmental, resource, and cultural economics, as well as NGOs and policymakers involved in cultural heritage at the national, international and global level.

Has your church or ministry ever considered a building or expansion program? Have you ever stepped out in faith only to get bogged down in details? Is your master plan little more than a "pretty picture" to present to your congregation? In Master Planning: More than Pretty Pictures, author Timothy L. Cool provides a comprehensive primer to lead you through the myriad details, processes, steps, and decisions that must be considered as part of a church building project. With more than twenty-three years of experience working with churches, ministers, and their leadership, Cool addresses the issues churches must confront and the questions that must be answered at every critical step of the master planning process and facilities expansion project. It includes helpful information about topics such as land and site selection, zoning, funding and financing, the architectural review process, construction, and post-construction. Providing realistic and practical applications, Master Planning: More than Pretty Pictures communicates the importance of creating a master plan the right way. Crafted correctly, a solid master plan can bring unity, a renewed sense of purpose, and financial stability to the church.

This is a true story of a little girl, Sibu, who was totally consumed by the beauty and the silence of the world of the unseen; nothing of this material world seemed to make sense to her. She kept secrets about her life and her spiritual relationship with God. She explored the spiritual world through dreams and visions, and that was her way of communicating with God. Her spiritual exploration denied her of her childhood and other life experiences that most children of her age had. Sibu spent most of her time in isolation communicating with her imaginary friend God . This book reveals how children can keep secrets about their lives, their personal and spiritual relationship with God. As she develops into a young woman, she gets married, and her life changes dramatically. She becomes trapped by the luxuries of the material world, and completely forgets about her imaginary friend. After some time, God seizes all the beauties and luxuries which separated Sibu from Him. Her whole luxurious life turns into a nightmare. Finally, Sibu repents and accepts God s calling. [email protected]

The social sciences have mostly ignored the role of physical buildings in shaping the social fabric of communities and groups. Although the emerging field of the sociology of architecture has started to pay attention to physical structures, Brenneman and Miller are the first to combine the light of sociological theory and the empirical method in order to understand the impact of physical structures on religious groups that build, transform, and maintain them. Religious buildings not only reflect the groups that build them or use them; these physical structures actually shape and change those who gather and worship there. Religious buildings are all around us. From Wall Street to Main Street, from sublime and historic cathedrals to humble converted storefronts, these buildings shape the global religious landscape, "building faith" among those who worship in them while providing a testament to the shape and duration of the faith of those who built them and those who maintain them. Building Faith explores the social impact of religious buildings in places as diverse as a Chicago suburb and a Guatemalan indigenous Mayan village, all the while asking the questions, "How does space shape community?" and "How do communities shape the spaces that speak for them?"

"Faith it All" is a guide to help individuals as they go through the storms of life such as, the death of a loved one, diagnosed with cancer, divorced, receiving a pink slip, teenage daughter becomes pregnant, home foreclosure, and much more. The reader will learn how to cope with storms, the reason for storms, and a step by step approach on ways to cope during the stormy season.

How to Read Buildings is a practical introduction to looking at and appreciating architecture. It is a guide to reading the historical and architectural clues that are embedded in every building. Small enough to carry in your pocket and serious enough to provide real answers, this comprehensive guide: - Explores key characteristics of structures dating from every period from the ancient Greeks to the present day. - Gives expert advice on how to identify any building and put it in historical context. - Provides an accessible visual guide, using detailed engravings and text, to architectural styles and structural elements.