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.

Ritual and architecture have provided the abstract and the tangible foundations of group worship from the era of the first Christians to the present-day ceremonial of the Church. Through the centuries the buildings that house liturgical practices have developed their own specific individuality, and the interpretation of the liturgy is reflected in architecture, a reflection in stone of community prayer lives. The early Syrian churches, the Roman basilicas, the Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque styles of the Western churches are symbols of the adaptation of architecture to liturgy—of style to content. Father Bouyer replaces myths and misconceptions about Church liturgy with facts based on archeological findings and, in doing so, gives an entirely new concept of the importance of Church architecture as an implementation of liturgical worship. "Builders of modern churches, says Father Bouyer, "seem to lack that inspired touch.... We try to furnish our churches with features picked at random from old routine styles." To make Church architecture a contemporary witness to the liturgy, it is the author's belief that past practices must be examined to see if they are irrevocably welded to the past or flexible enough to reapply to the present. To discover—or rediscover—the meaning of the liturgy demands an over-all perspective necessary to remodel and structure our churches of today.

How do space and architecture shape liturgical celebrations within a parish? In Theology and Form: Contemporary Orthodox Architecture in America, Nicholas Denysenko profiles seven contemporary Eastern Orthodox communities in the United States and analyzes how their ecclesiastical identities are affected by their physical space and architecture. He begins with an overview of the Orthodox architectural heritage and its relation to liturgy and ecclesiology, including topics such as stational liturgy, mobility of the assembly, the symbiosis between celebrants and assembly, placement of musicians, and festal processions representative of the Orthodox liturgy. Chapters 2-7 present comparative case studies of seven Orthodox parishes. Some of these have purchased their property and built new edifices; Denysenko analyzes how contemporary architecture makes use of sacred space and engages visitors. Others are mission parishes that purchased existing properties and buildings, posing challenges for and limitations of their liturgical practices. The book concludes with a reflection on how these parish examples might contribute to the future trajectory of Orthodox architecture in America and its dialogical relationship with liturgy and ecclesial identity.

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.

To follow up the popular book Cathedrals of the Church of England, Janet Gough and the ChurchCare team now explore the other 16,000 churches of the Church of England, from the parish churches at the nation's heart to the restrained splendour of royal foundation King's College Chapel, Cambridge. First and foremost places of worship, they have also been integral to England's history. One church has been chosen from each diocese to showcase their varied architecture, art, treasures and uses, from the delight in finding internationally renowned brasses and wall paintings in unassuming Trotton parish church (c.1300) to the ethereal ship-like Ripon College chapel, Cuddesdon, completed in 2013. The fresh and perceptive pen portraits of each church are illustrated with images by the acclaimed photographer Paul Barker.

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.

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.

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.

Following Spains democratic transition during the late 1970s, political and business elites strategically exploited Spains rich Islamic heritage in order to further projects of national redefinition, tourist promotion, and urban revitalisation. Large and ornate mosques were built in several Spanish regions, and the State granted Muslim communities an extensive array of rights and privileges that was arguably without parallel in Europe. Toward the onset of the 21st century, however, tensions surrounding Islams growing presence in Spain became increasingly common, especially in the northeastern region of Catalonia. These tensions centered largely around the presence, or proposed establishment, of mosques in Barcelona and its greater metropolitan area. This book examines how Islam went from being an aspect of Spains national heritage to be recovered and commemorated to a pressing social problem to be managed and controlled. It traces the events and developments that gave rise to this transformation, the diverse actors involved in the process, and the manner in which disputes over Muslim incorporation have become entangled with deeply-divisive debates over church-state relations and territorial autonomy. The core of the book centres on the shifting political and social dynamics surrounding the establishment of mosques, and the question of why anti-mosque mobilisations have been more prevalent and intense in Catalonia than other Spanish regions.

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.

The imperial convent of St. Servatius at Quedlinburg (founded in 936) was one of the wealthiest, most prestigious, and most politically powerful religious houses of medieval Germany, subject only to the authority of the emperor and the pope. This is the first English-language volume to provide an introduction to this important female religious community. The twelve essays by a team of international scholars address an array of topics in Quedlinburg's medieval history, with a particular focus on how the Quedlinburg community of learned aristocratic women used architecture and the visual arts to assert the abbey's illustrious history, ongoing political importance, and cultural significance. Contributors are: Clemens Bley, Karen Blough, Shirin Fozi, Tobias Gartner, Eliza Garrison, Evan A. Gatti, G. Ulrich Grossmann, Annie Krieg, Manfred Mehl, Katharina Ulrike Mersch, Christian Popp, Helene Scheck, and Adam R. Stead.

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.

In Architecture, Power and Religion in Lebanon, Ward Vloeberghs explores Rafiq Hariri's patronage and his posthumous legacy to demonstrate how religious architecture becomes a site for power struggles in contemporary Beirut. By tracing the 150 year-long history of the Muhammad al-Amin Mosque - Lebanon's principal Sunni mosque - and the subsequent development of the site as a commemoration venue, this account offers a unique illustration of how architecture, religion and power become discursively and visually entangled. Set in a multi-confessional society marked by social inequalities and political fragmentation, this interdisciplinary study analyses how architectural practice and urban reconfigurations reveal a nascent personality cult, communal mourning, and the consolidation of political territory in relation to constantly shifting circumstances.

In Applied Emblems in the Cathedral of Lugo, Carme Lopez Calderon explores the emblematic programme found in the Chapel of Nuestra Senora de los Ojos Grandes (Galicia, Spain), consisting of fifty-eight emblems painted c. 1735. Making use of a wide range of printed sources, the author delves into the meaning of each emblem and provides an all-encompassing interpretation of this cycle, which can rightly be described as the richest and most complete programme of Marian applied emblematics in the Iberian Peninsula.

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.