This compact and accessible book is for anyone who would like to understand more about the architectural history of English churches. Clear and easy to use, the text explains the key components of church architecture-stylistic developments, functional requirements, regional variations, and arcane vocabulary. Readers can equip themselves to explore historic churches knowledgeably, evaluate dates and restoration phases, interpret stained glass and monuments, and make their own discoveries. Written by one of the editors of the Pevsner Architectural Guides and distilling years of experience visiting churches, the book includes explanations of how to learn more from building plans, tips for further research, searching for clues, and analyzing the evidence.

The British Archaeological Association's 2013 conference was devoted to the study of Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster. It also embraced Westminster School, which was founded at the Reformation in the Abbey precinct. Collectively, these institutions occupy a remarkable assemblage of medieval and later buildings, most of which are well documented. Although the Association had held a conference at Westminster in 1902, this was the first time that the internationally important complex of historic buildings was examined holistically, and the papers published here cover a wide range of subject matter.

Having won more than one recent poll as Britain's best-loved building, the appeal of Durham Cathedral appears abiding, which begs the question whether an iconic sacred building can retain meaning and affective pertinence for contemporary, secular visitors. Using the example of Durham Cathedral, this book sets out to explore wherein the appeal of historic churches lies today and considers questions of how and why their preservation into a post-Christian era should be secured. By including feedback from visitors to the cathedral, and the author's own very personal account of the cathedral in the form of an ekphrasis, this work seeks to privilege an interpretation of architecture that is based on the individual experience rather than on more conventional narratives of architecture history and cultural heritage policy. Recognising the implication of our choice of narrative on the perceived value of historic churches is crucial when deliberating their future role. This book puts forth a compelling case for historical sacred architecture, suggesting that its loss - through imperceptive conservation practices as much as through neglect or demolition - would diminish us all, secularists, atheists and agnostics included.

The county of Cheshire has a rich and varied past which is reflected in its historic churches. In Churches of Cheshire , author David Paul explores a selection of the most interesting churches across the whole of the county. The buildings range from a church located in the heart of the city of Chester to market towns, villages and remote locations, and represent the many different architectural eras and styles to be found in Cheshire’s churches. The book covers a cross-section of churches throughout the county, both well-known and those waiting to be discovered by a wider audience. This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of Cheshire over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this attractive county in England.

A detailed, authoritative and easy-to-use guide to the architectural wealth of England's second city, the 'workshop of the world'. Its major buildings include the splendid English Baroque cathedral, the pioneering Neo-Roman town hall, and the mighty and still controversial Central Library of the 1970s. Streets of rich and varied Victorian and Edwardian architecture bear witness to the era when Birmingham's civic initiatives were the admiration of the country. More recently, the city has been rejuvenated with new architecture on a giant scale: the iconoclastic Selfridges, and the canalside precinct of Brindleyplace, where modernism and Classical Revival are excitingly juxtaposed. Outer districts and suburbs of extraordinary variety are explored in a series of tours. The famous Jewellery Quarter is a treasure-trove of quirky and resourceful historic buildings of every size and style. Stucco villas to match any in England can be found in Edgbaston, which also boasts educational buildings of outstanding quality. Cadburys' celebrated Garden Suburb at Bournville combines enlightened architecture with picturesque charm. flourished well into the twentieth century. A narrative introduction sets the buildings in context.

Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the church itself artistically and architecturally stood apart from the parish community. It was often the largest and only stone-built building in a village; it was legally distinct being subject to canon law, as well as consecrated for the celebration of religious rites. The buildings associated with the "cure of souls" were sacred sites or holy places, where humanity interacted with the divine. In spite of the importance of the parish church, these buildings have generally not received the same attention from historians as non-parochial places of worship. This collection of essays redresses this balance and reflects on the parish church across a number of confessions - Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Anti-Trinitarian - during the early modern period. Rather than providing a series of case studies of individual buildings, each essay looks at the evolution of parish churches in response to religious reform as well as confessional change and upheaval. They examine aspects of their design and construction; furnishings and material culture; liturgy and the use of the parish church. While these essays range widely across Europe, the volume also considers how religious provision and the parish church were translated into a global context with colonial and commercial expansion in the Americas and Asia. This interdisciplinary volume seeks to identify what was distinctive about the parish church for the congregations that gathered in them for worship and for communities across the early modern world.

This beautiful and groundbreaking book examines the use of sacred geometry and cosmology in Gothic cathedral design. Renowned geometer and lecturer Tom Bree demonstrates how medieval Master Masons combined their knowledge of the practical building arts with ancient cosmological knowledge to endow their constructions with profound spiritual meaning. Wells Cathedral, the focus of this book, was England's first Gothic cathedral, and its design symbolises the soul's cosmic journey from Earth, through the underworld and up into the heavens. Bree shows how the medieval Christian fascination with the knowledge of the ancient world laid the foundations for the more recent mythos involving the Templars, Freemasonry and Pyramidology. Packed with rare illustrations and original research unavailable anywhere else, this is a book to study and treasure.

Shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2016! It has been estimated that over 90% of England's figurative medieval art was obliterated in the image destruction of the Reformation. Medieval angel roofs, timber structures with spectacular and ornate carvings of angels, with a peculiar preponderance in East Anglia, were simply too difficult for Reformation iconoclasts to reach. Angel roof carvings comprise the largest surviving body of major English medieval wood sculpture. Though they are both masterpieces of sculpture and engineering, angel roofs have been almost completely neglected by academics and art historians, because they are inaccessible, fixed and challenging to photograph. 'The Angel Roofs of East Anglia' is the first detailed historical and photographic study of the region's many medieval angel roofs. It shows the artistry and architecture of these inaccessible and little-studied medieval artworks in more detail and clarity than ever before, and explains how they were made, by whom, and why. Michael Rimmer redresses the scholarly neglect and brings the beauty, craftsmanship and history of these astonishing medieval creations to the reader. The book also offers a fascinating new answer to the question of why angel roofs are so overwhelmingly an East Anglian phenomenon, but relatively rare elsewhere in the country.

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 revitalization. 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 churchstate relations and territorial autonomy. The core of Rebuilding Islam in Contemporary Spain centers on the shifting political and social dynamics surrounding the establishment of mosques, and the question of why anti-mosque mobilizations have been more prevalent and intense in Catalonia than other Spanish regions.

The Architecture of Medieval Churches investigates the impact of affective theology on architecture and artefacts, focusing on the Middle Ages as a period of high achievement of this synthesis. It explores aspects of medieval church and cathedral architecture in relation to the contemporary metaphysics and theology, which articulated an integrated theocentric culture, architecture, and art. Three modes of attention: comprehension, instruction, and contemplation, informed the builders' intuition and intention. The book's central premise reasons that love for God was the critical force in the creation of vernacular church architecture, using a selection of medieval writings to provide a unique critique of the genius of architecture and art during this period. An interdisciplinary study between architecture, theology, and philosophy, it will appeal to academics and researchers in these fields.

At the Venice Biennale, NVA art agency along with great minds from many different disciplines gathered together to discuss the fate of Scotland's iconic modernist building, St Peter's Seminary. Rather than providing a structured blue print for St Peter's, this collection of essays aims to open all possibilities, focusing not merely on preserving the building, but imagining it as a landscape within which new narratives can be woven.

Based around an interview with Tadao Ando, this book explores the influence of the Buddhist concept of nothingness on Andoa (TM)s Christian architecture, and sheds new light on the cultural significance of the buildings of one of the worlda (TM)s leading contemporary architects.

Specifically, this book situates Andoa (TM)s churches, particularly his world-renowned Church of the Light (1989), within the legacy of nothingness expounded by Kitaro Nishida (1870-1945), the father of the Kyoto Philosophical School.

Linking Andoa (TM)s Christian architecture with a philosophy originating in Mahayana Buddhism illuminates the relationship between the two religious systems, as well as tying Andoa (TM)s architecture to the influence of Nishida on post-war Japanese art and culture.

Le Corbusier's chapel Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp is arguably the most famous modern religious building and a UNESCO world heritage site. It has been photographed by millions of people, including some of the most distinguished architectural photographers. Austrian artist Siegrun Appelt took an entirely new approach to look at the iconic structure, distinct from all her famous predecessors. Appelt focuses with utter concentration on details, creating compositions of highest sensitivity and precision. Her images highlight the place's spatial structure and lines, Le Corbusier's ingenious direction of light, as well as surfaces and passages. They can be read as hints to these details and at the same time invite a conclusion from detail to the whole. This publication includes a dialogue between Claudia Kromrei and Otto Kapfinger, in which they investigate the potential of photography to show Le Corbusier's means of expression and discuss the visualisation and perception of material and immaterial elements of this icon of 20th-century architecture. Text in English and German.

Mid-20th century sacred architecture in America sought to bridge modernism with religion by abstracting cultural and faith traditions and pushing the envelope in the design of houses of worship. Modern architects embraced the challenges of creating sacred spaces that incorporated liturgical changes, evolving congregations, modern architecture, and innovations in building technology. The book describes the unique context and design aspects of the departure from historicism, and the renewal of heritage and traditions with ground-breaking structural features, deliberate optical effects and modern aesthetics. The contributions, from a pre-eminent group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Australia, and Europe are based on original archival research, historical documents, and field visits to the buildings discussed. Investigating how the authority of the divine was communicated through new forms of architectural design, these examinations map the materiality of liturgical change and communal worship during the mid-20th century.

The Gothic Cathedral focuses on the interaction between design and the requirements of patrons, following the creative processes of architects by reconstructing the problems and opportunities which faced them. Christopher Wilson presents the essential facts on such aspects as chronology, structural techniques and stylistic developments and then goes further, seeing the story as a sequence of choices from which new solutions arose, which, in their turn, gave rise to still more challenges. Illustrated with carefully chosen photographs and specially drawn diagrams, this fresh, perceptive and provocative book has already established itself as a definitive introduction to the subject.

"The strength of the book is its marvelously rich and detailed discussion of a 'case study' within the Arts and Crafts movement and the carefully constructed description of every aspect of the Chapel provides a coherency to Irish Arts and Crafts that enriches studies of the area." -- Professor Janice Helland Queen s University Ontario The Honan Chapel is a brilliant compilation of the finest skills of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement of the early twentieth century.The Honan Chapel at University College Cork, consecrated in 1916, was a unique concept, reflecting in both its architecture and decoration every element of the Irish arts and crafts movement. It was founded in the belief that it is essential for a University College to meet both the spiritual and academic needs of students. Associated with this was the belief that the chapel s design must be truly Irish in inspiration and representative of early Irish ecclesiastical art. Internally the extraordinary collection of chapel furnishings, textiles, vestments etc. was conceived and executed at the height of the early twentieth century Celtic revival and is a unique expression of that renaissance. It contains items in silver and wood, cloth, paper and stone, providing a valuable and unique record of the best of Irish ecclesiastical art at the time, and is a remarkable expression of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement.The contributors to this volume illustrate different aspects of the Honan collection, the social and cultural context in which pieces were made, as well as the artistic environment of the arts and crafts movement. The book also includes the first a comprehensive inventory of the contents of the collection, And over 150 stunning photographs using the latest digital technology."

Bayana in Rajasthan, and its monuments, challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Muslim architecture and urban form in India. At the end of the twelfth century, early conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. They later reconfigured the fort and constructed another town within it. These two towns were the centre of an autonomous region during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Going beyond a simple study of the historic, architectural and archaeological remains, this book takes on the wider issues of how far the artistic traditions of Bayana, which developed independently from those of Delhi, later influenced north Indian architecture. It shows how these traditions were the forerunners of the Mughal architectural style, which drew many of its features from innovations developed first in Bayana.

Abbeys and Priories of Medieval Wales is the first comprehensive, illustrated guide to the religious houses of Wales from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. It offers a thorough introduction to the history of the monastic orders in Wales (the Benedictines, Cluniacs, Augustinians, Premonstratensians, Cistercians, the military orders and the friars), and to life inside medieval Welsh monasteries and nunneries, in addition to providing the histories of almost sixty communities of religious men and women, with descriptions of the standing remains of their buildings. As well as a being a scholarly book, a number of maps, ground plans and practical information make this an indispensable guide for visitors to Wales's monastic heritage.

Muthanna, also known as mirror writing, is a compelling style of Islamic calligraphy composed of a source text and its mirror image placed symmetrically on a horizontal or vertical axis. This style elaborates on various scripts such as Kufic, naskh, and muhaqqaq through compositional arrangements, including doubling, superimposing, and stacking. Muthanna is found in diverse media, ranging from architecture, textiles, and tiles to paper, metalwork, and woodwork. Yet despite its centuries-old history and popularity in countries from Iran to Spain, scholarship on the form has remained limited and flawed. Muthanna / Mirror Writing in Islamic Calligraphy provides a comprehensive study of the text and its forms, beginning with an explanation of the visual principles and techniques used in its creation. Author Esra Akin-Kivanc explores muthanna's relationship to similar forms of writing in Judaic and Christian contexts, as well as the specifically Islamic contexts within which symmetrically mirrored compositions reached full fruition, were assigned new meanings, and transformed into more complex visual forms. Throughout, Akin-Kivanc imaginatively plays on the implicit relationship between subject and object in muthanna by examining the point of view of the artist, the viewer, and the work of art. In doing so, this study elaborates on the vital links between outward form and inner meaning in Islamic calligraphy.

The life of Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was full of complexity and contradictions. As a young man he joined the Catalonian nationalist movement and was critical of the church; toward the end of his life he devoted himself completely to the construction of one single spectacular church, La Sagrada Familia. In his youth, he courted a glamorous social life and the demeanor of a dandy. By the time of his death in a tram accident on the streets of Barcelona his clothes were so shabby passersby assumed he was a beggar. Gaudi's incomparable architecture channels much of this multifaceted intricacy. From the shimmering textures and skeletal forms of Casa Batllo to the Hispano-Arabic matrix of Casa Vicens, his work merged the influences of Orientalism, natural forms, new materials, and religious faith into a unique Modernista aesthetic. Today, his unique aesthetic enjoys global popularity and acclaim. His magnum opus, the Sagrada Familia, is the most-visited monument in Spain, and seven of his works are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Through brand-new photography, plans and drawings by Gaudi himself, historical photos, as well as an appendix detailing all his works-from buildings to furniture, decor to unfinished projects-this book presents Gaudi's universe like never before. Like a personal tour through Barcelona, we discover how the "Dante of architecture" was a builder in the truest sense of the word, crafting extraordinary constructions out of minute and mesmerizing details, and transforming fantastical visions into realities on the city streets.