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.

Religious Architecture in Latium and Etruria, c. 900-500 BC presents the first comprehensive treatment of cult buildings in western central Italy from the Iron Age to the Archaic Period. By analysing the archaeological evidence for the form of early religious buildings and their role in ancient communities, it reconstructs a detailed history of early Latial and Etruscan religious architecture that brings together the buildings and the people who used them. The first part of the study examines the processes by which religious buildings changed from huts and shrines to monumental temples, and explores apparent differences between these processes in Latium and Etruria. The second part analyses the broader architectural, religious, and topographical contexts of the first Etrusco-Italic temples alongside possible rationales for their introduction. The result is a new and extensive account of when, where, and why monumental cult buildings became features of early central Italic society.

Among the most magnificent buildings of England are its Anglican cathedrals, great symbols of spiritual and architectural power. No one can fail to marvel at Durham's incomparable Romanesque masterpiece, the elegant stylistic unity of Salisbury, the world- amous stained glass of Canterbury or the striking Gothic scissor arch at Wells. In this breathtaking new book, award-winning Magnum photographer Peter Marlow has captured the nave of each of England's 42 Anglican cathedrals. Taken in natural light at dawn, usually looking towards the east end of the building, these remarkable images bring into sharp relief the full splendour of the architecture, whatever the style. Marlow's spellbinding photographs are accompanied by his commentary on the project, including sketches and preparatory shots; an introduction by curator Martin Barnes on the tradition of church photography in England, particularly the work of Frederick Evans and Edwin Smith; and a concise summary of each cathedral interior by architectural historian John Goodall. A special collector's edition comprising a blocked, cloth-bound hardback edition of the book and a signed, hand-finished print, 30.5 x 25.4 cm (10 x 12 in.) , placed together in a handmade, blocked, cloth-bound slip case.

In the early 1250s Mongke Khan, grandson and successor of the mighty Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan, sent out his youngerbrothers Qubilai and Hulegu to consolidate his grip on power. Hulegu was welcomed into Iran while his older brother, Qubilai, continued to erode the power of the Song emperors of southern China. In 1276 he finally forced their submission and peacefully occupied their capital, Hangzhou. The city enjoyed a revival as the cultural capital of a united China and was soon filled with traders, adventurers, artists, entrepreneurs, and artisans from throughout the great Mongol Empire includinga prosperous, influential and seemingly welcome community of Persians. In 1281, one of their number, Al al-Din, built thePhoenix Mosque in the heart of the city where it still stands today. This study of the mosque and the Ju-jing Yuan cemetery,today as a lake-side public park, casts light on an important and transformative period in Chinese history, and perhaps themost important period in Chinese Islamic history. The book is published in the Persian Studies Series of the British Instituteof Persian Studies.

This first paperback facsimile of the classic 1913 edition includes thirteen photographs and numerous illustrations of the great cathedrals of Northern France. Henry Adams referred to this book as "A Study of Thirteenth-Century Unity," and its expansive scope, together with the author's deep understanding of the period, makes it a classic in art history as well as in American literature. He wrote, "I wanted to show the intensity of the vital energy of a given time, and of course that intensity had to be stated in its two highest terms-religion and art."

Henry Adams' record of his journeys through France, searching for images of unity in an age of conflict, is accompanied by observations on literature, politics, religion, and maior church leaders such as Abelard, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

A guide to over 60 of Britain's most notable abbeys and monasteries. Taking you on a journey that has inspired pilgrims and visitors for centuries, Abbeys and Priories of Britain is the perfect introduction to some of the country's oldest and most beautiful religious centres. The guide will take you from the wilds of the Isle of Iona in Scotland and Iona Abbey to Tintern Abbey in the beautiful Wye Valley in Wales, to the pomp and circumstance of Westminster Abbey, shining regally in England's capital. While many of the entries are now ruins due to Henry VIII's 'Dissolution of the Monasteries' period, a visit still reveals the rich influence and legacy they have had on Britain's history. Beautifully illustrated with over 130 stunning colour images, and with concise and accessible history for each entry, this is both a perfect guide and a much-cherished souvenir of a visit. Includes extended entries on Binham Priory, Blanchland Abbey, Buckfast Abbey, Dryburgh, Fountains Abbey, Glastonbury Abbey, Hexham Abbey, Holyrood Abbey, Jedburgh Abbey, Lindisfarne Priory, Melrose Abbey, Mountgrace Priory, Rievaulx Abbey, Selby Abbey, Strata Florida Abbey, Tewkesbury Abbey, Tintern Abbey, Westminster Abbey, Whitby Abbey and St George's Windsor.

Between the ninth and fourteenth century, hundreds of architecturally exquisite Byzantine churches, many of them adorned with beautiful frescoes, were built in the area now known as the Republic of Macedonia. The condition of these buildings has been of ongoing concern because of deterioration and destruction from forces both human and natural, including devastating earthquakes.
This book summarizes the results of a four-year study to develop and test seismic retrofitting techniques for the repair and strengthening of those ancient Byzantine churches still in existence. The volume considers the conservation of historic buildings in seismic zones; surveys the condition of fifty existing Byzantine churches in Macedonia; and details the design, construction, and seismic testing of a half-scale model church. The volume also includes representative experimental and technical data.

In describing the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, Johan Huizinga said, "Paintings could be found everywhere . . . everywhere except in churches." Although pictures were ubiquitous in the Dutch world, the official religion expressed a fundamental distrust of visual imagery. Indeed, Calvinism and visual culture were both central modes of self-understanding in Dutch society. Investigating this paradox, The Wake of Iconoclasm takes as its main subject the numerous paintings of austere Calvinist church interiors that proliferated in the seventeenth century. Painstakingly crafted and highly naturalistic images of interiors, these peculiar paintings show spaces that were purged of visual imagery during and after the iconoclast riots of the sixteenth century. In essence, they depict the interface of the histories of art and religion. Angela Vanhaelen argues that the main function of this imagery was to stimulate debate about the transformed role of art in relation to the religious and political upheavals of the Reformation and the Dutch Revolt. Paintings of the emptied churches allowed their beholders to grapple with the significant public influence of Calvinism--especially its suppression of past cultural traditions and the new conditions of possibility it created for the visual arts.

Germany is currently experiencing an intense debate about the reconstruction of synagogues that were destroyed under Nazi rule in the 1930s, and the related search for an appropriate architectural expression of Jewish life and culture in the country’s major cities today. This book, which results from a collaboration between the Technical Universities of Darmstadt and Dresden, Hamburg’s HafenCity University, and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, vividly contributes to this discussion. The Synagogue Project features designs for new synagogues replacing the lost buildings on Berlin’s Fraenkelufer and on Joseph-Carlebach-Platz and Poolstrasse in Hamburg by students at the participating universities. They illustrate the search for a structural expression that can provide space for Jewish life and worship in the future. In conversation, members of Jewish communities and Franz-Josef Höing, representing the City of Hamburg’s department of urban development and housing, explain their views on the past and future of synagogues in Hamburg and Berlin. Mirjam Wenzel, director of the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt, Salomon Korn, former vice-president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, Rabbi Edward van Voolen, and Swiss architect Roger Diener also contribute to the discussion on the history and significance of spaces for Jewish life, culture, and religion in German cities. Text in English and German.

Following on from 100 Buildings 100 Years and 100 Houses 100 Years, this book illustrates and describes 100 churches and chapels built in the UK since 1914, charting the development of buildings for worship. In this period concrete and steel gave a new freedom to construction, while new ideas about how congregations could participate in services changed assumptions about traditional layouts, bringing celebrants and people closer together. The century saw dynamic churches in dramatic shapes of all sizes thanks to ambitious engineering, and brilliant colour from new forms of stained glass, murals and sculpture. Architects whose work is included here range from Basil Spence and Edward Maufe, designers of major cathedrals, to the radical Gillespie, Kidd and Coia whose brutalist seminary lies abandoned near Dumbarton. The book provides biographies of major designers; articles on glass, fittings, and on the synagogues, mosques and temples that play an intrinsic and important part in worship in Britain today. Contributors include architectural historians Elain Harwood, Alan Powers and Clare Price. Beautiful photography throughout showcases the very best of British church design, whether it is the minimal symmetry of a timber-framed altar, or light streaming in through a multi-coloured stained glass panel.

Glasgow has long been an important settlement on the River Clyde but it grew rapidly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become one of the largest cities in the world in that period. The largest seaport in Scotland, it was a major city in the Scottish enlightenment and the transatlantic trade brought wealth to the city. At the same time Glasgow was becoming an important industrial city, particularly in shipbuilding, engineering, chemicals and textiles, bringing in large numbers of people. Although many were relocated outside the city in the latter decades of the twentieth century, Glasgow's dynamic history is reflected in its diverse architecture and the heritage of its church buildings. In this book author Gordon Adams surveys the historic churches of Glasgow, outlining their story through the ages and picking out interesting features of each. The churches range from the elegant eighteenth-century St Vincent Street Church, to the intimate Govan Old Parish Church with its unsurpassed collection of medieval monument stones, the unique Queen's Cross, the only church built by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and many more gems. This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of Glasgow over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this fascinating city in Scotland.

A riveting exploration of how the Fatimid dynasty carefully orchestrated an architectural program that proclaimed their legitimacy This groundbreaking study investigates the early architecture of the Fatimids, an Ismaili Shi'i Muslim dynasty that dominated the Mediterranean world from the 10th to the 12th century. This period, considered a golden age of multicultural and interfaith tolerance, witnessed the construction of iconic structures, including Cairo's al-Azhar and al-Hakim mosques and crucial renovations to Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock and Aqsa Mosque. However, it also featured large-scale destruction of churches under the notorious reign of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, most notably the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Jennifer A. Pruitt offers a new interpretation of these and other key moments in the history of Islamic architecture, using newly available medieval primary sources by Ismaili writers and rarely considered Arabic Christian sources. Building the Caliphate contextualizes early Fatimid architecture within the wider Mediterranean and Islamic world and demonstrates how rulers manipulated architectural form and urban topographies to express political legitimacy on a global stage.

The Pantheon in Rome is one of the grand architectural statements of all ages. This richly illustrated book isolates the reasons for its extraordinary impact on Western architecture, discussing the Pantheon as a building in its time but also as a building for all time.

Mr. MacDonald traces the history of the structure since its completion and examines its progeny--domed rotundas with temple-fronted porches built from the second century to the twentieth--relating them to the original. He analyzes the Pantheon's design and the details of its technology and construction, and explores the meaning of the building on the basis of ancient texts, formal symbolism, and architectural analogy. He sees the immense unobstructed interior, with its disk of light that marks the sun's passage through the day, as an architectural metaphor for the ecumenical pretensions of the Roman Empire.

Past discussions of the Pantheon have tended to center on design and structure. These are but the starting point for Mr. MacDonald, who goes on to show why it ranks--along with Cheops's pyramid, the Parthenon, Wren's churches, Mansard's palaces-as an architectural archetype.

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.

The Unitarian religious tradition was a product of the same eighteenth-century democratic ideals that fueled the American Revolution and informed the founding of the United States. Its liberal humanistic principles influenced institutions such as Harvard University and philosophical movements like Transcendentalism. Yet, its role in the history of American architecture is little known and studied. In American Unitarian Churches, Ann Marie Borys argues that the progressive values and identity of the Unitarian religion are intimately intertwined with ideals of American democracy and visibly expressed in the architecture of its churches. Over time, church architecture has continued to evolve in response to developments within the faith, and many contemporary projects are built to serve religious, practical, and civic functions simultaneously. Focusing primarily on churches of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple and Louis Kahn's First Unitarian Church, Borys explores building histories, biographies of leaders, and broader sociohistorical contexts. As this essential study makes clear, to examine Unitarianism through its churches is to see American architecture anew, and to find an authentic architectural expression of American democratic identity.

Winner of the 2006 Shimada Prize from the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., and the Metropolitan Center for Far Eastern Art Studies, Kyoto, Japan Winner of the 2006 John Whitney Hall Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies Chikubushima, a sacred island north of the ancient capital of Kyoto, attracted the attention of Japan's rulers in the Momoyama period (1568-1615) and became a repository of their art, including a lavishly decorated building dedicated to the worship of Benzaiten. In this meticulous and lucid study, Andrew Watsky keenly illustrates how private belief and political ambition influenced artistic production at the intersection of institutional Buddhism and Shinto during this tumultuous period of rapid and radical political, social, and aesthetic changes. He offers substantial conclusions not only about this specific site, but also, more broadly, about the nature of art production in Japan and how perceptions of the sacred shaped the concerns and actions of the secular rulers. The patrons of the island included the dominant political figures of the time: the late sixteenth-century ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598) who supported numerous projects at the apogee of his power and his heir Hideyori (1593-1615), as well as their rival and eventual successor to national hegemony, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616). After Hideyoshi's death, the Toyotomi clan struggled to retain their power and sought new opportunities to position themselves as chief conduits of divine protection and beneficence for the realm. They enacted and signified this role by zealous, indefatigable sponsorship of sacred architecture and its ornament, icons, and rituals. In the early seventeenth century, the Toyotomi clan sponsored a major refurbishing of the Benzaiten Hall on Chikubushima, transporting a highly ornamented structure from Kyoto to be installed as its core. Enveloped in polychrome paintings by the Kano workshop (the leading painting studio of the period), black-and-gold lacquer, gilt metalwork, and pictorial relief wood carvings, this core is the most complete ensemble of ornament and architecture surviving from the Momoyama period. Watsky has had unique access to the island, and many of the images included here have not previously been published.

Jeanne Halgren Kilde's survey of church architecture is unlike any other. Her main concern is not the buildings themselves, but rather the dynamic character of Christianity and how church buildings shape and influence the religion. Kilde argues that a primary function of church buildings is to represent and reify three different types of power: divine power, or ideas about God; personal empowerment as manifested in the individual's perceived relationship to the divine; and social power, meaning the relationships between groups such as clergy and laity. Each type intersects with notions of Christian creed, cult, and code, and is represented spatially and materially in church buildings.
Kilde explores these categories chronologically, from the early church to the twentieth century. She considers the form, organization, and use of worship rooms; the location of churches; and the interaction between churches and the wider culture.
Church buildings have been integral to Christianity, and Kilde's important study sheds new light on the way they impact all aspects of the religion. Neither mere witnesses to transformations of religious thought or nor simple backgrounds for religious practice, church buildings are, in Kilde's view, dynamic participants in religious change and goldmines of information on Christianity itself.

What buried secret lies beneath the stones of one of England's greatest former churches and shrines, the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St Edmunds? The search for the final resting place of King Edmund has led to this site, beneath which Francis Young argues the lost king's remains are waiting to be found. Edmund: In Search of England's Lost King explores the history of the martyred monarch of East Anglia and England's first patron saint, showing how he became a pivotal figure around whom Saxons, Danes and Normans all rallied. Young also examines Edmund's legacy in the centuries since his death at the hands of marauding Vikings in the 9th century. In doing so, this fascinating book points to the imminent rediscovery of the ruler who created England.

The church of San Marco of Venice has long played a central role in Venetian political, ceremonial, and religious life. Its renowned assemblage of mosaics, sculpture, metalwork, and reliquaries are, in origin, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian, or Venetian imitation of Byzantine designs. In San Marco, Byzantium, and the myths of Venice, the authors assess the significance of the embellishment of the church and its immediate surroundings, especially during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when most of the Byzantine material was acquired, largely from Constantinople.

The fortified religious buildings of Christendom, Islam and Tibetan Buddhism, described by an acknowledged expert who also includes his own photographs and detailed plans. Throughout history, great faiths have been subjected to persecution and attack from beyond the wall - literally walls, in Peter Harrison's remarkable book of the great monastery-fortresses, and church-fortresses, of the world. The fortified religious buildings of Christendom, Islam and Tibetan Buddhism are some of the most dramatic buildings of the middle ages. Though they shared a common purpose in defending the living faith from the armies of the unbeliever, they are astonishingly different from each other. Peter Harrison has spent a lifetime in scholarly pursuit of fortified religious buildings dating from a thousand years ago and more, in the Old and New Worlds, the Orient, and the Occident, ranging through New Mexico, North Africa and Tibet, though the majority are to be found in Europe. The wild, often hostile, terrain in which these fortresses were built speaks of a militant faith, and Peter Harrison's purpose is to show how and why religious establishments incorporated military architecture. He considers this unstudied subject from a uniquely wide point of view, historical, military, and architectural. Every formof religious building that received fortifications is illustrated, from the humble parish churches of the Anglo-Scottish Borders to the Potala Palace of the Dalai Lama and the Vatican. Particular features of this book are the author's photographs, taken in some of the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the world, and his own very detailed plans and illustrations of many of the buildings described. SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONGMAN-HISTORY TODAY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2005 AWARD. Dr PETER HARRISON is Research Associate, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.

Cambridgeshire is a large and diverse county, and this is reflected in its churches. In the south, chalk provided flints for even the grandest of churches. The Fens in the north and east had no building materials of their own, so limestone was transported from further north and may best be seen in those churches that were owned or established by monastic houses. In the former county of Huntingdonshire limestone dominates, and bricks made from the local clays make an early appearance. In this book author John E. Vigar presents a selection of the most interesting churches from across the county, including the former counties of the Isle of Ely, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough, covering every period and type of church, from simple Saxo-Norman churches such as Hauxton, to late medieval churches where money was plentiful such as Whittlesey. Former monastic houses are represented by March and Ramsey, a rare seventeenth-century church at Guyhirn and one of the most important nineteenth-century churches in England at Cambridge All Saints, as well as many other ecclesiastical gems in the county. This fascinating picture of an important part of the history of Cambridgeshire over the centuries will be of interest to all those who live in or are visiting this attractive county in England.

Oxfordshire, once part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, has always been a wealthy county. Its landscapes vary from the chalk and beechwood Chiltern Hills in the south to the limestone uplands of the Cotswolds in the north-west, which give very fine building stone. The land supports arable and sheep farming, and is watered by the River Thames and its many tributaries. All this is reflected in the variety of its church buildings, architecture that is not necessarily grand but is exceptionally beautiful and atmospheric. This book looks at a small, representative selection of buildings and their contents, some proudly in towns, others settled into their rural landscapes. Since church buildings were almost always modified over the centuries, any that date from the Middle Ages are apt to contain features from several periods. Some have been chosen because they still show their Anglo-Saxon origins. Some are here for their surviving wall paintings, some for remarkable tombs. Work of exceptional Gothic Revival architects is included, as are one or two twentieth-century buildings. Nonconformists are represented by the eighteenth-century Baptist Chapel at Cote and the contemporary Quaker Meeting House at Burford. Illustrated throughout, Churches of Oxfordshire will be of interest to local historians, residents and visitors to the county.

The Pantheon is one of the most important architectural monuments of all time. Thought to have been built by Emperor Hadrian in approximately 125 AD on the site of an earlier, Agrippan-era monument, it brilliantly displays the spatial pyrotechnics emblematic of Roman architecture and engineering. The Pantheon gives an up-to-date account of recent research on the best preserved building in the corpus of ancient Roman architecture from the time of its construction to the twenty-first century. Each chapter addresses a specific fundamental issue or period pertaining to the building; together, the essays in this volume shed light on all aspects of the Pantheon's creation, and establish the importance of the history of the building to an understanding of its ancient fabric and heritage, its present state, and its special role in the survival and evolution of ancient architecture in modern Rome.

In this book, a distinguished team of authors explores the way space, place, architecture, and ritual interact to construct sacred experience in the historical cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Essays address fundamental issues and features that enable buildings to perform as spiritually transformative spaces in ancient Greek, Roman, Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine civilizations. Collectively they demonstrate the multiple ways in which works of architecture and their settings were active agents in the ritual process. Architecture did not merely host events; rather, it magnified and elevated them, interacting with rituals facilitating the construction of ceremony. This book examines comparatively the ways in which ideas and situations generated by the interaction of place, built environment, ritual action, and memory contributed to the cultural formulation of the sacred experience in different religious faiths.