Durham Cathedral was completed nearly 900 years ago, after 40 years of construction. Inevitably it has suffered from the effects of time: physical erosion, from the weather and increasing pollution on stone that was never of the best quality, and cultural erosion, the impact of secular and religious changes - not least the depredations of clerics, improvers, and administrators. Nevertheless, it remains: the stones speak and provide the story of themselves. Building Durham Cathedral explores this magnificent structure by questioning its architectural plans and stonework. As there have been minimal additions we catch sight of it as the Norman builders intended. Remarkably, a few early documents and the stonework itself allow us to glimpse its beginnings and some of the personalities involved. Questions remain, but there may even be a clue to the identity of its original master mason.

A city planner, an architect and a historian trace the urban development of this outstanding city and analyse its architecture in urban and historical contexts from its origins in the pre Islamic period to the situation today. The authors did extensive fieldwork in Bukhara and have published a number of books and many articles on Near Eastern and Persian architecture and urbanism.

This unique exploration of a lost religious and cultural artifact breathes new life into a forgotten but fascinating aspect of eighteenth-century Polish Jewry. Thomas C. Hubka, an architectural historian, immersed himself in medieval and early modern Jewish history, religion, and culture to prepare for this remarkable study of the eighteenth-century Polish synagogue in the town of Gwozdziec, now in present-day Ukraine. Because the Gwozdziec Synagogue, like so many others, was destroyed by the Nazis, this book revives a spiritual community lost to history. Hubka selected the Gwozdziec Synagogue because of the completeness of its photographic and historical records. Graced with nearly two hundred historical photographs, architectural drawings, maps, diagrams, and color illustrations, Resplendent Synagogue vividly recreates the spiritual heart of a once-vibrant Jewish population. Hubka demonstrates that while the architectural exterior of the synagogue was largely the product of non-Jewish, regional influences, the interior design and elaborate wall-paintings signified a distinctly Jewish art form. The collaboration of Jewish and Gentile builders, craftsmen, and artists in the creation of this magnificent wooden structure attests to an eighteenth-century period of relative prosperity and communal well-being for the Jews of Gwozdziec. Part of a tradition that was later abandoned by Eastern European Jewish communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this truly resplendent synagogue exemplified a high point in Jewish architectural art and religious painting.

This lavishly illustrated volume presents a comprehensive architectural study of 87 individual temples and sanctuaries built in the Roman East between the end of the 1st century BCE and the end of the 3rd century CE, within a broad region encompassing the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. Religious architecture gave faithful expression to the complexity of the Roman East and to its multiplicity of traditions pertaining to ethnic and religious aspects as well as to the powerful influence of Imperial Rome. The source of this power lay in the uniformity of the architectural language, the inventory of forms, the choice of styles and the spatial layout of the buildings. Thus, while temples have an eclectic character, there is an underlying unity of form comprising the podium, the stairway between the terminating walls (antae) and the columns along the entrance front - in other words, the axiality, frontality and symmetry of the temple as viewed from outside. The temples and sanctuaries studied in this volume demonstrate individual nuances of plan, spatial design, location in the sanctuary and interrelations with the immediate vicinity but can be divided into two main categories: Vitruvian temples (derived from Hellenistic-Roman architecture) and Non-Vitruvian temples (those with plans and spatial designs that cannot be analysed according to architectural criteria such as those defined by Vitruvius). The individual descriptions presented focus solely upon the analysis of the external and internal space of the temples of all types and do not involve any cultural or ethnic discussion.

An enduring monument of haunting beauty, the Taj Mahal seems a symbol of stability itself. The familiar view of the glowing marble mausoleum from the gateway entrance offers the very picture of permanence. And yet this extraordinary edifice presents a shifting image to observers across time and cultures. The meaning of the Taj Mahal, the perceptions and responses it prompts, ideas about the building and the history that shape them: these form the subject of Giles Tillotson's book. More than a richly illustrated history-though it is that as well-this book is an eloquent meditation on the place of the Taj Mahal in the cultural imagination of India and the wider world. Since its completion in 1648, the mausoleum commissioned by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, has come to symbolize many things: the undying love of a man for his wife, the perfection of Mughal architecture, the ideal synthesis of various strands of subcontinental aesthetics, even an icon of modern India itself. Exploring different perspectives brought to the magnificent structure-by a Mughal court poet, an English Romantic traveler, a colonial administrator, an architectural historian, or a contemporary Bollywood filmmaker-this book is an incomparable guide through the varied and changing ideas inspired by the Taj Mahal, from its construction to our day. In Tillotson's expert hands, the story of a seventeenth-century structure in the city of Agra reveals itself as a story about our own place and time.

Multifaith spaces reflect the diversity of the modern world and enable a connection between individuals from different religious backgrounds. These spaces also highlight the complex and sensitive areas of political and social debates regarding the emergence of densely urbanised populations. They hold the potential to encourage connection and dialogue between members of different communities, promoting empathy, community and shared activity for the betterment of society. This book explores the history, development, design and practicalities of multifaith spaces from the early shared religious buildings that had to cater for two or more faiths, to the shared multifaith spaces of modern secular locations such as universities, airports and hospitals. Terry Biddington looks at the architectural, theological, social, legal and practical complexities that arise from the development and use of such spaces. The book also draws together research to enable further development of multifaith spaces.

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.

St Mark's Church in Bjoerkhagen, one of Stockholm's southern districts, is one of Sigurd Lewerentz's (1885-1975) key designs. But unlike Lewerentz's other famous church, St Peter's in Klippan, no book has been published to date that constitutes a fitting tribute to this masterpiece of brick brutalism. This opulent new building monograph now fills this gap. Some 300 new colour photographs and especially drawn explanatory plans, alongside essays by distinguished authorities on Lewerentz's architecture, turn this book into a visual feast. It demonstrates the exquisitely atmospheric St Mark's Church both as a standalone object and in the context of its surrounding urban landscape. Moreover, it picks out many details, such as the floor coverings, furnishings, lamps, banisters, the altar, and other liturgical features. The essays explore aspects of materiality and topics such as the church's special acoustics and atmosphere in an attempt to reveal the secret of Sigurd Lewerentz's church designs.

Text in English and German. The church rises to the challenge of providing a spiritual centre for Donau City, the new residential and commercial centre on the opposite bank of the Danube -- not as an act of coronation for the city in the sense of Taut's urban crown, as a temple or cathedral, but as miniature, as a demonstration of the power of the quiet as opposed to the loud, as an 'oasis in the diaspora', to use Karl Rahner's formulation about the parishes of the future. The building gives an impression of starkness: a hard cube, cut off at the corners, clad with sheets of black chromium steel. But it is only stark at first glance. A second glance shows that the hardness is a friendly hardness: because of the reflections that the material admits; because of the grid of the large-format sheets, to which the brightly gleaming drill-holes that cover the walls like fine gossamer respond; because of circular apertures that allow light to shine outwards after dark; because of large, rectangular windows in the receding corners that create a contrast with the closed quality of the building. Inside the starkness gives way altogether: a light space, which one comes into through an art-fully designed entrance. Originally a sparse covering for the space, which thrives mainly because of the light material -- birch wood -, because of the arrangement of the pews, which is as lively as it is peaceful -- segments of circles of different sizes, surrounding the dark syenite altar block in the form of an open circle -- and especially because of the wide range of circular light sources that render the introverted interior transparent, the large windows that create islands of light, the free-form aperture in the ceiling, which sends light gliding down on to the altar. Heinz Tesar's church continues a tradition of forward-looking modern church building, from Rudolf Schwarz's Fronleichnamskirche in Aachen via Egon Eiermann's Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche in Berlin, Franz Fueg's Piuskirche in Meggen on Lake Lucerne to the new Herz-Jesu-Kirche in Munich by Allmann, Sattler and Wappner; and alongside all this there is also the tradition of a genuinely Viennese development of this theme, from Otto Wagner's Kirche am Steinhof to Ottokar Uhl's parish church Katharina von Siena.

Building the Italian Renaissance focuses on the competition to select a team to execute the final architectural challenge of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore--the erection of its dome. Although the model for the dome was widely known, the question of how this was to be accomplished was the great challenge of the age. This dome would be the largest ever built. This is foremost a technical challenge but it is also a philosophical one. The project takes place at an important time for Florence. The city is transitioning from a High Medieval world view into the new dynamics and ideas and will lead to the full flowering of what we know as the Renaissance. Thus the competition at the heart of this game plays out against the background of new ideas about citizenship, aesthetics, history (and its application to the present), and new technology. The central challenge is to expose players to complex and multifaceted situations and to individuals that animated life in Florence in the early 1400s. Humanism as a guiding philosophy is taking root and scholars are looking for ways to link the mercantile city to the glories of Rome and to the wisdom of the ancients across many fields. The aesthetics of the classical world (buildings, plastic arts and intellectual pursuits) inspired wonder, perhaps even envy, but the new approaches to the past by scholars such as Petrarch suggested that perhaps the creative classes are not simply crafts people, but men of ideas. Three teams compete for the honor to construct the dome, a project overseen by the Arte Della Lana (wool workers guild) and judged by them and a group of Florentine citizens who are merchants, aristocrats, learned men, and laborers. Their goal is to make the case for the building to live up to the ideals of Florence. The game gives students a chance to enter into the world of Florence in the early 1400s to develop an understanding of the challenges and complexity of such a major artistic and technical undertaking while providing an opportunity to grasp the interdisciplinary nature of major public works.

92-year-old Justo Gallego isn't an architect or a builder, nor has he received any training in construction at all. He couldn't even complete his basic education due to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, more than 40 years ago he decided to build a work he could offer to God and to this task he has since devoted his life. Bit by bit, almost on his own and using mainly recycled materials, he has erected a monumental cathedral in a field in Mejorada del Campo, Madrid. There are no blueprints or drawings or any official project. Everything is inside his head. He says he has taken his inspiration from books on cathedrals and castles, but, above all, from the Gospel. He also says he will continue working in it for as long as he lives.

Each year in the United States, hundreds of religious buildings and schools become vacant or underutilized as congregations and populations merge, move, or diminish. These structures are often well located, attractive, eligible for tax credits, and available for redevelopment. In this practical and innovative handbook, authors Simons, DeWine, and Ledebur have compiled a step-by-step guide to finding sustainable new uses for vacant structures. The reuse of these important buildings offers those charged with revitalizing them an opportunity to capture their embodied energy, preserve local beloved landmarks, and boost sustainability. Rehabbing presents an opportunity for developers to recoup some value from these assets. Neighbors and other stakeholders also enjoy benefits as the historic structures are retained and the urban fabric of communities is preserved. Retired, Rehabbed, Reborn features ten in-depth case studies of adaptive reuse outcomes for religious buildings and public schools that have achieved varying degrees of success. Several case vignettes appear within various chapters to illustrate specific points. The book is a useful tool for architects, planners, developers, and others interested in reusing these important structures. In addition to covering the demographics of demand and supply for historic buildings, the authors demonstrate how to identify a worthy project and how to determine a building's highest and best use, its market potential, and its financial feasibility, including costs and public subsidies. Finally, they address the planning process and how to time the redevelopment and repurposing of these venerable buildings. Simons, DeWine, and Ledebur explain that while each rehab deal is unique and tricky-especially for prominent community structures that hold significant nostalgic and historical value to community stakeholders-there are identifiable patterns of successful and unsuccessful approaches, patterns that are addressed in turn throughout the redevelopment process. As the nation moves toward a mind-set and practice of recycling, reusing, and repurposing, this unique exploration of how that applies to buildings is an essential guide for anyone interested in being part of the process as communities develop and change.

Modernity and religion are not mutually exclusive. Setting German and Irish church, synagogue and mosque architecture side by side over the last century highlights the place for the celebration of the new within faiths whose appeal lies in part in the stability of belief they offer across time. Inspired by radically modern German churches of the 1920s and 1930s, this volume offers new insights into designers of all three types of sacred buildings, working at home and abroad. It offers new scholarship on the unknown phenomenon of mid-century ecclesiastical architecture in sub-Saharan Africa by Irish designers; a critical appraisal of the overlooked Frank Lloyd Wright-trained Andrew Devane and an analysis of accommodating difficult pasts and challenging futures with contemporary synagogue and mosque architecture in Germany. With a focus on influence and processes, alongside conservationists and historians, it features critical insights by the designers of some of the most celebrated contemporary sacred buildings, including Niall McLaughlin who writes on his multiple award-winning Bishop Edward King Chapel and Amandus Sattler, architect of the innovative Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Munich.

Through well-researched text, as well as drawings and color photography, this book captures the magnificence of European cathedrals and the brilliance of the Master Builders and craftsmen who designed and built them. Cathedral building is a fusion of man's greatest accomplishments in the arts, sciences, and humanities over the centuries. More than 250 photos and drawings capture the quality and craftsmanship built into these stunning structures created to replicate God's house or heaven on Earth. Color photos illustrate the gorgeous naves, detailed fan vaulted ceilings, beautiful stained-glass windows, flying buttresses, and 650-year-old parchment drawings of the cathedrals. Discover the origin of Gothic architecture, see how Gothic cathedrals were built using primitive tools, and learn about the development of Freemasonry and its direct descent from the stonemasons of the Middle Ages. Enjoy 30 cathedral tours and acquire a few Masonic secrets of the stonemasons.

Binsey is a village to the west of Oxford, on the south bank of the main channel of the River Thames, opposite Port Meadow, which has been an open space belonging to the burgesses of Oxford since late Saxon times. Although now within the ring-road, the village is essentially rural and unspoilt. The hub of Binsey is a row of cottages and the Perch Inn on one side of the village green. At one time when the river was wider there was a ferry here taking travelers across to Oxford. The church, its present building no earlier than the 12th century though on an older site, lies a third of a mile distant. Its association with Oxford's patron saint St Frideswide alone makes this an evocative place for anyone with an interest in the origins of this great University city. Its holy well, dedicated to St Margaret like the church itself, was a place of resort for those with eye problems or desirous of a child: Katharine of Aragon's lack of success in conceiving a male heir after resort to the well in a sense precipitated the English Reformation! Later associations, which include Charles Dodgson and Alice Liddell as well as Gerard Manley Hopkins and C. S. Lewis, render Binsey a place for the literary as well as the religious pilgrim. This book is a collection of essays on aspects of Binsey and its environs. It is not a guidebook so much as an evocation of the place, dwelling on specific aspects from the busy river to the tranquil and silent churchyard; from the poplars, great-grandparents of the present trees along the river and Hopkins' great poem on them, to the personalities who served the village community; from the Binsey of St Frideswide's time to the community of the present day.

Northumberland was one of the greatest influences on the development of Christianity in Europe. Stan Beckensall guides the reader in words and full-colour pictures through the history of Northumberland's old churches, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Reformation. The architecture of these beautiful buildings provides a unique insight into the history of the county. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the production of the Lindisfarne Gospels on Holy Island and those of the Venerable Bede in nearby Jarrow. This 'golden age' also produced exceptionally fine church buildings and their contents, many of which were later to be laid waste by Vikings. This book traces the achievements of that age through remaining structures such as the incredible crypt at Hexham, the tall, slender towers that are still part of many churches, and other features. The Norman period is also well represented, followed by the Transitional period when the pointed arch began to replace the rounded one, until it replaced it fully. Northumberland's development was then largely determined by its position as border country, which seriously affected church construction, the emphasis being more on defence in castles and fortified towers. Such period trends were confined to slight changes in existing churches, and there were few later developments except in Alnwick, protected by the defences of that town. In addition, Beckensall looks at the origins of the names of towns and villages that had churches, and comments on their location, with the help of stunning aerial photography.

A small church nestling deep in the countryside is instantly evocative. Why is it there at all? Whom does it serve? This companion volume to the author's successful titles on the smallest churches of Wales and England is a county-by-county guide to the smallest gems of Scottish ecclesiastical architecture. John Kinross provides the reader with descriptions of over 50 of the country's loveliest and most interesting churches and chapels, many of which have a fascinating history and their own unique features. These buildings deserve our attention and further study, and the book offers maps and directions on how to find these churches for those inspired to seek them out.

A historian of medieval art and architecture with a rich appreciation of literary studies, Stephen Murray brings all those fields to bear in presenting a new way of understanding the great Gothic churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: as rhetorical constructs.
"Plotting Gothic" begins by positioning the rhetoric of the Gothic as a series of plots, or stories intended for visitors, then extends that concept to the relationship between a building, its audience, and the many interlocutors involved in that relationship, such as builders, scholars, tour guides, and resident clergy. What were the rhetorical commonplaces that such interlocutors used to interpret the Gothic when it was new? Drawing on building records and personal recollections of architects and churchmen, Murray traces common analogies between rhetoric and architectural space that date back to late antiquity, then shows how those links were translated into wood, stone, and space under specific local conditions. The resulting book offers an invigorating new way to understand some of the most lasting achievements of the medieval era.

The Romanesque churches to be found in every corner of France are one of the wonders of Europe. They were built between about 1000 and 1200 and were contemporary with English Norman architecture. Their architectural style varies from region to region, as do their size, shape and layout. The period saw the first revival of the art of sculpture since Roman times, and many of the churches such as Moissac, Autun, Vezelay and Chauvigny contain outstanding sculpture. Some, like St-Savin-sur-Gartempe and Tavant, have superb frescoes, and a few like Ganagobie have fine mosaics. It was the age of pilgrimages and a number of the churches were built along the four great pilgrim routes through France to Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. Many have links to Romanesque churches in Italy, England and Germany, since Romanesque was a style that was admired throughout Europe. "Romanesque Churches of France", which covers a hundred or so churches in ten geographical sections from Normandy and Burgundy in the north to Provence, Roussillon and Languedoc in the south, is the first comprehensive book to be published on the subject. This book is an ideal companion for travellers, with its many maps and its regional arrangement, and will be a stimulus for the exploration of remote and beautiful areas that are less familiar, such as Auvergne and the Pyrenees. It will also be invaluable as a reference book for all those with a general interest in the history of French architecture and sculpture.

Six remarkable churches built by Nicholas Hawksmoor from 1712 to 1731 still stand in London. In this book, architectural historian Pierre de la Ruffiniere du Prey examines these designs as a coherent whole--a single masterpiece reflecting both Hawksmoor's design principles and his desire to reconnect, architecturally, with the "purest days of Christianity."