Lecture 6 : Theories of Design Thinking

How have we changed in designing to please God? Compare current religious buildings to past builldings.

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A place of worship is a specially designed structure or consecrated space where individuals or a group of people such as a congregation come to perform acts of devotion, veneration, or religious study. A building constructed or used for this purpose is sometimes called a house of worship. Temples, churches, and mosques are examples of structures created for worship. A monastery, particularly for Buddhists, may serve both to house those belonging to religious orders and as a place of worship for visitors.

Sacred architecture, which also known as religious architecture is a religious architectural practice concerned with the design and construction of places of worship or sacred or intentional space, such as churches, mosques, stupas, synagogues, and temples. Many cultures devoted considerable resources to their sacred architecture and places of worship. Religious and sacred spaces are amongst the most impressive and permanent monolithic buildings created by humanity. Conversely, sacred architecture as a locale for meta-intimacy may also be non-monolithic, ephemeral and intensely private, personal and non-public.

Sacred, religious and holy structures often evolved over centuries and were the largest buildings in the world, prior to the modern skyscraper. While the various styles employed in sacred architecture sometimes reflected trends in other structures, these styles also remained unique from the contemporary architecture used in other structures.

Sacred architecture spans a number of ancient architectural styles including Neolithic architecture, ancient Egyptian architecture and Sumerian architecture. Ancient religious buildings, particularly temples, were often viewed as the dwelling place, the temenos, of the gods and were used as the site of various kinds of sacrifice. Ancient tombs and burial structures are also examples of architectural structures reflecting religious beliefs of their various societies. The Temple of Karnak at Thebes, Egypt was constructed across a period of 1300 years and its numerous temples comprise what may be the largest religious structure ever built. Ancient Egyptian religious architecture has fascinated archaeologists and captured the public imagination for millennia.

Ancient Religious Architecture :

Prambanan Temple, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Wat Phra Sri Sanphet Thailand

Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood, St. Petersburg, Russia

Byodo-In Temple, Valley of the Temples Memorial Park, O'ahu, Hawaii

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavik, Iceland

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

Wat Asokaram, Samut Prakan, Thailand

Puthia Temple Complex, Puthia Upazila, Bangladesh

Those ancient religious architecture have indicate their style and culture from it own design, such as shapes, colours, materials, construction technique and so on. There is a very clear distiction for people to distinguish what style of the religious architecture is. Thus, people will know about the faith and religion of it. For example, Church is a building that Christians go to in order to worship. Traditional churches usually contain an altar and long wooden seats facing the altar called pews. The place where the priest or minister stands to talk to the people is called a pulpit. A religious ceremony that takes place in a church is called a service. Mosque is a building in which Muslims worship, whereas Pagoda is a Buddhist religious building with several levels, each of which has a roof that sticks out.

However, nowadays religious architecture have became different compare to the past. It become more modernism and futurism.

Modernism Religious Architecture :

Ribbon Chapel, Japan

The Ribbon Chapel is one of the first religious buildings that has used staircases as the base of a free standing structure. Perhaps, it’s even the first of its kind in any architectural form. While the twisting design is quite spectacular, the chapel offers more surprises. When the sun sits on its throne the light pours into the chapel, which turns into the color of orange.

Church of the light, Osaka Japan

This building is one of the most famous designs of Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Construction and Structure The Church of the Light is a small structure on the corner of two streets at Ibaraki, a residential neighborhood. The church was planned as an add-on to the wooden chapel and minister's house that already existed at the site. Tadao Ando often uses Zen philosophies when conceptualizing his structures. One theme he expresses in this work is the dual nature of existence. The space of the chapel is defined by light, the strong contrast between light and solid. In the chapel light enters from behind the altar from a cross cut in the concrete wall that extends vertically from floor to ceiling and horizontally from wall to wall, aligning perfectly with the joints in the concrete. At this intersection of light and solid the occupant is meant to become aware of the deep division between the spiritual and the secular within himself or herself. One feature of the interior is its profound emptiness. For Ando the idea of 'emptiness' means something different. It is meant to transfer someone into the realm of the spiritual. The emptiness is meant to invade the occupant so there is room for the 'spiritual' to fill them.

Mobius Strip Buddhist Temple

The architect, Miliy Design, generated the form from studies of Mobius strips in varying configurations, altering the traditional path of circumambulation into one that is dynamic and unstable, perhaps reflecting new quantum physics-based visions of the universe’s structure, in opposition to older, more Platonic, cosmologies. The Mobius strip also serves as a metaphor for reincarnation, with the beginning and ending of the worshipper’s path occurring at the same point. This temple has retained traditional Buddhist elements in the design as took the Buddhist elements as a visual reference to apply to the building in a contemporary way.

It is very obvious that the style of the current religious buildings are more inclined to modernism and futurism style. But I think that the characteristics of those different religious buildings has become inconspicuous although some of the traditional religion elements still retain. It makes people difficult to distinguish whether it is a temple or church since the above buddhist temple has only slightly different to those church and chapel. Thus, it is obvious that the styles of religious building tending to become unity.