Friday Art Reflection – Architecture
As a teenager, my father & I joined a travel group from our home town to tour through Spain, Portugal and Morocco. While in Spain, we had the chance to visit the city of Toledo. Declared a World Heritage Site, entering this ancient city was like stepping back in time. We travelled through the city to the Catedral de Toledo, a 13th century Gothic cathedral which is a masterpiece of stone, space and light. With a sense awe, I enter this sacred space, grinning internally at the humour of the fact that I was entering “Holy Toledo”. Nevertheless, it was a powerful experience.
Years later, while sitting in a discpleship class, the speaker made an offhand comment about these great churches. He asked the students why so many North American churches had high peaked roofs, then when on to explain to us, with unhesitant confidence, that they were copies of the high vaulted roofs of cathedrals whose roofs were designed primarily as a means to keep the copious European snow from building up and collapsing through. I sat flabbergasted at the ignorance of such a statement, but bit my tongue as no one else seemed to think anything was amiss.
While I still believe his comment to be ignorant, I have come to realize that the role of architecture as a tool and/or medium of the faith is not as simple as I once thought. As I consider the great Catedral de Toledo, I also remember the massive amount of gold that gilded the statuary and encrusted candelabras, chalices and the like. As I took it all in, our tour guide explained how much of the funding for the building came from the commoners, poor by most standards. Likewise, the cathedral took many generations to build, consuming he meager wages of families for nearly three centuries, not to mention the many lives lost in the construction of the building. How much more could have been done with the money, the labour and the vision? Was the unargubale beauty of this place worth the price paid?
Given the diversity of locales for church gatherings today, this question becomes increasingly complex. The Old Testament reveals that God demanded a wealth of resources, energy and beauty to be invested into places of worship. Some might argue that this ended when the temple curtain was torn at Christs death, further finalized at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. However, I think this is too quick a dismissal.
In my opinion, the intentionality of architecture in churches (and by this I mean everything from the actual structure of the building to the layout of furniture and use of other implements, such as candles, etc.) is something that can be important to the experience of worship, even formative in our understanding of God. The high vaulted ceilings of the cathedral inspired in me a sense of the greatness of God, the timelessness of a God who transcended my finite perspective. The intentional incorporation of iconic images and statues acts as touchstones to nature and character of God and His interaction with humanity through the great narrative of history. Candles, incense and vestments acts as beautiful symbols, whose meaning infuses our worship with something deeper than an articulate propositional understanding (important as that is).
I am deeply committed to serving the poor, investing our time, energy and resources into issues of justice and compassion, rather than them all being consumed in other self-serving reasons. However, can we become so pragmatic that we fail to honour God in beauty? Should we miss an opportunity to engage in the divine through the experiential encounters that art and architecture offer? Where do we draw the line? How have you been inspired or offended by architecture in your faith? Join the conversation in the comment section.
