Experiencing Sacred Place: Architecture and the Individual in Immigrant and Refugee Communities

Abstract

Experiencing Sacred Place: Architecture and the Individual in Immigrant and Refugee Communities Robert Knight That thing we call a place is the intersection of many changing forces passing through, whirling around, mixing, dissolving, and exploding in a fixed location. (Rebecca Solnit) Our cities are always in some form of transition, some state of flux. This layering that takes place over time builds the present out of the past. Sacred spaces, in particular, serve as a kind of witness, an architectural repository of what Solnit describes, due to their longevity within communities and their consequent historical significance. It has been widely reported that rising secularism and demographic shifts have resulted in the disuse of many Christian religious spaces both in the United States and in Europe. Yet their frequently central locations, combined with the difficulty of obtaining permissions for newly built religious structures (particularly non‐Christian), have encouraged the repurposing of existing spaces for use by other faiths. Through this process, sacred spaces are adapted to the communities that occupy them, being transformed aesthetically while maintaining their spirituality. In my work as an artist, I have examined the changing nature of sacred spaces, focusing particularly on spaces undergoing some form of transition—from one faith to another, from sacred to non‐sacred, from use to disuse—in an attempt to understand the ways that architecture and place shape individual and group identity and the role that physical structures play in supporting community. Beginning near my home in Utica, New York in 2012, I researched and photographed four communities that had recently undergone transition, including a former Methodist church that had been converted into a mosque for the city's burgeoning Bosnian refugee community (Fig. ) and a Baptist church that had welcomed Burmese refugees to such an extent that the newcomers outnumbered the community's traditional Euro‐American congregants four‐to‐one (Fig. ). Click for larger view View full resolution Jummah Prayer, Bosnian Islamic Association Mosque, Utica, NY, 2014. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com] Click for larger view View full resolution Sunday Service, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Utica, NY, 2013. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com] My work continued during a European sabbatical in 2015, where I focused on the rich history of religious spaces amidst the surge of refugees and immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East. In Rome, where there are more than 900 religious spaces (the vast majority of them Roman Catholic churches), I photographed historic spaces such as Basilica San Clemente (Fig. ), whose use as a religious site dates back to the first‐century CE when it served as a Mithraic cult sanctuary. I also photographed less historic but equally interesting spaces, such as the Tewahdo San Michele (Fig. ), a former seventeenth‐century Catholic church that has been lent by the Holy See to the Eritrean community since 2007. And I sought out newer, purpose‐built spaces such as the Grand Mosque of Rome (Fig. ), which accommodates 12,000 worshippers and at the time of its completion was the largest mosque outside of the Islamic world, Russia, and India. My research also led me to London's East End, where I was fascinated by the layered religious history of the Whitechapel and Spitalfield neighborhoods, areas originally occupied by French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in the 1600s, followed by Jews in the late 1800s, and most recently Muslims, primarily from Bangladesh. The East London Mosque (Fig. ), established in 1941 and the largest mosque complex in the UK, was built around a small Orthodox Jewish synagogue that operated from 1899 to 2014 and which is still located adjacent. In Amsterdam, I photographed the Fatih Mosque (Fig. ), the former Catholic church Saint Ignatius that has operated as a Turkish mosque since 1982. Click for larger view View full resolution Candlelight Vigil, Basilica San Clemente, Rome, Italy, 2015. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com] Click for larger view View full resolution Sunday Service, Tewahdo San Michele, Rome, Italy, 2015. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com] Click for larger view View full resolution Jummah Prayer, Grande Moschea di Roma, Rome, Italy, 2015. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary...