Sacred Architecture and Public Space under the Conditions of a New Visibility of Religion

Jakob Helmut Deibl

doi:10.3390/rel11080379

Abstract

Embedded in the paradigm of the “New Visibility of Religion,” this article addresses the question of the significance of sacred buildings for public spaces. ‘Visibility’ is conceived as religion’s presence in cities through the medium of architecture. In maintaining sacred buildings in cities, religions expose themselves to the conditions of how cities work. They cannot avoid questions such as how to counteract the tendency of public space to erode. Following some preliminary remarks on the “New Visibility of Religion,” I examine selected sacred buildings in Vienna. Next, I focus on the motifs of the city, the “ark” as a model for sacred buildings and the aesthetic dimension of public space. Finally, I consider the contribution of sacred buildings to contemporary public spaces. What is at issue is not the subject that moves in public and visits sacred buildings with the aim of acquiring knowledge or with the urgency to act, but rather the subject that feels and experiences itself in its dealings with public space and sacred buildings. In this context, I refer to the experience of disinterested beauty (Kant), anachronism, multi-perspectivity (Klaus Heinrich), and openness (Hans-Dieter Bahr).

Highlights

Embedded in the paradigm of the “New Visibility of Religion,” this article addresses the question of the significance of sacred buildings for public spaces
How can we approach the relationship between public space and sacred buildings if, in the context of the new visibility of religion, we cannot trust that a continuity regarding the understanding of religion is guaranteed? If we do not want to replace a lack of a common religious horizon of understanding with merely functionalist categories like the usefulness of sacred buildings, we need the images, metaphors or symbols that can offer us an initial access to those phenomena
In order to approach the question of public space and sacred buildings, I will take up the motifs of the city and the ark and substantiate their connection first of all by looking at important churches in Vienna

Summary

Preliminary Remarks

There are countless further examples regarding the question about the relationship between visibility and concealment that could be given from the history of religion and would have to be examined in each individual case with regard to the concrete form that the tension between those poles takes there At this point I would like to show how the emergence of the first forms of Christian community, as it is presented in the New Testament, can be described starting from the question of the visibility of religion: Jesus’ disciples gather behind closed doors after his death and even after their first encounters with the Risen One (John 20:19 and 26; Acts 1:13). A religious community can be forced by political pressure to go underground for a certain period of time; groups can form at its margins, seeking the secrecy of the small in-group—but once it has begun to express itself through architecture, it cannot, in principle, avoid the question of its visibility in public space and must adopt a stance towards it. These processes may be transformed but do not end if a religious community abandons a building, as long as it is there

Public Space—City—Ark

The Ark as a Temporary Residence

The Aesthetic Dimension of Public Space

Conclusions