Architecture, Faith and Community | John McAslan CBE | RSA Replay

Right, okay. Robert, dear Robert, you can do the slides, can you? Okay, can we go forward? No, no, go to the first one please. First slide, the cover. No, back, no, one more back. There you go, thank you very much. Right, thank you. I can only do one thing at a time, that's why Robert has kindly offered to do the slides. Right, good evening. So I've got 12,000 years of religious architecture in 12 minutes, so at 12 minutes Matthew presumably you can put your hand up and say stop or speed up. Okay, so I'm going to start off. Over the years, our practice has responded to a diverse set of challenges facing communities all over the world. In Kigali, Rwanda, at the genocide memorial site; in Kenya, with the rebuilding of a community cathedral west of Nairobi; and in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, following the devastating earthquake in 2010, by rebuilding the city's historic market hall and gathering place. These projects illustrate our commitment to working with communities with their chosen faith and way of life, which my colleague Aiden Potter will discuss shortly. So what do we mean by the architecture of faith, and what is it that churches, temples, mosques, synagogues, and other places of worship offer us in the fast-paced, ever-changing, and complex world that we live in? My introduction this evening will touch on these issues and highlight examples of how the design of places of worship have evolved over time to serve a broad spectrum of communities. It's difficult to overstate the significance of faith architecture, for it dates back thousands of years, as illustrated from a 12,000-year-old religious site here in Anatolia, and today serves, in descending order, some 2.2 billion Christians, 1.6 billion followers of Islam, a billion Hindus, and 500 million Buddhists. Roughly three-quarters of the world's people. Less populated religions include, of course, Judaism, whose 16 million followers are spread across 120 countries, from 6 million in Israel to 36 in Bahrain. Next, the synagogue here in Kochi, the oldest in the Commonwealth, which has a congregation of 26. Historically, faith architecture defined communities for centuries. In England, for example, it was a dominating presence in people's lives, thoughts, and behaviors. In the Hindu faith, worship, meditation, and family-based rites of passage have been central to daily life for over two and a half thousand years. And in the Islamic world, domestic and faith architecture share the same courtyard built forms that date back to the 7th century. Today, in the increasingly secular and virtualized age, it seems significant to me that most people, even non-believers, continue to respect and value places of worship. So why is this? Surely it's because not only do these spiritual places offer solace and emotional connections, but they are always, always the most permanent, symbolic, and expressive of buildings. Next, of course, I can see here I don't have to look back, Suleymaniye Mosque, the Byzantine and Islamic blend designed by the great Ottoman architect Sinan. Next, two millennia ago, places of worship were the absolute nuclei of their communities. Today, in much of the developed world, the reverse seems to be the case, with public culture dictating the terms of the relationship between places of worship and the societies that they serve. This cultural shift has seen a remarkable evolution in terms of faith architecture. Next, and here are three examples from the post-war period which demonstrate that modern architecture, even brutalist architecture, can serve the needs of the architecture of faith. On the left is Eero Saarinen's glorious non-denominational Chapel at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the middle, the multifaith Air Force Cadet Chapel in Colorado Springs by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. And on the right, the powerful aesthetic of St Bride's Roman Catholic Church in East Kilbride by the Scottish architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia. Aiden, could you just get a bit of water? Thanks. Next, by contrast, the recent evangelical megachurch at Saddleback in California on the left and The Watermark Community Church in Dallas on the right are more conference hall aesthetic than places to pray. Next, whilst the architecture of the vast Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi incorporates traditional Islamic symbols from many sources in its campus of faith. Next, it's important to remember, though, that these grand, grandiose schemes that we've just seen don't necessarily reflect the typical contemporary faith condition. For instance, next, here is the beautiful Bruder Klaus Chapel in rural Germany, designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor in 2007 and handbuilt by local farmers. If you can look this up, it's an amazing story of the construction of this church, which is worth looking at. Next, and on the Thai-Burmese border, Kuma Wan's recent multifaith project unites a Buddhist prayer space with an educational and community hub for its refugee congregation. Next, and in terms of multifunctional and multifaith buildings, for which I have a particular passion, this is our teaching building in rural Malawi. Initially programmed as an infant school, this modest brick and timber structure is also used for adult learning, as a community health space, and as a non-denominational place for prayer. Next, and a building I know well, perched on the east side of the A1 autostrada just north of Florence and next to petrol stations and motels, is the extraordinary San Giovanni Battista Church designed by Giovanni Michelucci, built in the early 1960s to honor the workers who died building the autostrada. This majestic concrete, stone, and copper roof structure continues to have a very particular resonance for its community and those who drive by. Sometimes a private and personal vision inspires a place of worship, drawing a much wider, not necessarily religious community to its midst. Next, for instance, in Arkansas, Fay Jones's exquisite Thorncrown Chapel from 1980 was commissioned by a teacher and built on a forested hillside. Its wonderful filigree timber interior welcomes some 2,000 visitors a day, and I think a particular favorite of Aiden and mine. Next, whilst in an even more intimate scale is the Irish architect Niall McLaughlin's elliptical and very beautiful Bishop Edward King Chapel near Oxford, flooded with gorgeous light. Next, and in Copenhagen, one significantly scaled Lutheran Church embodies the idea of faith and community as a single design tableau. For here, the Gothic plan and the Expressionist brickwork of Grundtvig's Church, designed by Peter Jensen-Klint in 1927, was built using 6 million bricks, which were also used to construct the community around it. Next, and how many small towns, I wonder, would be bold enough to commission such a radical design as Gottfried Böhm's brutalist Pilgrimage Church near Dortmund, completed in 1968. This structure is considered to be the Pritzker Prize winner's greatest work, challenging in its architecture and its reflection of faith. Next, the relationship between faith and those who have built their places of worship is ever-changing. In the Middle Ages, sizable workforces of cathedral building journeymen and stonemasons became embedded in communities over long periods of time. Next, the magnificent Ely Cathedral, illustrated here, has Romanesque segments, a porch in the Gothic style, and a 14th-century octagonal tower, which means the cathedral was in a permanent state of construction for hundreds of years, a physical reminder of the endurance of a community's faith. Next, and in Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Familia is an ongoing example of this type of revolving commitment to a place of worship. Begun in 1882 and pausing only briefly following Gaudí's untimely death in 1926, its construction is expected to be complete in 2026, some 144 years after its groundbreaking. The architecture is symbolic of both Catholic worship and the independent spirit of Barcelona and Catalonian communities. And as I heard yesterday, a good friend of ours, Irvine Sellar, passed away, who was a wonderful developer who built The Shard. It's interesting to know The Shard, if you think of the height of The Shard, when fully built, this cathedral will be about four-fifths of the height of The Shard, so scale will be extraordinary. I knew Irvine, somehow had to fit this in. Next, a significant role for faith architecture is to serve communities who have suffered natural disasters or those who are impoverished or marginalized, providing places for both physical security as well as religious sanctuary. In 1986, for example, an avalanche spread through the village of Monu in Switzerland. Part of the response to the destruction was the building a decade later of this church designed by the Swiss master architect Mario Botta, a bold architectural statement of its community's endurance. Next, New Zealand's so-called Cardboard Cathedral on the left embodies a temporary workspace following the city's 2011 earthquake, whilst the same year on the right, our proposed temporary place of worship was set within the ruins of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Assumption in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Next, and in Germany, the architects KSP placed the city's new synagogue a stone's throw from its former location, destroyed during Kristallnacht, with this new synagogue reclaiming its former central location. Next, and finally in London, our project to rebuild the modern mosque is rooted in the ambitions and leadership of this community, which suffered the destruction of its beloved mosque gutted by fire in 2015. Within one week of the fire, its determined congregation was holding services within its remaining elements, which when rebuilt will return as Western Europe's largest Islamic place of worship. Next, the architect's role in the architecture of faith is a complex one: creating spaces that offer a safe haven to emotion, to memory, and to religious connections between places and peoples, no matter what their circumstances, commanding empathy and practicality in equal measure. I'll leave you with a final thought: although worshippers continue to depend on faith architecture as their physical place of worship, more and more people of all faiths in all parts of the world are leading lives that are increasingly personalized and screen-based. Snapchat, although I have to say not me, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Google. There are already websites called Virtual Church and Air Jesus. The Dasein of Oxford has started something called the IChurch. In 10 or 20 years' time, how many people will be worshiping on screen in the digitally imagined place of their choice? York Minster, Mecca, the Wailing Wall synagogue, or is there something about the architecture of faith and the actual, rather than the virtual, gathering of worshippers that cannot be eroded? Thank you.

The experience with the people was palpable, magnificent, and the fellowship was brilliant. As soon as they got off the bus in London, he knew those kids would not go to church again for another year. Somehow we must subscribe to the idea that we live in an age that stubbornly persists in believing, yet does not want to believe in a sense that demands belonging. That leads me to think we need fewer churches with better liturgies and better facilities rather than perpetuating all kinds of things. Retreats are another area where this is on display. People love going to a monastery for a few days of silence—Sbos in North Wales, or the great thing on television down in the south of England. These command attention, a break from routine, meeting new people, all a challenge but very popular. There's a national retreat movement that catalogs places with great history, wonderful architecture, secluded and beautiful settings, especially attractive since they added on sweet rooms. How do you explain the phenomenon I picked up from the Church Times: architects bid to design a monument to prayer under the aegis of the RIBA? A competition has been set up with a million bricks to build a monument to answered prayer, taking inspiration from the Angel of the North. They want to put a chapel and visitor center alongside a motorway to remind people that prayer is answered. Five were shortlisted—three from Britain, one from Denmark, one from Italy—with intriguing designs. It's a bona fide competition under the RIBA. We'll wait for the results, but once again, monuments, significant, inspirational. How would you explain Taizé in Burgundy? I used to go there and teach English literature to the monastic community. They were fond of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Translating Hopkins into French is virtually impossible, and Taizé is virtually impossible. A Swiss pastor after WWII horrified by the war built an establishment across the border so Germans and French could find refuge together. Brother Roger, whom I knew, was assassinated not long ago. He insisted on not having a fine building; he situated himself within sight of Cluny, the biggest monastery of the Middle Ages. He never wanted to go down that road of triumphalism and power lust. They worship in a hangar—even that's a grand title. Its prevailing quality is darkness, because you don't want to see anything, especially if Catholics and Protestants are there for communion. Pope John XXIII called it a little springtime for the church. Hundreds of thousands of young people gather there every summer. How do you explain that? Not on the basis of a grand place, but the opposite. We are trying to grasp something by its tail. For me, the finest of simple ideas—I just came back from India, in Kerala. I was at the top of a mountain, everything was beautiful. I wanted to bottle it and bring it back, but I knew once bottled it was dead. As a child lepidopterist, I loved butterflies, but when displayed in my cabinet they were no longer alive. The challenge is to create a space within which things can live, breathe, and flourish. That's it.

We think an interesting challenge is that many faiths take place behind closed doors, and we are a little fearful of what happens behind them. Exteriorizing faith and exploiting spaces around places of worship breaks down barriers. I'm fascinated by opportunities for different faiths to celebrate their activities more openly by stepping outside the front door.

I think Lewis Mumford, the great architectural critic, said that for 2,000 years architecture was the design of one room, signifying faith issues at the heart of great religions. But this investment has been dislodged in our cities by a concern to create other temples of worship. It's inevitable, not necessarily bad, but we have to search for mechanisms to give significance to a deep need for people to come to terms with profound issues that are not commercial. It's a real and diminishing need in society.