We have a tendency to respond to reduction with more reduction. Religious minimalism fits well with our iconoclastic, puritan American heritage. And too often, we approach the New Evangelization from a technocratic perspective. We are in danger of reducing even our evangelical and catechetical efforts to the mere transmission of information, to technical processes honed by data analysis to produce a particular outcome. Forming personal relationships cannot be reduced to metrics and algorithms. Instead, forming personal relationships depends on love. And love begins with an appreciation of the beloved’s beauty. Nine hundred years ago, Richard of St. Victor wrote “ubi amor, ibi oculos”—where there is love, there the eye is also.
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I’d like to suggest three ways in which beauty can bring souls into communion with Jesus Christ. The first is the restoration of the beautiful to the world of art, architecture, and culture. We now suffer from a cult of ugliness and utility. And this is manifestly apparent in much of contemporary architecture. The architectural maxim that “form follows function” is a way of saying that design only exists to facilitate production. Architecture is overwhelmed by technocracy.
(source: Ubi Amor, Ibi Oculus | James D. Conley | First Things)
As the wonderfully witty Tom Wolfe once pointed out, Functionalism in architecture is about anything but function (Flat Roof. Q.E.D.)–and when we see Functionalism and its multiple layers of reaction applied to ecclesial architecture, some of us begin to wonder about the possibility of consecrating train stations for worship, instead:
Beautiful train stations and ugly churches–it’s not just the thought that counts.
I have an inkling that beautiful communities can lead to beautiful architecture more often than beautiful architecture will lead to beautiful communities. But it can take a while. If my memory of history serves me, I think that the Church existed for quite a while before it developed beautiful buildings in which to worship. When Auden wrote in his sonnet “Petition” about “New styles of architecture, a change of heart,” he got it backwards, and he later acknowledged his mistake.
-Steve S.
“beautiful communities can lead to beautiful architecture more often than beautiful architecture will lead to beautiful communities”–Well said.
I will only make one supplementary suggestion: that communities tend to build as befits their understanding of the dignity of their gods/God, and that the relative level of devotional art/architecture to decorative/entertainment art/architecture tells us a great deal about the community’s relationship to the True, Good, and Beautiful. Christians do not need to build Gothic cathedrals to be sure their sacred art/architecture are more precious, dignified, and declarative of God’s presence than, say, their courthouses and stadiums.
…also, even very humble spaces can be beautiful and dignified: http://www.holyinnocentsokc.org/god-s-gifts beats http://www.realclearreligion.org/lists/the_ugliest_churches_in_the_world/solid_rock_church.html?state=stop
or
http://www.realclearreligion.org/lists/the_ugliest_churches_in_the_world/metropolitan_cathedral_of_christ_the_king.html?state=stop
or especially
http://www.realclearreligion.org/lists/the_ugliest_churches_in_the_world/iglesia_de_la_consolacion.html?state=stop
…it’s not about absolute cost, though in some sense it *is* about costliness.
The more I look at these, the more I have to say it: “Sauron was here” — http://www.realclearreligion.org/lists/the_ugliest_churches_in_the_world/metropolitan_cathedral_of_christ_the_king.html?state=stop