An intimation of the sacred can suddenly appear in a cluster of words, in the angle of a doorframe, or in the play of light on an altar. Architecture does not teach us what the sacred is, but it may touch it and draw others to it.


Its responsibility to the sacred is, therefore, truly solemn. Architecture interprets holiness and offers it to the people. Whether they choose to inhabit this category or not, perhaps all architects have the capacity to be priests, designing spaces that call for a meeting between earth and heaven. 

Not every architect handles this task gracefully or competently, and as much as Modernism gave fresh vitality to the design of holy places, it also wielded its tools too sharply, presuming that the sacred could ever be fully contained and pithily expressed in all its eternity and all its splendour within a section or an elevation. 


God does not dwell in a perfect curve devised by cold compass and rule. Rafael Moneo grasped the related problem of modernity’s individualism with a tremulous observation regarding an architect’s responsibilities when on holy ground.


Originally writen by architectural-review and most pictures collected from pinterest