Authors: Nelson, Louis P. Nelson, Louis P.
ISBN-13: 9780253218223, ISBN-10: 0253218225
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Date Published: February 2006
Edition: 1st Edition
Louis P. Nelson is Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the University of Virginia. He is author of Pulpits, Piety, and Power: Anglican Architecture and Material Culture in Colonial South Carolina (forthcoming).
This volume examines a diverse set of spaces and buildings seen through the lens of popular practice and belief to shed light on the complexities of sacred space in America. Contributors explore how dedication sermons document shifting understandings of the meetinghouse in early 19th-century Connecticut; the changes in evangelical church architecture during the same century and what that tells us about evangelical religious life; the impact of contemporary issues on Catholic church architecture; the impact of globalization on the construction of traditional sacred spaces; the urban practice of Jewish space; nature worship and Central Park in New York; the mezuzah and domestic sacred space; and, finally, the spiritual aspects of African American yard art.
1 | Introduction | 1 |
2 | New England orthodoxy and the language of the sacred | 17 |
3 | God in Gotham : the design of sacred space in New York's Central Park | 37 |
4 | The urban practice of Jewish space | 65 |
5 | Salvage/salvation : recent African American yard shows | 89 |
6 | Spaces for a new public presence : the Sri Siva Vishnu and Murugan Temples in metropolitan Washington, D.C. | 103 |
7 | Getting beyond gothic : challenges for contemporary Catholic church architecture | 128 |
8 | Word, shape, and image : Anglican constructions of the sacred | 157 |
9 | The Mezuzah : American Judaism and constructions of domestic sacred space | 182 |
10 | Mythic pieties of permanence : memorial architecture and the struggle for meaning | 203 |
11 | Reading megachurches : investigating the religious and cultural work of church architecture | 225 |