Architecture for the Gods

Christian Century, May 24, 2000

Architecture for the Gods. By Michael J. Crosbie. Images Publishing, 192 pp., $39.95.

* Crosbie has no particular thesis about what architecture is fit for the gods. "Religious buildings continue to be wide open to interpretation," he observes, and he thinks they can be successfully built in traditional, historicist, classical and modern styles, and in "everything that has come after modern." With a wealth of photographs and drawings, Crosbie documents that way several dozen U.S. congregations recently created new worship spaces. The accounts are very brief, but they indicate how each congregation, working within its particular urban or exurban setting, created a building that embodies faith, serves parishioners and speaks creatively to the neighborhood. The Australian publisher can be reached at <books@images.com.au>.