Building for humans: architecture after modernism

Christian Century, March 10, 2009 by Matthew J. Milliner

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Till We Have Built Jerusalem contains an informed discussion on the nature of beauty: "Completeness is precisely what the natural order lacks, and this is exactly why aesthetic experience has religious implications, because it seems to reveal to us a glimpse of some other order outside of nature." And while the book may take theological and philosophical detours, it does not lose its practical edge: "The way to make traditional urbanism less expensive is to make it less rare." One of Bess's more radical proposals is that churches should partner with developers to form a city around themselves--the very arrangement that gave us one of our most successful urban environments: Savannah, Georgia.

"Though we cannot avoid being modems," says Bess, "we can certainly avoid being Modernists." Or, to quote Glazer in one of his more hopeful moments, "Looking backward, it seems, has become the most popular way of going forward." A renewed appreciation of Christian tradition can inform not only sermons but also the physical settings in which they are preached.

Matthew J. Milliner is a doctoral candidate in art history at Princeton University. He blogs at millinerd.com