Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
How Eastern Orthodox churches are reimagining sacred space for the modern world
When Santiago Calatrava’s St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine opened at the World Trade Center in 2022, it replaced the only house of worship destroyed on September 11. Its luminous form and Byzantine references posed a larger question: How can Orthodox architecture remain faithful to an ancient tradition while speaking in the materials, technologies, and visual language of the present?
The Shape of the Sacred is the first wide-ranging exploration of Eastern Orthodoxy’s encounter with modern architecture. Bringing together historians, theologians, critics, and practicing architects, the book examines roughly 150 years of exchange between modern architecture and Orthodox theology, liturgy, and artistic tradition. Its contributors challenge the idea that modern architecture is necessarily secular and that Orthodox design must repeat a small set of inherited forms.
The essays trace unexpected exchanges between religious tradition and modern design. Le Corbusier’s visit to Mount Athos offers a surprising new perspective on the discipline and spirituality of his work. A church designed and largely built by Archimandrite Euthymius Wendt in Moisenay, France, combines Russian Orthodox theology with the fractured geometry of the avant-garde. Other chapters explore converted buildings, icons, materials, worship, and the ways churches shape both religious life and public space.
St. Nicholas anchors the book as a compelling example of sacred architecture in a pluralistic society. At the World Trade Center, it serves as a parish church, national shrine, and public place of remembrance. A gallery of nine recent Orthodox churches in Europe and North America shows how architects are using new materials, technologies, and forms while keeping worship and community at the center.
With 128 color illustrations, The Shape of the Sacred brings Eastern Orthodoxy into the history of modern architecture. It offers architects, clergy, and readers interested in sacred space a striking range of examples for creating churches that neither copy the past nor abandon it.
Contributors: Robert Arida, Valery Baidin, David Bains, Joseph L. Clarke, Justin Davidson, Kyle Dugdale, Archbishop Elpidophoros, Evan Freeman, Jeremy Ingpen, Inga Leonova, Jaime Rall, Cornelia Tsakiridou, Jerzy Uścinowicz, Alexis Vinogradov
David R. Bains is a professor in the Department of Biblical and Religious Studies at Samford University. A historian of religion in the United States, he writes on Christian worship, church architecture, religious space, and civil religion, and is at work on Religious Capital: Representing Religion in Washington, D.C. He is coeditor of The Development of the Church, a collection of the writings of Philip Schaff.
Joseph L. Clarke (Edited By)
Joseph L. Clarke is a historian of modern architecture, licensed architect, and associate professor in the University of Toronto Department of Art History and the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. He is the author of Echo’s Chambers: Architecture and the Idea of Acoustic Space.
Inga Leonova (Edited By)
Inga Leonova is a practicing architect, writer, and educator and editor-in-chief of The Wheel, a quarterly journal of Orthodox Christian thought and culture. Her work focuses on Orthodoxy, culture, and liturgical architecture.