Defining the Sacred

Abstract

How do we define what is sacred architecture? People of all ages are turning away from organized religion, and looking for a more genuine, personal experience of the spiritual. In considering sacred architecture, a distinction is whether architecture itself is sacred or that architecture is an instrument that calls forth the sacred. Distinctions should be drawn between situational versus substantive sacred space. A divine presence is believed to reside in substantive sacred space. In situational, anyplace can be sacred depending on the presence, location, and actions of human beings, often acting in community.
Edward Anders Sovik was one of the most influential architects in the design of modern churches in the US. Active from the mid-20th-century through the 1970s, Sovik designed mostly Protestant churches and wrote extensively about church design and its liturgical underpinnings. Sovik believed that early Christians perceived themselves as a community of faith unattached to any place. His skepticism about the sacredness of buildings and objects sits squarely within Protestant theology. His religious architecture offers a good model for today, as the definition of sacred architecture is changing. Sovik’s emphasis on the secular and the sacred is prescient regarding the current state of religion and spirituality, and became the basis of a recent graduate design studio at Catholic University of America.