Buildings That Preach: The 2025 World Building of the Year and the Crisis of Beauty
“It goes without saying that this church is exquisitely ugly, bleak, and depressing….Why do I care? And why should you care? In short: because buildings preach. They proclaim a message to the world about what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. This is especially true of our most public buildings.” - Mere Orthodoxy
If your church looks like the Obama Presidential Library, the Death Star, or the "Borg Cube", you're doing it wrong.
Seriously, though we generally do not have the means to make impressive edifices like those of the Middle Ages through the early modern era, the principle used by our forebears was that the church building ought to point us to Heaven and God's goodness. That's the reason for large windows, stained glass, bell towers, high ceilings, and the like. The building is to tell a story of God's goodness, serve as a central focus in the city it serves, etc.. If you make it ugly, well, you've undermined that.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Discussion