On the contrary, contemporary church architecture is often attacked for the cold and impersonal atmosphere it seems doomed to create ( Rose 2001 Doorly 2007 McNamara 2009), although other voices claim that its inherent (albeit ineffable and anonymous) spirituality makes religious buildings especially propitious to express these synaesthetic qualities ( Dupré 2001 Frampton 2002 Heathcote and Moffat 2007 Bergmann 2009). Still, publications that insist on this healing dimension in church architecture are rare ( Böhme 2006). Recently, a volume of the journal Spiritual Care, intended for the multi-disciplinary exchange between researchers and workers in healthcare and spiritual care, has been dedicated to the topic of “spiritual spaces” ( Spirituelle Räume), although within the context of healthcare architecture ( Frick and Maidl 2019). 2012 Tsekleves and Cooper 2016 Sigrist 2019). There is a growing literature on the healing effects of gardens and buildings designed for healthcare, based upon empirical data ( Cooper Marcus and Barnes 1999 Handy et al. This article points at a multisensory and spiritual dimension of our built environment that is often still overlooked, but which the current ecological turn and the global context of COVID-19 have again brought to the fore.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |