a letter of intent: “I create myself, echo and abyss, by thinking. I multiplied myself, by going deeply into myself. The smallest episode - a change of light, the crumpled fall of a dead leaf, the petal that drops off and commits yellowcide…the half-open gate to the old estate, the patio that opens with an arch onto the houses heaped up in the moonlight - all these things, which do not belong to me, tie my sensory mediation with cords of resonance and nostalgia. In each one of these sensations I am someone else, I renew myself painfully in each indefinite impression.”

These are the moments, the things that occur for only a moment in time that are of concern to me. I have allowed such Sacred moments and thoughts to renew and redefine, perhaps for the first time in actuality, the meaning of what architecture is to me. All of those who sacrifice themselves for this passion of architecture wish and desire to be good, but “to be able to dream inconceivable things by making them visible is one of the great triumphs, one that is rarely attained.” It is this dream then that is to be considered sacred.

For the entirety of a year, nearly four years ago now, I have been lived and poured my thoughts into this idea of an urban monastery. In so doing, I have defined three Great Tensions which exist in the lives of the solitary. First, the tension between Structure of the Order and Freedom of the Spirit. Next, the tension between Diversity of the individual and Unity among the community. Last, the tension found in the desires of Openness to the world while simultaneously retreating from it. It is my belief that these dichotomies defined here in the context of a monastery can be translated into the life of every individual living in a present-day urban setting. If buildings become a reflection of the visual culture and society of the time, then the architecture in question should portray such tensions found among individuals existing within them.

In addressing that these strong paradoxes exist simultaneously, both dependent and independent of each other, like the life of a monk, architecturally this leads to many implications. Freedom and Structure, Diversity and Unity, Openness and Retreat…There is the issue of Private vs. Public, or perhaps Sacred and Profane.

The one thing that interests me most about the two extremes, is that point where the two must come together, where they transition from Sacred into the Profane or vice versa. If seeing sacred as inside and new, and seeing profane as synonymous with outside or old, what has potential of becoming special or what holds significance is the space occurring between the two. Take for example, “a church in a modern city. For a believer, the church shares in a different space from the street in which it stands. The door that opens on the interior of the church actually signifies a solution of continuity. The threshold that separates the two spaces also indicates the distance between two modes of being, the profane and the religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that distinguishes and opposes two worlds - and at the same time the paradoxical place where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible.” This became a particular driving point of my urban monastery…the creation of that interstitial space, that in-betweeness that contains all the meaning necessary. “The general rule is that soul appears in the gaps and holes of experience.”

Architecturally, how does this transition of sacred to profane occur? How can architecture create that interstitial gap to possess the importance of such a profound experience? Within the pages of a book , there are five times as many thoughts. Within the layers of trace paper found on my desk, there are miles of dream. To accomplish the Great Tensions of modern day society that every individual faces daily, hourly, and perhaps even minute by minute, within a one or two meter space is surely a task.

Light must act as a reconciliation between the sacred and profane, between the outside and the inside. It must change, bend, darken, lighten, move, cry, scream…It must do all things within this space to capture that experience of moving from the everyday to the holy. The life is then breathed into the building through the light and gives the quality of which the sacred is saturated with true being. “The blues would be one thing one day, the blues would be another thing another day, depending on the character of the light…the (space) has as many moods as there are moments in time. Never, as long as the (space) remains as a building, will there be a single day like the other.”

Sacred/holy space has always been something which has captured my attention and affection. After the urban monastery project came time to embark on the fifth year thesis work. I felt very much prepared and eager to begin my “transformations of sacred space.” Here you will find my statement of intent, the guiding words behind my thesis: Through changes over time, the sense of divine, holy space has been lost. This becomes obvious through the examination of church architecture. The splendor and holiness of cathedrals which created the ultimate feeling of divine, holy space has been replaced by gymnasiums and impermanent buildings. A sanctuary should be a place that is completely separate; one that radiates the holiness of God. Plastic cups and folding chairs are not enough. An environment must be created that communicates God's holiness both to the senses and spirit through the technology of modern time.

The thesis became an investigation of the changing conditions which shape the functions of sacred space in the secular modern city; seeking to produce an architecture that responded to temporal realities without losing permanent sacredness; moving the church from the industrial age to the information age; and shifting church architecture from the factory model of corridors to the bionomic model of a living, transformational, learning organism.

One of the guiding forces of my thoughts as of late has been a book entitled “You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination” by Katharine Harmon. It discusses mapmaking which fulfills one of our most ancient and deep-seated desires: understanding the world around us and our place in it. But maps need not just show continents and oceans, and mythological places. There are maps to popular culture, from Gulliver’s Island to Gilligan’s Island. There are speculative maps of the world before it was known and maps to secret places known only to the mapmaker. There are maps of the mind that show another kind of uncharted realm: the imagination. What all these maps have in common is their creators’ willingness to venture beyond the boundaries of geography or convention.

Somehow the words topography, architecture, sacredness, containment, relationships, cosmology seem to be stewing. The development of a sacred architecture which explains its unique topography---an architecture which reveals and becomes a description of a structured entity, showing the relations among its components (the people directly involved, those indirectly affected, and the world around it).

At the same time exploring this idea of containers & containment---walking thru today’ supermarket one would notice our tendency to package everything (milk, breath strips, computer hard drives, flowers) and likewise have all kinds of methods of holding these packages together (scotch tape, metal hinges, curled ribbons). What is the perfect container for sacred architecture —and how should it be fastened?

Although it has not been completely formulated, and still seems to be in the form of a vague cloud, understand my interest is in sacred architecture, mapping its relationships to the world of today, the need to understand what type of container should hold it and devising a method to keep its sacredness contained within.

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-Pessoa, Fernando, The Book of Disquiet, Confession 22, p.21.
-Pessoa, Fernando, The Book of Disquiet, Confession 21, p21.
-Eliade, Mircea, The Sacred and the Profane-The Nature of Religion, “Sacred Space and Making the World Sacred,” p.25.
-Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, “The Soul and Power,” p.120.
-Louis I. Kahn, Light as the Theme, “Kimbell Art Museum Dedication”