Matthew J. Milliner: When The Architecture of Prayer opened on our campus, you said your aim was to “furnish the Christian imagination.” As I took my students through the show, we were struck by the range. While some Christians celebrate traditional architecture, others insist only modernist paradigms are required for modern people; but you celebrate both styles. Why is that?

Amanda Iglesias: How does one define “church architecture”? A whitewashed chapel, topped by bell and steeple? A vaulted Gothic cathedral? Further, if you wish to learn about church architecture, where would you begin? Generally, definitions are relegated to the domain of the art historian, with textbooks written to organize “church architecture” into a cleanly defined lexicon of styles and substyles.

However, I’d like to position “church architecture” as the convergence of two distinct domains: church and architecture. The domain of the church is not a fixed religious entity but rather a spiritual frontier. Second, the domain of architecture is not merely a profession but an intellectual frontier. Thus, “church architecture” should not be understood as a fixed definition but rather as an emergent territory between the ever-expanding frontiers of knowing and being.

The Architecture of Prayer positions the church as one of the (if not the) longest and richest of architectural experiments. Accordingly, the show hopes to gently challenge prevailing notions of what a church is or should look like. One encounters “traditional” churches such as Hillsdale College’s Christ Chapel designed by Duncan Stroik in proximity to the neo-brutalist Church of Seed, located in rural China, designed by O Studio. Where one project faithfully hand-carves Corinthian capitals and inscribes Latin over doorways, another utilizes bamboo for concrete formwork and handcrafted seating. With such juxtapositions, we are invited on pilgrimage: moving beyond the territory of stylistic (and often dogmatic) categorizations and toward a pursuit of “eyes to see” the workings of God in the world through architecture.

MJM: For those unable to see the show, can you point to two instances of your favourite “traditional” architecture as well as two modern/postmodern examples?

AI: My favourite historic sacred architecture is Bramante’s Tempietto, an enigmatic yet canonical little structure in Montorio in Rome, said to be the spot of St. Peter’s martyrdom. This chapel was so exquisitely and classically proportioned that Bramante was commissioned by Pope Julius II to design St. Peter’s Basilica. In drawing the Tempietto as a student, I was captivated not so much by its classical lexicon as by its underlying mathematical rigour. The perfecting geometry of the circle and square were, for Renaissance architects, insight into the mind of God. My weeklong studied drawing, featured in the exhibition, asks: What is our relationship today to architectural history? (The 2018 exhibition Tempietto Exemplum emerged from this question.)

In this spirit of wrestling with the inheritances of history, a standout example featured in The Architecture of Prayer is Saint Sarkis Armenian Church in Texas. Designed by David Hotson and completed in 2022, it’s one of the newest projects on display, yet directly informed by Armenia’s St. Hripsime, completed in 618. Not only are fourteen hundred years of Christianity embedded into this church through direct reference, but its porcelain facade is printed with 1.5 million individual pixels, memorializing over a million unique individuals martyred in the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Inside, the sanctuary is a sculptural play of light and volume, reflecting contemporary attitudes that favour the poetic and suggestive over the literal or didactic.

MJM: Is there a particular style or epoch you are inspired by today to which you would direct us for study and emulation?

AI: I am most interested in architects who operated within a specific architectural tradition and yet took an “assume nothing” approach. Specifically, I’d recommend a careful study of the work of Rudolf Schwarz, who operated in interwar and postwar Germany, as well as Inger and Johannes Exner, who were active in postwar Denmark. These architects designed modern churches that operated not as copies but as conversations with history and serve as important reference points in my thinking about church architecture.

For example, Schwarz’s stunning Santa Anna Church in Duren was constructed from the rubble of its medieval predecessor, which was bombed during an Allied airstrike. The resulting building is both domestic and civic in scale, a reconstitution of fragments into a familiar longitudinal interior. Yet its scarred masonry walls are illuminated in relief with otherworldly side lighting. I’d highly recommend a perusal of Rudolf Schwarz and the Monumental Order of Things, a gorgeous compilation (edited by Adam Caruso and Helen Thomas) that effectively canonizes Schwarz as an “architect’s architect.”

Indeed, the work and writings of Schwarz inspired the Exners in Denmark to critically examine every aspect of a church building, avoiding mere reproduction. They were interested in reclaiming the domestic environments of the pre-Constantinian church, before the forms of Christianity adopted the civic basilica plan associated with power and empire. The ensuing Exner churches, such as Sædden Church, were designed for Lutheran congregations. Their intimate scales evoke the ecclesia of the early Christian church, being the most democratic model of assembly. Architecturally, they are simple churches, with often homogenous material palettes. Inside, however, each church yields radical departure from their muted exteriors, creating festive and participatory places of worship inflected with the specificity of Lutheran liturgy. I am fortunate to have travelled to the thirteen Exner churches (and I met Inger herself!) and would point anyone wanting to seriously engage church architecture toward their relatively unknown writings and work.

MJM: Some despair that a career in architecture with actual creative potential is too rare. David Schaengold’s brilliant lament at the state of architecture is sobering. Your experience appears to suggest otherwise, but do you consider your path unique?

AI: There is a time and a place for lament, and Schaengold’s insights are true, unfortunately, for a large majority of the US construction sector. However, I’ve been fortunate to be working at a firm for which a high-calibre design ethos is rigorously maintained from concept to construction. There are steep upfront costs associated with this type of work, but the resultant buildings are designed to age, constructed with well-considered materials that will patinate gracefully with the years. My professional experience has led me to appreciate excellence in all its stylistic forms, whether that be the custom detailing of Steven Holl’s numinous Chapel of St. Ignatius or the quiet care with which John Pawson restored the historic St. John-at-Hackney Church in London.

My hope for The Architecture of Prayer is to put forward examples of architectural excellence at all scales and styles, in the spirit of exhortation. I believe enduring works of architecture are galvanizing, moving beyond lament or criticism. We are currently witnessing this type of galvanized action with the stunning reconstruction efforts at Notre-Dame in Paris: the collaboration of over one thousand experts in all construction trades bringing their technical excellence to bear on the project. While there is not necessarily stylistic novelty to the work, the highly collaborative nature of reconstruction and technologically intensive tools being developed for information sharing across trades are forging Notre-Dame into a truly twenty-first-century cathedral. I hope the standards being set by this project will be an inflection point in our world’s construction industry.

MJM: Of the books that leap to mind that can educate Christians about the range of architectural possibilities, I think of Mark Torgerson’s An Architecture of Immanence for modernism and Philip Bess’s Till We Have Built Jerusalem for traditional architecture. Where would you recommend laypersons go to grow in their knowledge of church architecture?

AI: Great recommendations. I would also add Richard Kieckhefer’s Theology in Stone, Gretchen Buggeln’s The Suburban Church, and Constructing the Ineffable, edited by Karla Britton, all personal heroes of mine. However, there aren’t enough books that are rich in the theological and liturgical life of the church (often text-heavy) in tandem with strong architectural examples (necessarily image- and drawing-heavy). Eventually, I dream of expanding the exhibition into a book to do precisely this: enable one to feast on beautiful examples in both mind and heart.

MJM: There is so much discussion about global Christianity of late (Vince Bantu’s A Multitude of All Peoples comes to mind, or Philip Jenkins’s work), but not as much discussion of global Christian architecture. You made an effort in this show to provide just that, and in so doing you made it clear that—like it or not—many of these styles are not “traditional.” Is there a global Christian style that you have uncovered?

AI: That’s the hope! In curating the exhibition, it was critical to showcase the best of church architecture across a wide variety of cultures, denominations, and especially budgets. This work collectively points to the possibility that out of the various cultural and stylistic wars of the twentieth century, there has emerged into the twenty-first century a quiet flowering of a globally ecumenical architecture.

Church projects uniquely invite a design process that extends beyond purely pragmatic considerations (such as programming or mechanical updates) and therefore are highly desirable for an architect. Consider how the Christian faith contains a rich repository of symbols and images, poetry and parables. A single psalm alone can generate an entire architectural study, giving physical form to verse, such as Bosjes Chapel in South Africa, designed by Steyn Studio. The architects transformed the soaring language of Psalm 36:7—“How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings”—into a sinuous, winged chapel. Early concept sketches reveal an exquisite attention paid to the geometry of birds in flight: an architectural exegesis of the scripture.

Further, as we enter a century filled with unprecedented challenges, particularly climate-related, churches have the opportunity to work with architects who creatively work within constraints, such as Church Nianing in Senegal, designed by IN SITU Architecture. Taking the shape of a shell, this project utilizes the “wind tower” effect found in both the natural world and vernacular structures to create non-mechanized ventilation, which is critical in hot and arid contexts.

Many more examples exist, most often hiding in plain sight. My work ahead is to continue to build out this emerging index of twenty-first-century church architecture, and I always welcome recommendations of projects!

MJM: Some people think massive piles of money are required to make a serious contribution to church architecture. But you included a very inexpensive Cambodian prayer pavilion and the prefabricated chapel, which seemed quite affordable. Are there other examples of affordable architecture you could point us to?

AI: Expense is not an entirely misplaced belief. Architecture is a cost-intensive enterprise. And yet architects daily work within budgetary constraints and find great creativity doing so. My favourite examples of such resourcefulness are ones that don’t eliminate but enhance the historicity and specificity of Christian worship. For example, St. Nicholas Eastern Orthodox Church in Arkansas, designed by Marlon Blackwell, repurposed a satellite dish to create a plaster dome emblazoned with the icon of Christ as paramount to Orthodox liturgy. Sacromonte Chapel, located in a vineyard in Uruguay, was designed by MAPA Arquitectos to be a prefabricated structure, assembled in a single day and small enough to enclose a single person in prayer. Despite the strict economy of parts, the architects included a small alcove housing the Virgin of “La Carrodilla,” or the Lady of the Vineyard, backlit by a sheet of luminous onyx.

For worshipping communities that emphasize small group biblical study, discussion, and prayer, a resourceful architecture will enhance such spaces of informal gathering. The small, lantern-like Prayer Pavilions in Cambodia, designed by 100 Fold Studio, were constructed collaboratively between American architecture students and Cambodian ministry students. Today these gathering spaces are equipping a new generation emerging out of genocide and poverty with a corporate vision of hope and future.

MJM: At the end of his life, Christopher Alexander, who had always pointed to “the Timeless Way,” a sort of Tao of architecture, finally broke the stained-glass ceiling. “I could no longer really avoid the topic of God,” he confessed. In the same way, I was stunned to discover that Ludwig Mies van der Rohe had an extended correspondence with the Catholic priest Romano Guardini, thanks to his book Letters from Lake Como. Joseph Masheck (Faith in Art) and Erika Doss (Spiritual Moderns) have just published histories of religious modern art. Is something similar going on in modern architecture, the discovery of a repressed Christian influence?

AI: It is a little-acknowledged fact that the Modernists maintained highly spiritual aspirations that undergirded their architectural ambitions. To your point, there’s a growing body of scholarship to make this case. For example, both Karla Britton’s prologue to Constructing the Ineffable as well as Sacred Concrete: The Churches of Le Corbusier (edited by Flora Samuel and Inge Linder-Gaillard) locate Le Corbusier’s sacred architecture within the context of the Liturgical Renewal movement, which emerged from Vatican II. This ensuing spirit of reform was accompanied by renewed interest in the arts, and the church’s patronage of architects such as Le Corbusier resulted in some of the most significant and canonical buildings of the twentieth century. I believe the role of religion, and specifically Christianity, as a generative influence on modern architecture will continue to be uncovered through such thoughtful scholarship well into the future.

MJM: So much Christian architecture (such as the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces) is aggressive and triumphalist. But you give us an architecture that encapsulates Christian humility. Was this intentional? Can we end on describing how architecture facilitates prayer, even mysticism, in all its forms?

AI: I am personally most compelled by projects that seriously consider architecture’s redemptive capacity, such as the Church of the Penitent Thief in Italy, designed collaboratively between INOUT architettura, LADO architetti, and LAMBER + LAMBER. The church was constructed by inmates at a local penitentiary serving out the end of their sentences, thus equipping them with a valuable skill set to re-engage society. The design of the project, while fairly simple in shape and volume, is marked by a continuous crack from wall to ceiling, stitched together by the singular figure of Christ suspended on a cross.

Similarly, the Chapel of Reconciliation, located in Berlin, was designed by Rudolph Reitermann and Peter Sassenroth as a response to a competition initiated by the congregation. Their historic church was located in the “death strip,” or no man’s land, separating East and West Berlin, and blown up by East German patrol troops six years prior to reunification. The winning design utilized rammed earth walls—or cob—constructed with fragments of brick from the previously destroyed church. Concrete was intentionally avoided as a material, as it carried painful reminders of the Wall. Today, the chapel serves as a widely sought-after pilgrimage church.

In response to devastation or tragedy, I am moved when a community of faith responds by constructing not a monument or a museum but a place of prayer. Not only is a church a significant way for a people to make their presence known and felt in the world, but it centralizes prayer as perhaps the most generative activity of hope. On a personal note, I’ve experienced a diversity of church environments that have facilitated prayers ranging from silence to supplication, lament to rejoicing. In the words of Winston Churchill, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” The posture with which a church is designed and constructed will reciprocally shape our posturing in the world, one that must aim to be more like Jesus.

MJM: Because one of your ambitions is to design or adapt ecclesial spaces for prayer, any parting advice for congregations seeking to work with an architect, especially if they have modest means?

AI: In speaking with liturgical consultants, an arena I’d like to move into, it’s clear that the time of initiating a new project (whether renovation or ground-up construction) is a rich time for a worshipping community to clarify who they are and why they gather. This process of building consensus around questions of corporate identity is highly valuable and should not be rushed or expedited in favour of the practical. My advice is to seek an architect who is a good listener. Enlist a liturgical consultant who can advocate for your technical and spiritual needs. And ultimately, embed prayer into every step of the process, not just in words but in silence and singing, fasting and feasting, solitude and gathering. Ask God to replace any spirit of fear or anxiety with a posture of great expectation!

MJM: Last, any advice for students hoping to break into the profession?

AI: Architecture is a difficult but rewarding career. My advice to young persons is to pursue formation into a person of confidence and conviction. Read broadly. Take every available art history class. Maintain a sketchbook. Spend time with art. Develop “eyes to see.” Wherever you travel, consider yourself a pilgrim and not a tourist. Walk slowly. Learn how architecture is different from buildings, in the same way poetry is different from writing, cuisine is different from food. If you are already in college, take classes in every subject. If you are in high school, consider a liberal arts degree before a master’s in architecture. If you’ve already graduated college with a different degree, it’s still not too late! (This was my path.) Regardless of your season, invest in godly friendships. To be an architect is a lifelong pursuit, one that requires a slow and attentive attitude, and this is cultivated best through a healthy blend of solitude and camaraderie. Finally, ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to become? To adapt a famed C.S. Lewis quote: “The world does not need more Christian [architects]. What it needs is more Christians [designing] good [buildings].”

MJM: Thank you, Amanda!