Transcendent Architecture: a Pilot Study of Works, Conditions & Practices

Nader Ardalan, Julio Bermudez, Prem Chandavarkar, Alison B. Snyder, and Phillip Tabb

Original Draft 5/27/2014

Final version 1/22/2025

White Paper

This article explores the principles and methodologies underpinning architecture’s capacity to evoke transcendent experiences. Authored collaboratively, the study reflects on a decade of evolving perspectives since its original conception in 2014. The research focuses on three interconnected components: the works of architects noted for their sublime contributions, the architectural conditions that foster transcendent experiences, and the personal practices of both creators and observers that enable engagement with these environments.

Key findings include a framework of 14 conditions usually present in Transcendent Architecture, ranging from materiality and spatial emptiness to light, context, and ontological connections. The methodology, blending case studies and interdisciplinary insights, is structured around comparative analysis and critical interpretations, encompassing historical, philosophical, and neuroscience-based precedents. Additionally, the study examines practices—such as sketching, meditation, and ritual—that cultivate the creative or experiential receptivity required for transcendent outcomes.

By identifying actionable design heuristics and fostering dialogue on transcendent qualities in architecture, the study aspires to bridge theory and practice, offering a roadmap for advancing the discipline. The findings emphasize the importance of architecture as a medium for spiritual, ethical, and emotional engagement, advocating for its critical role in addressing contemporary challenges.

TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE
A Pilot Study of Works, Conditions, and Practices 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

0. PREAMBLE (2025)

1. INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVE

2. METHODOLOGY & PROCESS

3. DEFINITION OF TERMS AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH

  • WORKS
  • CONDITIONS
  • PRACTICE

4. CONDITIONS OF TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE

  • FINDINGS: COMPARATIVE MATRIX
  • DISCIPLINARY PRECEDENTS
  •  INTERPRETATIONS
    • VERTICAL
    • HORIZONTAL

5. PRACTICES FOSTERING TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE.

  • PRACTICES FOR PRODUCING TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE 
  • HISTORIC TRADITIONS
  • PRACTICES FOR RECEIVING TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE
    • DRAWING
    • MEDITATION
    • SADHANA
    • CONVERSATION
    • PRAYER
    • CONTEMPLATION/REFLECTION
    • RITUAL
    • TEACHING
    • OBSERVING NATURE
    • CONSTRUCTING TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE

6. CLOSING THOUGHTS

7. POSTSCRIPT (2025)

APPENDICES

  • APPENDIX 1: WORKING LIST OF TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTS
  • APPENDIX 2: INDIVIDUAL CASE STUDIES
  • APPENDIX 3: BIOS OF AUTHORS

0. PREAMBLE (January 2025)

Four of the original five authors of this article (Ardalan, Bermudez, Chandavarkar, and Snyder) met on September 7, 2024, to consider the value and endurance of the arguments, ideas, examples, and insights recorded in our original 2014 Transcendent Architecture research paper. After some discussion, we agreed that the article remained as relevant today as it was 10 years ago. In fact, we felt that scholarly works directly or indirectly covering the topic that had been produced since 2014 (whether in scholarly publications, pedagogical initiatives, or design studies) either hardly addressed the matter or, if they did, provided validation for our effort (refer to Postscripts). We also concurred that the design/architecture disciplines have been too shy and slow in putting forward general architectural principles, conditions, and/or heuristics facilitating or supporting transcendent experiences. Since (1) our paper humbly provided such a framework based on a relatively wide series of case studies done by professionals and scholars with long practice and scholarship on the topic, (2) the article’s insights appear to hold true 10 years later, and (3) there is a scholarly hole on the topic that needs addressing, we decided to revisit our article, make any necessary adjustments, and publish it as a ‘White Paper.’ The goal is to post it not only on the ACSF website corresponding to its Sixth Annual Symposium (held in June 2014 in Toronto) where the original work was presented but also and especially elsewhere. We reasoned that even if this White Paper proved defective or lacking (and we are certainly not claiming it to be perfect), it would allow discussion and evolution in our understanding – something presently missing in our discipline (and therefore of great importance, mission-wise, to ACSF). Finally, we decided it was important to include a simple Postscript where we briefly reflect on this effort 10 years later. Tabb, the fifth author, supported this whole effort even though he couldn’t participate due to other obligations at the time.

In order to review, edit, and add to the original manuscript, we proceeded to circulate the paper, allowing one author at a time the chance to examine and revise the text until everyone was happy with the result. At the same time, there was a general agreement that any such amendment should be done with care so as not to alter the article in any fundamental manner, given its proven enduring qualities. 

We agreed that after this ‘white paper’ is completed in early 2025, each of us will have the right to post and distribute it at will and recognize the other authors. Further, it was also decided that any of us could start a new process with many of the same ideas but more open-ended. Any of us may extend the 2014 TA by adding lessons learned from the respective Postscripts of the other authors or any other source and generate a publishable book (with mutually agreed upon credits). 

1. INTRODUCTION & OBJECTIVE

The Forum for Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality (ACSF) was established in April 2007 with the purpose of developing and disseminating architectural and interdisciplinary scholarship, research, practice, and education on the significance, experience, and meaning of the built environment. This mission was to be pursued by (1) supporting a community of Scholars, Educators, and Practitioners; (2) organizing conferences and symposia; and (3) initiating scholarly peer-reviewed publication(s) in its subject areas. 

Six years after its creation and during the last night prior to the morning completion of ACSF’ fifth Symposium in June 2013, around thirty conference attendees (see Figure 1) agreed that the Forum had accomplished all its foundational goals quite successfully. The group had grown from about 38 initial members in mid-April 2007 to over 280 in June 2013 and operated a list-server and website that offer information, resources, and constant news covering ACSF issues to the membership. We had had five annual conferences where ACSF work had been presented and debated, each meeting progressively stronger in scholarship, submission numbers, organization quality, and partnering organizations. Lastly, The ACSF Forum had offered a serious venue for the development, review, and publication of ACSF work following standard peer-review processes. The resulting ±120 papers over the past 5 symposia had been either e-published, or their presentations videotaped, all of them archived and made available online. Two issues of the 2A magazine had been dedicated to the Forum’s scholarship in 2010 and 2011, and a book proposal with the best ACSF work of our first five years of existence was being advanced (and since then approved and contracted with Ashgate; with the release scheduled for mid-2015).

Given these remarkable accomplishments, the ACSF members gathered that night at the Glastonbury Abbey and discussed that it might be the right time for the Forum to move forward with more comprehensive, ambitious, and/or new objectives and principles (without abandoning its already successful pursuits). In trying to clarify what such effort should entail, the group agreed that while ACSF was committed to a variety of issues associated with the built environment (e.g., personal and communal health and well-being, environmental sustainability, social and economic equity, cultural diversity and tolerance, etc.), its main focus was the spiritual quality of the built environment. In other words, it is this particular attention to the sacred, transcendent, or numinous that makes our organization different from any other one. Several attendees argued that the Forum needed to actively, comparatively, and critically develop a useful knowledge-base that included what ACSF had produced or would produce in the context of prior understandings and knowledge as well as contemporary trends of growing impact in society and culture (e.g., neuroscience, comparative religion, etc.).

At one point, the conversation grew louder and ever more engaging after a challenge to name architects or designers whose work(s) could induce a transcendent state in visitors was made. At that time, symposium attendees spontaneously burst into voicing names. The only condition was that the architect had to have lived in the past 100 years. Nader Ardalan patiently wrote the proposed candidates, often waiting for people to argue for a candidate and get group approval or settle disagreements. The list of what were termed ‘Transcendent Architects’ is in Appendix 1. This was an important development. 

Upon returning the next day, for the final membership meeting of the ACSF 5 Symposium, the group continued deliberations on the topic of the future of ACSF and made the decision (supported by all the attendees) to appoint a committee to look into this matter. This committee was to report to the ACSF membership in a year’s time (i.e., during the ACSF 6 Symposium in Toronto).

Figure 1- About thirty ACSF 5 Symposium attendees in a spontaneous meeting regarding the future of ACSF and Transcendent Architecture, June 2013.

2. METHODOLOGY & PROCESS

The following six ACSF members, named in alphabetical order, volunteered to serve on the ‘Transcendent Architecture Committee’ (TAC) as the taskforce was termed: Nader Ardalan, Julio Bermudez, Prem Chandavarkar, Maged Senbel, Alison B. Snyder, and Phillip Tabb. Due to other work commitments, Maged Senbel, after his initial contributions, asked to remove himself from the process while being in support of it. 

It was clear from the beginning that, in order to succeed in our efforts, the most critical decisions were to agree on (1) the scope of the work and (2) the right methodology to operate. First of all, however, we had to find a procedure that allowed us to work and communicate despite our living very far apart (East Coast US, West Coast US and Canada, Texas, and India). This didn’t just mean to solve the logistics of communication but also (and related to the operative methodology issue raised earlier) to find a credible way to propose, debate, and decide on ideas and issues. The procedure would have to balance asynchronous work and exchanges with direct, synchronous (i.e., live) interactions. 

We resolved this challenge by adopting what can be best described as a combination of 

  • Delphi method and jazz improvisation for our asynchronous exchanges; and 
  • dialogue for our direct conversations. 

The Delphi method, used in forecasting, policy-making, and other complex decision-making processes, is based on extracting knowledge, views, or opinions from a panel of experts through a series of structured exchanges. In our version of Delphi, we did away with the anonymous nature of both participants and exchanges. Instead, we used a call-and-response procedure in which certain issues or ‘provocations’ were posted by selected members with the expectation that the other participants would respond — to which, in turn, the initial members would again answer and so on – all this occurring under a background of commonly agreed work scope, premises, terminology, roles, and process. The ‘improvisational Delphi’ method was used during the period between the conference calls that gathered all of us in real-time. When such meetings took place, we all engaged in a committed and direct dialogue where ideas, misunderstandings, agreements and disagreements, and spontaneous insights could be openly brought up, discussed, gauged, and decided. While we recognized that this methodology had limitations, we adopted it based on the small number of members in our committee and the pilot nature of our study. If this effort proves successful, a follow-up investigation would have to include a systematic gathering and/or testing of our findings, categories, and conclusions. More specifically, the TA Committee operated thus:

  1. Two members of the committee (Ardalan and Bermudez) worked as facilitators and leading agents of the exchanges; 
  2. E-mails and other postings were used for asynchronous communication while live meetings took place virtually over Skype;
  3. Documents were collaboratively produced by Ardalan and Bermudez and circulated between and prior to the e-meetings. These papers could contain (a) ideas or arguments elaborated by the facilitators, (b) minutes and/or summary of the live exchanges, and/or (c) edited composites of asynchronous input from all the participants;
  4. E-meetings lasted one hour and occurred at strategically defined times.

We devoted the first three months of work to establish the scope of our work, its focus, terminology, ‘deliverables,’ the method to deploy, and a schedule. This was the hardest part of our collaborative enterprise. Once this groundwork was accomplished, everything followed much smoother although still with a healthy level of discussion. Our twelve-month investigation was roughly structured in four three-month phases:

  • Phase 1- Work Scope, Procedural/Methodological Decisions, Terminology, Concept Formation, Deliverables, and Schedule: June 1 to September 30, 2013;
  • Phase 2- Selection and Analysis of Case Studies, Building of Preliminary Matrix of Research Findings: October 1 to December 31, 2013;
  • Phase 3- Interpretation, Synthesis, and Summary Conclusions: January 1 to March 31, 2014;
  • Phase 4- Final Draft developed into a Paper and presentation at the ACSF 6th Symposium in Toronto: April 1 to June 5, 2014.

Following is a summary of the work produced and the rationale behind it. Before moving on, a word of caution is necessary. 

Acknowledgment and Warning

We are submitting this work to the ACSF membership in great humility as we realize that it is far from perfect or final. Rather, we see this contribution as being preliminary and in need of much more thought, study, participation, criticism, and debate. In this sense, we hope that this pilot study sparks conversation, understanding, and its continuation. 

3. DEFINITIONS OF TERMS AND SCOPE OF RESEARCH 

Since our committee was name after TA or “Transcendent Architecture,” we considered it necessary to clarify its meaning briefly. Starting with ‘architecture,’ we agreed to continue to use the Forum’s existing interpretation of architecture as referring to the built environment at any scale, including buildings, landscape architecture, urban design and planning, interior architecture and design, the visual, environmental and performing arts, etc.

Regarding the word ‘transcendent,’ we concurred that while ACSF is distinctively recognized by seeking, studying, or trying to advance the transcendent dimension of the built environment, the meaning of the term is not limited to sacred or religious interpretations. ACSF also considers works, practices, and theories that transcend the mundane, the social, and the professional without referring to a divinity. For there are at least three ways in which architecture may pursue the transcendent (Bermudez, ‘Transcending Architecture,’ CUA Press, 2015):

  1. Symbolically (semiotics), ritually (behaviorally), or experientially (phenomenology), as is the case with sacred buildings and landscapes, but also with beautiful or contemplative lay architecture. This deals with aesthetic considerations; 
  2. Supporting services, practices, and realizations that advance a transcendent cause (e.g., human dignity, health and wellbeing, all life, ecological environment, etc.). This deals with ethical considerations; and
  3. Engaging in practices and/or results that go well beyond cultural, social, or professional conventions. 

The TAC decided to focus not on a particular way in which architecture could afford transcendence but on the actual work, the conditions that support transcendence in architecture, and practices that propitiate access to such realm.

We spent a great deal of time (4+ weeks) debating the scope of our work. While at first we thought that the task given to us by the ACSF membership was to develop (a) a large vision and objectives to guide the next 10 years of the Forum and/or (b) some overarching system to organize and critique the state-of-the-art of ACSF knowledge, it became clear that such goals were too ambitious, complex, and beyond the capacity, time-availability, or interest of the TAC. Instead, we decided that a more humble but possibly more productive path would be to explore, find, and debate clues, rules, or characteristics that are present in most Transcendent Architecture. If we could develop a list of traits, features, or conditions shared by such designed environments, we could facilitate their study and, perhaps, replication. Additionally, we felt that while ACSF scholarship touches on such matters, it usually fails (or consciously avoids) to provide any kind of concrete design heuristics. This makes much of the existing work unreachable, impractical, or of little interest to many people. We thought that our effort in this direction could establish healthy links between practice and scholarship that could be exploited in many ways later on. Since all of us on the TAC are designers, this path was particularly attractive. Lastly, we saw this committee work opening the way, if successful, for other future efforts, which may include more ambitious goals.

Once we reached consensus in the scope of the work, the TAC rapidly agreed that the best way to discover architectural conditions and practices facilitating access to the Transcendent was to extract them from a good number of architectural examples that have fruitfully accomplished the feat (i.e., using an inductive process). In other words, our research framework was to employ a case study methodology. 

Next, the TAC established the concrete procedures, expectations and terminology governing its study. The effort was going to unfold around three components: Works, Conditions, and Practices. 

Works

The case studies had to be ‘works’ of contemporary architects noted for their sublime attributes; that is, their capacity to seek, induce or present the Transcendent. The architects had to be chosen from the list of Transcendent Architects developed at the ACSF 5 Symposium in Glastonbury Abbey (Appendix 1). Each committee member was to select two or three architects/designers and then pick two to four of their works for the study. There was no prescription as to how to conduct the analysis, only that any claim or conclusion had to allow for cross-checking (i.e., ‘verification’) by any fair observer/visitor to the actual work (i.e., empirically) and/or reference to the published literature (i.e., scholarship, research). We also had no limit or specification on the types of projects or how the spaces of these structures were used or inhabited. For example, some are religiously based, while others include spaces that are art or for art, habitation, and health uses. Table 1 shows the 12 selected architects and the 26 works chosen for the research study by the TAC members.

Table 1: Architects and works selected by TAC members for analysis

Conditions

‘Conditions’ were defined as those fundamental architectural attributes, features, or characteristics that were found to play an essential role in expressing and/or giving people access to the Transcendent. While these conditions had a level of abstraction they were not the ‘concepts,’ ‘ideas,’ ‘meanings,’ or ‘intentions’ behind the projects. Rather, these conditions came out of being a generalizable set of concrete, perceivable architectural features or circumstances. A ‘condition’ was to be accompanied by a short description of what it was meant (say 1-2 sentences), such as “Monolithic Materiality: use of few materials in large areas and/or continuous fashion with few (but great) details;” or “Spatial Emptiness: uncluttered, unobstructed, unoccupied extensions of space.” These conditions had to be the results or outcomes of the analysis of a case study and literature review of the project or about the architect/designer and not based on preconception, belief, or a-priori hypothesis.

Practices

The TAC defined ‘Practices’ as the techniques/strategies/procedures/rituals deployed by (1) an architect/designer in order to induce a frame of mind conducive to bringing forth their transcendent works; or (2) an individual to facilitate their engagement to something transcendent. While both types of practices basically prepare a person to access some transcendent state, the focus of the former is on the ‘production’ or ‘making’ of something that will, if built and successful, permit others to experience the ineffable. In contrast, the goal of the latter practices is to ready oneself to ‘receive’ or ‘experience’ the environment already built. While it is tempting to characterize the first practices as active and the second as passive, such understanding would be dangerously flawed as true reception, like sincere listening, demands quite an active engagement of a person. Nevertheless, it is clear that there are differences between these two modes of practice, something acknowledged by other people such as John Dewey (see his two main modes of aesthetic experiences: doing and undergoing) and Martin Heidegger (i.e., his two dimensions of building dwelling: ‘fixing dwelling and letting dwelling happen’).

4. CONDITIONS OF TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE

Findings: Comparative Matrix

TAC members were given six weeks to finish their case studies. Each participant produced a document that included the most representative images of the works being analyzed along with basic data and his/her observations, arguments, analysis, and conclusions. Appendix 2 contains this record. Procedurally, these 5 documents with their preliminary findings were first shared for full committee discussion. Following and using these documents and the feedback they received, Ardalan and Bermudez did a comparative analysis among all the reported conditions seeking common ground or clustering. The interpretive difficulty was not only to find commonality among various notations, attributes, circumstances, observations, and characteristics defined as ‘conditions’ but also to select the right label that could embrace and define a particular set of them.  This effort led to building a matrix that summarized the specific and common conditions among all 26 case studies. This matrix was then circulated for comments and changes asynchronously to all committee members, revised upon their feedback, sent again, and then discussed and further adjusted in an e-meeting with the participation of all TAC members. Table 2 shows the Matrix organized vertically by the case studies and horizontally along the 14 conditions found (ordered in alphabetical order). 

(see higher resolution image here)

Table 2: Matrix of Research Findings. Conditions are organized horizontally in alphabetical order.

From the Matrix (Table 2), we summarize the 14 conditions found to induce or propitiate Transcendent Architecture in alphabetical order:

Context; Cosmos/Nature; Hidden/Manifest Experience; Light; Luminous Program; Materiality/Tectonics; Mathematics (Geometry); Motion (Access, Ritual, Path); Ontological Axis; Scale; Sound; Space/Form; Time; Unity.

Upon reviewing this result, the TAC pondered how to interpret and comprehend the 14 categories. Were these ‘Conditions’? Would clustering of these 14 categories into affinity groupings that showed common ground be a fruitful next step to define ‘Conditions’? Could the categories be organized into ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Conditions for achieving a Transcendent Architecture? We also considered that it would be perfectly fine should we sense that neither common ground nor any other groupings are needed, and these could stand and be regarded as of equal importance. However, we felt that it would be instructive for the rigor of our research if one might elaborate further on the basis of such decisions. 

Although the TAC did not like the term ‘conditions’ per-se, other possibilities were less palatable (such as ‘principles,’ ‘attributes,’ ‘features,’ ‘indicators’). By ‘conditions’ we use a similar but softer version of Webster’s dictionary meaning: “something essential to the appearance or occurrence of something else: prerequisite.” By ‘softer’, we mean that not every one of these conditions must be present for Transcendent Architecture to occur. We did agree, however, that while it would be inappropriate to define how many of these conditions need to be present for the Transcendent to manifest in architecture; it is likely that a few must be available as the matrix suggests – most case studies register several active conditions. It is also apparent from the matrix that some conditions tend to be more prevalent than others (e.g., light, materiality, form/space, experience, context).

After further reflections, the TAC migrated to seeing these conditions of Transcendent Architecture as ‘beacons’ or ‘attractors’ (from Chaos Theory) that may (1) guide design efforts toward Transcendent Architecture, (2) empirically indicate its presence, and/or (3) nudge dwellers/visitors into experiencing it. This interpretation had particular appeal to our scientific sense.

Disciplinary Precedents

Before moving any further, we decided to do a quick check with the historical literature of our discipline for architectural conditions, principles, rules, or characteristics that have been found to either describe or lead, if not literally, to a sense of transcendence in outstanding architectural works. Following is a summary of such considerations. 

The earliest known explorations on the principles and guidelines for town planning and architectural design can be attributed to Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (De Architectura: The Ten Books on Architecture) in the First Century BC. He viewed Architecture as imitation of nature and mandated the classic Vitruvian Triad of architecture to be structured upon FIRMITAS, UTILITAS, VENUSTAS (Firmness, Commodity, and Delight). This was followed by the Italian architects, Leon Battista Alberti (De re Aedificatoria: Ten Books on the Art of Building) in 1452 and Andrea Palladio (Four Books on Architecture) in 1570, who re-discovered Vitruvius and postulated that the highest architecture should be as an imitation of nature – based upon mathematics, geometry and harmonic proportions of the Golden Mean. “The work of art is,” according to Alberti, “so constructed that it is impossible to take anything away from it or add anything to it, without impairing the beauty of the whole.” Considering Vitruvius’ three principles, we can see how many of our 14 conditions align most closely to Venustas (Space/Form, Scale, Hidden/Manifest Experience, Light, Sound, Time) although some do with Firmitas (Materiality/Tectonics) and Utilitas (Luminous Program, Motion) with several applying to all three at once (e.g., Mathematics, Context, Cosmos/Nature, Unity)

At the turn of the 20th century Austrian philosophersocial reformerarchitect, Rudolf Steiner, nurtured the perception that the world is essentially an indivisible unity, but that our consciousness divides it into two complementary views of the sense-perceptible appearance, on the one hand, and the formal nature accessible to our thinking, on the other. Beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, the movement arts (developing a new artistic form, eurythmy), and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural center to house all the arts. Steiner’s approach influenced some of the key architects of the time. One such architect was Frank Lloyd Wright, whose main principle of architectural design was that a building must be in harmony with humanity and its natural environment. In 1914 Wright wrote: “We reach for the light spiritually, as the plant does physically”. The Swiss/French Architect Le Corbusier in his book Modulor but also built work demonstrated that architectural harmony and proportion are at the center of his design philosophy, and his faith in the mathematical order of the universe was closely bound to the golden section and the Fibonacci series. Le Corbusier’s concept of ‘ineffable space’ as the highest plastic experience gained when one aligns oneself with the cosmos via architecture clearly relates to the most esoteric conditions we have found (e.g., ontological axis, manifest/hidden experience).

We see overlaps between the 14 conditions we found and the insights advanced by three contemporary theoreticians of architecture. First we turn to Christopher Alexander, who states that “there is one timeless way of building, . . . it is thousands of years old [yet] . . . it is the same today as it has always been”. “Timeless Architecture has deep ties between the nature of matter, human perception of the universe, and the geometries people construct in buildings, cities, and artifacts, and has a crucial link between traditional beliefs and recent scientific advances.” He considered certain subtle qualities to be the root criterion of life and spirit in a living creature, town, building or space. And mentioned that these qualities are believed to be “subtle, yet is capable of making a building divine. In essence it is more than once summarized by a sense of ‘sacredness’ and sometimes ‘timelessness’.” In spite of the fact that many architects, theorists, and critics attempted to reach a solid definition or understanding of this specific quality, they were mostly only able to identify patterns, criteria, and some attributes that indicate the presence of this quality in a certain space or a building. Our paper summarizes a different approach seeking to unpack such ‘quality without a name’ (as Alexander termed it). 

Next is Michael Benedikt’s four simple but profound ‘components’ that, according to him, real (i.e., good, timeless) architecture should successfully address. Presence, Significance, Materiality, Emptiness #1(suchness) and Emptiness #2 (potentiality). While these four (or five if we accept the latter as two) components overlap with some of our 14 Conditions, there are no one-to-one correlations. The issue is, however, that they are all pointing in the same direction and, in their agreement affirm the reality (using Benedikt’s point) of what we are discussing: accessing the Transcendent through architecture. Similarly, we find Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa’s tireless teaching of the existential and spiritual foundations of architecture and how to abide by them quite in accordance with the Conditions for Transcendent architecture we found. Going through his extensive publication record we read his persistent request that we pay attention to the role that materiality/tectonics, silence, light and shadow, beauty, emotions, embodiment and perception, memory, and egolessness play in the profound experience and making of buildings. 

In addition to these precedents, we briefly considered the possible relationship between our 14 Conditions and the neuroscience research presented by Julio Bermudez and Allan Logan in the Urbanism, Spirituality & Well-Being Symposium that we held at Harvard in June 2013. Since the brain has different zones that receive and react to different stimulations (sight, hearing, haptic, tactile, spatial; olfactory, emotional, symbolic, etc.), it is only natural to speculate that our ‘Transcendent Conditions’ might have some relation to how the brain functions, receives stimuli and impacts human consciousness. Therefore; as one way forward and with further work; it might be possible to group these 14 Conditions according to neural regions and/or establish neural correlates of this or that experiential outcome. The idea that one or very few particular brain areas may be ‘turned’ on so much that it/they may start a transcendent experience is an intriguing one. Bermudez’ neuroscience studies supports the possibility of such a hypothesis and, at the same time, the ultimate result of a brain in a transcendent state induced through architecture: little frontal lobe operation and massive deactivation of a very large number of neural centers associated with it but not of areas related to embodiment; sensorial integration; visuality; and emotionality. While this may at first seem to contradict common sense, those that have experienced the transcendent through architecture (or other means such as meditation) know that there is no ego/thinking/evaluation left and that ordinary body, emotional, and intellectual functioning cease. This is backed by much of contemporary research in a field that has been termed contemplative neuroscience. Perhaps, as Dr. Thomas D. Albright, President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, has observed: 

“Good architects have lots of intuitions; and that’s why good architecture works. Our hope is that we can identify principles backing up those intuitions that are more deeply rooted in knowledge about how the brain works. We’d like to be able to identify, for example, what particular elements would give you a better space for learning.”

While we see that our list of Conditions finds some support in the disciplinary literature and contemporary scientific research, we are fully aware that our sampling (26 contemporary buildings by 12 architects) is far from being sufficient to make any sweeping claim. Likewise, our methodology is by no means scientifically tight. But since we see this work as an in-progress list that may be further studied and developed, we find this effort worthwhile enough to share with the ACSF community and beyond. It will hopefully invite conversation and continuation. 

Interpretations

The TAC did not want to conclude its deliberations without trying to offer a round of interpretations to the findings displayed in Table 2 (Matrix). Following are two such efforts, each one taking a very different (but at time complementary) perspective. We labeled them the horizontal and vertical (Ontological) interpretations.

Vertical (Ontological) Interpretation

This understanding of the 14 conditions of Transcendent Architecture uses a well-known format of progressive higher stages of development or being (and found in most metaphysical/Platonic traditions). The hierarchy is from the most manifest/measurable to the most hidden/unmeasurable. The totality model provides the conditions for an ultimate sense of unity within the multiplicity of architectural expression.

Figure 2: Vertical (Ontological) Interpretation of 14 Conditions of Transcendent Architecture

Horizontal Interpretation

This interpretation takes a more immanent and empirical approach to clustering the 14 conditions. Some larger or super-categories are hypothesized in order to cover the most fundamental and general conditions for TA.

Table 3: Horizontal Interpretation of 14 Conditions for Transcendent Architecture

  • Sensual Conditions: Tectonics/Materiality are in direct and inevitable relation with Light, without which they couldn’t be fully appreciated. However, this dimension through its tactile, haptic, and other sensual qualities also bring the non-visual nature of architecture into full consideration.
  • Formal-Spatial Conditions: space-form, geometry (proportion, mathematical order) and scale are an inseparable set. How can we think of Space/Form without thinking of geometrical order and scale of some type? It is important here to mention that a super-category would bring the measurable and sensual conditions along with the formal-spatial conditions for what could be best called the ‘Aesthetic Conditions’ of Transcendent Architecture.
  • Programmatic Conditions cluster Luminous Program and Motion (access, ritual, and path) and basically deal with what is happening within and in proximity to the building.
  • Temporal Conditions address anything that involves duration, such as sound and time itself. A super-category, ‘Living Conditions,’ seeks to recognize the unfolding and human-related nature of these conditions.
  • Connectedness Conditions bring attention to the myriad ways that architecture must relate to its physical and metaphysical environment: Context (immediate site), Cosmos/Nature (larger scale), and Ontological Axis (relation between measurable and immeasurable)
  • Holistic Conditions puts together the most phenomenological yet profound effect of TA: the sense of Unity and the Experience of the Hidden/Manifest.

5. PRACTICES FOSTERING TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE

Practices for Producing Transcendent Architecture

The TAC did not conduct any kind of scholarly study on how architects’/designers’ practices enabled them to, arguably, deliver buildings that may be considered Transcendent Architecture. The following considerations are based solely on what we already presumed to ‘know’ or found out about the architects that we investigated while doing our analysis of their works. Further investigation is surely needed to develop this matter in any significant way. Still, we believe that opening the dialogue of a possible relationship between a particular type of practice and resulting transcendent architecture is important and consistent with the job of our committee.

Following on this premise, our analysis of transcendent works of several architects in search for conditions propitiating sublime architecture (first half of this paper), allows us to make several observations as to how these individuals may have readied themselves to attain such remarkable results. In the case of Louis Kahn, he points out

“The way I do things is private really; …intuition is your most exacting sense. It is the most reliable sense; …Turn to feeling and away from thought. In feeling is the psyche. …The sanctuary of art – and what nature gives us is the instrument of expression which we all know as ourselves – which is like the instrument upon which the songs of the soul can be played… All institutions must commence with a firm understanding of the existence-will of that institution… What it wants to be.”

Another of the architects studied, Moshe Safdie, points at a different type of practice that works to get him in the spirit of making transcendent architecture. He says:

Walking and sketching the site to understand from first impressions its qualities; discovering the aspirations of the program…Physical involvement with the design concept by sketching it, building its model at different scale and through different media… Dreaming about the project while swimming, flying long distance flights, relaxing.”

Moving to artist James Turrell and architects Peter Zumthor and Alberto Campo Baeza, we can point at their intention to make the visitor enter into a contemplative state conducive to the transcendent — a sense of divinity that at least Turrell and Campo-Baeza do profess and practice in their professional and personal life —as they publically acknowledged in many publications, interviews, and lectures. And while, Peter Zumthor is not as forthcoming in terms of his spiritual tradition as Turrell (Quakerism) or Campo Baeza (Catholicism) are, his writings lead to discern a practice with similar values to those of Turrell and Campo Baeza’s, such as returning, relating and appreciating life and the world as they are through relationships that are direct, intimate and open. 

Not far is Aldo Van Eyck whose practice attacked ‘functionalism’ in favor of ‘humanism’ in architecture. His ideas included identity and reciprocity, twin phenomena, realm of the in-between, and place and occasion —each of which contributed to his sense of secular sacredness. Erik Asmussen, who studied with Rudolf Steiner and practiced “Anthroposophy” with many of his sacred design principles, including what was called ‘organic functionalism,’ brings yet another type of spiritual training geared to make transcendent architecture. When considering Geoffrey Bawa and Carlo Scarpa, we realized that while neither of them wrote or talked much about their work (or ever sought to project any theory of architecture), both did follow unconventional entries into the profession. Such unorthodox practices led them to follow a highly personalized path of inquiry rather than an easy acceptance of axioms, conventions, and jargon that are established in the profession and society. In this sense, they engaged in a quest for intuitive and tacit personal mastery that was introspective and based on learning through doing. The result of such practice, their architecture, was one grounded on presence that referred to nothing beyond itself, one that privileged experience over interpretation. 

Lastly, our observations regarding Luis Barragán, Sigurd Lewerntz, and Alvaro Siza may be understood through the many messages they wrote, or the words written by others. They use poetics, philosophical reasoning, religion and the notion of solitude to describe their design intentions, or their methods for designing. In his 1980 Pritzker Architecture Prize address, Luis Barragán references being a Catholic and his interest in monastic spaces and what they allow as well as the importance of beauty in enabling the transcendent to be sensed. “We have worked and hope to continue to work inspired by the faith that the aesthetic truth of these ideas will in some measure contribute toward dignifying human existence.” He also writes: “It is impossible to understand art and the glory of its history without avowing religious spirituality and the mythical roots that lead us to the very raison d’etre of the artistic phenomenon,” and finally, “Solitude. Only in intimate communion with solitude may man find himself. Solitude is good company and my architecture is not for those who fear or shun it.” Jose Maria Buendia Julbez, in his essay “The Spirit of Place,” emphasizes Barragán’s beliefs from the 1960’s: “All architecture that does not express serenity is not fulfilling its spiritual purpose.” Alvaro Siza has written about architecture over many years, and his observations relate to the critique of places. He says, “I am a conservative and a traditionalist, that is to say, I move between conflicts, compromises, hybridization, transformation.” In Siza’s writings, he continually urges that there is a need to draw and that text must have meaning. Finally, Colin St. John Wilson writes in regard to Lewerentz’s St. Peter’s Church, that his handling of light deepens the quality of the unfathomable and the use of metaphor employed. Wilson explains that Lewerentz stated in a rare moment of explanation, “that subdued light was enriching precisely in the degree to which the nature of the space has to be reached for, emerging only in response to exploration. This slow taking possession of space (the way it gradually becomes yours) promotes that fusion of privacy in the sharing of a common ritual that is the essence of the numinous.”

Historical Traditions

In reviewing the general findings of the committee related to the issue of Practice, as related to the study of the personal qualities and practices of architects that had achieved a high level of transcendence in their works, we were also reminded of the historic traditions of various world cultures and religions that created formal institutions that nurtured and trained individuals to follow specific practices that would enable their art and architecture to possess a transcendent quality.

In the Sufi Traditions of the Islamic world, the practice of Adab, literally meaning etiquette or moral conduct, in many ways, imbued those qualities in a human being, and those observed in an architecture of sublime qualities seemed to echo similar themes. One of the early books that described Adab was The Way of Sufi Chivalry compiled by the 11th century Sufi Muhammad Ibn Husayn Al-Sulami. Here the superior qualities of character were described that would be reflected in an inner purity that would be made manifest in an outer life of simplicity and authenticity. A key principle was never to lapse into forgetfulness – this attitude of attentive remembrance of our essential context of ontological beings at the highest scale of consciousness or on the more mundane level. It implies to be mindful so that we correctly express the origins of the materiality of our mortal existence or the built forms around us.

This code of behavior acts as a reminder to develop positive character traits in our work and inner self, such as humility, generosity, and elevated thinking. It is interesting to note that a distinction was made between those who were Ahl-I Futuwwat (Arabic meaning “Followers of Chivalry”) and the full-time practitioners of Sufism, who devoted their entire lives to their Master (Pir), lived in the Khanagahs, performed the ritual Sama, and engaged in the more intellectually philosophical and spiritually elevated pursuits of Sufism. These “Followers of Chivalry” were not necessarily initiated Sufis, but more lay persons engaged in craft and trade guilds that were involved with the ethical code of Jawanmardi (Persian) and Futuwwah (Arabic from Fata), in their everyday lives. They tended to be master carpenters, masons, plasters, tile makers and gardeners-in fact, the very craft guilds pertinent to architectural and paradise garden creations were members of the “Followers of Chivalry.” The Futuwwat Nameh of the 15th c. by Khasaf describes in great detail their character traits and discussed in one part the acceptable trades to be worthy of admittance to these guilds, such as the trade of persons in the profession involved with the use of implements with a hand grip. The well-known 14th century traveler Ibn Battuta observed Ahl-I Futuwwat guilds in Turkey and praised their strength of character, high morals and artistic quality of their craft.

The manifest expression of these guilds attests to the real nobility of the human spirit and of the mandate for expressions in built form, which entails a journey away from the world of ego and the lower nature to a life lived from the deeper, more profound qualities of the soul. It involves a transformation in an inner alchemical process that turns the lead of their own ‘darkness into the gold’ of their true selves.

There is a long tradition in Zen Buddhism regarding the ‘way of the warrior’ that finds many points of affinity with the idea and practice of chivalry. The ‘way of the warrior’ does not mean to engage in bloody or violent endeavors but rather points through analogy and metaphor to the determination, courage, commitment, honor, tirelessness, loyalty, principled, and selfless pursuit of something bigger and well beyond the practitioner himself. This worldview and practice pervaded much of traditional Japanese life in various fields of endeavor, from martial arts to art and architecture. The search for liberation in Zen Buddhism (enlightenment) is one that demands everything from the practitioner and yet offers nothing material in exchange, not unlike what happens on the battlefield. In fact, some great Zen masters like Suzuki Shozan (1579–1655) were themselves Japanese samurais in their youth and brought what they had learned from such practices into the teaching of Zen. It is partially because of this tradition that much Zen training refers back to such warrior attitude, particularly in the Rinzai (Koan-based practice) tradition but something that extended, eventually, to Soto Zen as well. Here, the sense of chivalry does refer to a code of ethics, behaviors, and attitudes (called ‘bushido’ in old Japan and often translated as ‘knightly ways’) that certainly cannot be thought of as ‘gentle’ or ‘kind’ but rather as a fearless, vigorous, practical, urgent yet equanimous moment-to-moment ‘battle’ to wake up to the ‘Transcendent’ (although Zen Buddhism would never use the ‘T’ word), and thus liberate oneself and all beings from the grip of suffering. The ‘warrior’s way’ (and Zen in general) is practiced through a non-intellectual, non-egocentric, spontaneous, intuitive, direct, simple, and concrete (here and now) engagement of reality.

The extension of this dimension of Zen thinking in the metaphysical view is to the idea of “Nothingness” (mu), which is the non-articulated whole that is considered as the sole reality, while the articulated is called “being” (yu or u). In the Zen aesthetic Way (gei-doh), the supreme value of Nothingness finds its own reflection as an expressed image in the representation of Nothingness (i.e., the non-articulated whole as something pure and immaculate) as the supreme Beauty in a state “prior to its being smeared and polluted with “being.” The art of Noh play, Haiku poetry, or the design and construction of the traditional tea house by an architect and craftsmen are typical genres of this aesthetic practice. And, at its core, this practice is one of contemplating essential “Nothingness” through which a glimpse of “Everythingness” might be achieved by both the practitioner and the viewer.

In the West, we know the chivalric code as the traditional code of conduct associated with the medieval institution of knighthood. Chivalry underwent a revival and elaboration of chivalric ceremonial and rules of etiquette in the fourteenth century that was examined by Johan Huizinga, in The Waning of the Middle in which he dedicates a full chapter to “The idea of chivalry.” In contrasting the literary standards of chivalry with the actual warfare of the age, the historian finds the imitation of an ideal past illusory; in an aristocratic culture such as Burgundy and France at the close of the Middle Ages, “to be representative of true culture means to produce by conduct, by customs, by manners, by costume, by deportment, the illusion of a heroic being, full of dignity and honor, of wisdom, and, at all events, of courtesy … The dream of past perfection ennobles life and its forms, fills them with beauty and fashions them anew as forms of art.”

There is considerable controversy on the subject of the historic origins of Freemasonry and its relationship with the traditional craft guilds and Architecture, but it is a fraternal organization that, within its own legends, traces its origins to the local fraternities of stonemasons in Europe, which from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of masons and their interaction with authorities and clients. The list of acclaimed architects who were Freemasons is long and includes such notables as Sir Christopher Wren, etc.

In the 19th century, there were attempts to “revive” chivalry for the purposes of the gentleman of that time. Kenelm Henry Digby wrote his The Broad-Stone of Honour for this purpose, offering the definition: “Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.”

It is in states of remembrance, when the heart is spiritually awakened, that the proper attitude and time to effect acts of transcendence in architecture arises. The path is full of distractions and pitfalls, but with that inner light of truth, the Transcendent Architecture Chevalier, as we might call such a person, can practice watchfulness through his ritual contemplative practices. However, we need to observe that we live in a contemporary cultural milieu that does not necessarily support these values butseeks to pull us further into forgetfulness instead. That is why we need the company of friends, such as our colleagues in ACSF, those who share the qualities of the heart, whose chivalry assists us on our journey as human beings and as guardians of the Transcendence in Architecture.

Practices for Receiving Transcendent Architecture

The TAC also considered the other dimension of Practice, namely, how an individual may prepare him or herself to be more receptive to identifying or ‘feeling’ architecture—a designed work, as transcendent. We decided that each committee member would offer two practices (ideally without overlap to what other committee members selected) that they have used to prepare themselves to receive a transcending experience of architecture. Table 4 summarizes the entries. Following the table, there is a short synopsis of the essentials behind each practice listed.

Table 4: Practices facilitating the reception of Transcendent Architecture. We are including Maged Senbel’s entries even though he was unable to develop them. Still, the TAC was able to develop one of them, Prayer, which is included. We leave the remaining one (i.e., Fasting) for a later date.

Drawing

Sketching architecture provides us with an opportunity to slow down, return, focus, and appreciate our world and our lives. Quite simply: in order to draw a place well, we must truly experience it. We have to stop, stay, and fully and openly engage it as it is. In other words, we must establish a relationship that is direct, intimate, and voluntarily innocent. This means nothing less than to be present. For drawing never happens in the future or the past. Any moving away from the here and now results in a noticeable depreciation of the work.

Sketching is thus fundamentally a practice of being present. It teaches us to dwell in the perfection of the moment mindfully. A moment that is not just objective but also irremediably subjective. And, when done wholeheartedly, such practice offers us the potential for profound, sublime, and transcendental insights. Sketching is an act of meditation. 

Meditation

Meditation is an experiential state of sustained mental concentration or spacious awareness of the present-moment conditions that is facilitated by a significant reduction of cognitive, emotional, or sensorial disruption (e.g., mind-wandering). It is often associated with an open, inquisitive, non-elaborative and non-judgmental attitude. Given this definition and the context of this study, meditation is considered as belonging to the same class of psychological states as mindfulness and contemplation.

There is a rich diversity of methods and approaches for entering a meditative state that have been discovered and developed throughout the ages. However, depending on the directionality of attention, we find only two types: (1) internally-induced and self-focused contemplation, that utilizes inner or subjective conditions as its driver (e.g., counting breaths, mental visualization, prayer, mantras, thought witnessing), and (2) externally-induced and non-self-oriented contemplation that directs awareness towards outer or objective conditions (e.g., images, artifacts, natural or human environment, social situations). These two types approximate the two directionalities of human cognition: stimulus-independent dealing with metal/intrapersonal events, and stimulus-oriented addressing perceptual-extrapersonal targets. While meditation types (1) and (2) may share the general characteristics described above, they surely have differences. This distinction is important as it tells us that (a) an individual may prepare him/herself to meet reality through their own volitive practice (allowing a mindful relation with the present situation, in our case architecture) and (b) architecture itself may be utilized to facilitate a person’s entry into a meditative state. 

Sadhana 

In the Hindi tradition of Sadhana (literally meaning “Practice”), we encounter a code of behavior conducive to transcendent states. Sadhana is not just any practice; it must be an ego-transcending practice. The reason for transcending ego is that Sadhana is a way of connecting with realities that are greater than oneself. The intellectual mind is a product of ego and is thus confined to what the ego can perceive. In other words, one can only intellectually comprehend a reality that is smaller than oneself. To comprehend something that is greater than yourself, you must reduce it to a level of abstraction that makes it smaller than you, which sanitizes all the meaning and experiential richness out of what you are seeking. Sadhana is really a way of awakening your recognition of this greater reality. 

Finally, Sadhana is not done for personal benefit but is done to invoke one’s destiny, which is to achieve unity and harmony with this greater reality. The actual practice of Sadhana can take many forms: meditation, prayer, musical practice, sketching, or reading can all be forms of Sadhana. Whatever form it takes, it is essential to do it with rigor and continuity over time, ego-transcending surrender, concentration, and heightened awareness. To sustain this process, the guidance of a guru is usually necessary. Progress in Sadhana is achieved experientially rather than intellectually. Spending time in Sadhana makes you aware of the subtle dimensions of the reality you are exploring. Epiphany eventually occurs through an appreciation of the exactitude of the subtlest dimensions, for at that point, the unity of the grand and the subtle (the pervasiveness of the sacred) is understood. As the Poet Kabir says:

Drop falling in the ocean —
everyone knows.
Ocean absorbed in the drop —
a rare one knows.

Conversation

One tends to think that the development of an idea proceeds along a logical sequence. That is not the case: ideas develop through conversations. Take, for example, the relationship between theory and practice. A conventional interpretation is that one constructs a theory and then applies it in practice. Which implies that practice is just applied theory, or practice logically derives from theory. But in actuality the relationship between practice and theory is far more complex. The two approach the same territory from different directions: one seeks analysis and the other synthesis. They work best when they resist each other: practice is a way of critiquing theory, and theory is a way of critiquing practice. In other words, they need to converse. We have tended to separate them into segregated spaces: theory into academia and practice into design firms. We need more spaces where the two are co-located so that they are forced into conversation with each other.

Conversations do not necessarily need to be between multiple people. A solitary individual can also indulge in conversation. Take the activity of sketching, for example. I may be a person who thinks a lot about architecture, but at the moment of sketching, every line is never a product of analysis. At the moment of sketching, the thinking recedes into the background, and my sketch is produced by a tacit and intuitive relationship between hand, eye, pencil, and paper. Then I may pause in my sketching, put down my pencil, lean back, and examine the sketch in order to evaluate or critique what I have done. The thinking now returns. And then I pick up my pencil and begin to sketch again. What I am doing in this process is creating a space where a conversation can develop between my sketch and me. The sketch becomes a form of notation by which I can put my ideas and dreams outside myself in order to converse with them.

Conversation is also necessary with material. Take wood for instance: to really work with wood I should know its intrinsic nature as a material, how it cuts along the grain versus against the grain, the density and color of different woods, etc. Just like I need to spend time with a person in order to know him/her, I need to spend time with wood in order to know the material well. I need to touch it, smell it, polish it, know what it is like to cut it, join it, and so on. A skilled carpenter gets to know wood so well that it becomes an extension of the carpenter’s body.

So rather than being preoccupied with what ideas we need, it is better to first ask what kind of conversations we need. With whom and with what should we have these conversations? What kind of spaces do we need for these conversations?

Prayer

We define prayer as an act of communication directed to a transpersonal realm that may include one or several divinities, supernatural forces, etc. While this definition accepts a long list of wide-ranging practices, we will argue that, regardless of type, praying generates an integrated operation of body, heart, and mind that might best be described as ‘contemplative.’ This by no means implies silence, immobility, or privacy but rather a phenomenology characterized by high levels of attention, openness, sincerity, and eagerness. Indeed, once a contemplative state is set in, prayer will most likely follow and vice-versa. In other words, prayer and contemplation are closely related, although the former is associated with dialogical, devotional, and/or narrative-directed practices, whereas the latter is with psychological states of concentrated consideration, observation, reflection, or just awareness. 

Engaging in prayer prior to or during the experience of architecture is likely to establish a psychophysical framework of attentive and open consideration of what is present, thinning out one’s preconceptions and attitudes. This allows an easier surrendering of one’s projections or expectations to become fully present in the moment one is undergoing. 

Contemplation/Reflection

Is the act of contemplation involuntary or intentional when it comes to approaching a piece of architecture or a designed space or place? To a greater or lesser degree, all places ask us to think deeply, to feel, to view or to consider, with continued attention. At times the depth of concentration becomes a meditation, while we even wrestle with the possible meanings of what we are experiencing. Reflection poses a way to mediate or determine what is needed for contemplation. Careful consideration of architecture and its spaces is, therefore, both a personal and an internal gesture. Yet, reflection may also be understood as an external catalyst—that which is reflected or seen or felt, as if by a mirror, does ask for more concentration and peering in, possibly simultaneously urging an immediate turning away or deflection. Contemplating and reflecting may be seen and felt as meaningful directives and related indicators as well as different states of being for approaching the transcendent.

Ritual

The visitor seeks to understand and become involved in architecture and in its spaces. We look for clues to decipher. We may intuitively understand the need to initiate a kind of ritual to learn about the place and become involved in it; at the same time, the place may require partaking or participating in ritual. Did the designer intend this? The Free Dictionary online defines ritual as an act or series of acts regularly repeated in a set precise manner, as with a formal ceremony or series of acts that are always performed in the same way, and as an act or series of acts done in a particular situation and in the same way each time. Perhaps we pause as we approach, we absorb transitions of space, we wait, and then we become aware of light, color, scales, and texture of surfaces. We become aware of the strength of the path we are on, and we are guided by light or by repetition. There is beauty felt in this spatial journey as we become more silent, more focused. At the same time, we may become weightless and even less aware, transformed for the time we are devoted to this place.

Teaching

Practices related to the teaching of Transcendent Architecture, in the first instance, address two important inter-related processes in architectural education – that of the teaching of architectural design and all that entails (context, function, structures, environmental controls, tectonics, form language, representation, etc.), and the teaching of sensibilities toward the sacred in design. The former is naturally at the forefront of design education agendas and organized by NAAB requirements. The latter is rarely formally addressed, and for many students of this subject, it is learned through independent scholarly searches, travel to sacred places, specialized workshops, and with apprenticeships with architects who engage in this kind of work. According to Keith Critchlow, architectural education is generally focused on “contention, polarities and the nature of categorization,” in which naturally integral, unified thinking and experience are less important. 

Observing Nature

Practices related to observing nature generally requires a process that prepares the designer for receptivity, communication, and ultimately what John Steel calls “geomantic clairvoyance” with the natural qualities of a place, which includes the sacred. And according to Belden Lane in his book, “Landscapes of the Sacred,” there are two axioms for sacred places that are relevant in this process. First is that sacred places can be tread upon, but not necessarily entered, and that sacred places choose, we do not choose. This is a difficult concept to grasp given the propensity for a human-centered worldview. Critical in this process is the ability to become “present” with the place in order for correspondence to occur. We can become emplaced, which is informed by the grounding, reaching upward, front and back, and left and right as our human bodies become a tuning fork. Site or place informed design could be enriched with elemental and primordial factors that contribute to transcendence.  

Constructing Transcendent Architecture

Transcendent architectural practices related to construction are influenced by several factors, including the presence of a more mindful craftsmanship in the actual making and of ceremonial participation throughout the construction process. They are both important in creating a seamless connection between sacred intentions and the actual physical manifestation of the work. This suggests that the desire for quality and pride in building and periodic reminders of the sacred intentions are encouraged and reinforced. Groundbreaking ceremonies and eventual occupancy are bookends to ceremonial participation, but can include other important moments in the construction process. Too often, the environment surrounding contemporary construction is plagued with very low conscious behavior, thereby creating a disconnect between higher transcendent intentions and designs and the finished product. The golden thread that unites these steps in project delivery needs constant stewardship and conscious participation. 

6. CLOSING THOUGHTS

At the core of our search have been the questions: What are transcendent creativity and experience? What are the conditions that perpetuate them in architecture? And through what personal practices have they been achieved by those whose works spiritually inspire us as architects and designers? Are there ways to prepare ourselves as observers/visitors to appreciate them? 

These questions are especially urgent now, at the beginning of a 21st century threatened by vast impending global crises, when critical thinking must contend with and challenge the pervading, outdated notions of reality that have brought us to this tipping point. Let us not forget that the current materialist and positivist model of ultimate reality holds that all questions can be answered by means of the scientific method of objective observation and measurement and existence is but a temporary, lifeless group of particles and waves that accidentally created separated human consciousness from isolated material realities. This notion is now being doubted by new paradigms and reinforced by discoveries of ancient wisdom traditions, which contend that our external and internal perceptions are fully intertwined and say that reality is based upon our consciousness which conceives, governs, and generates our perceptions of the physical world.

Repeating what we said earlier, we are presenting this work in great humility as we realize that it is far from perfect or complete. Rather, we see this contribution as being preliminary and in need of much more thought, study, participation, criticism, and debate. In this sense, we hope that this pilot study sparks conversation, understanding, and its continuation. 

7. POSTSCRIPTS: TRANSCENDENT ARCHITECTURE REVISITED (January 2025)

Reflections by Nader Ardalan

We initiated TA Research in 2013 because we wanted to know as a group how the design and experience of the built environment can assist the spiritual development of humanity in addressing the unprecedented challenges facing all planetary existence today. Challenges, including climate change, environmental degradation, the erosion of moral ethics due to material determinism, increasing economic inequality, large migratory pressures and social struggles, and the exponential development of disruptive technologies, must be addressed by new strategies in designing, making, and living harmoniously with our future environments.

We ended the TA research in 2014 with two different diagrammatic interpretations of our research findings – a vertical and a horizontal diagram.

I, Nader Ardalan, drew a Vertical ontological and transcendent diagram, showing the mutually agreed “Fourteen Enabling Conditions” arranged hierarchically in an ascending order from the most materially Manifest to the most materially Hidden and transcendent. 

Figure 2: Vertical (Ontological) Interpretation of 14 Conditions of Transcendent Architecture

Julio Bermudez drew a Horizontal, immanent, and empirical diagram, clustering the same “Fourteen Conditions” thus:

Table 3: Horizontal Interpretation of 14 Conditions for Transcendent Architecture

Since the conclusion of our TA study in 2014, there has been a ‘Decade of Resonance’ based on that research by the authors of this paper and by others who have reviewed, studied, and worked in areas that overlap with the insights and findings of that paper. A few of these explorations have questioned the proposed set of “14 transcendent conditions” that we had identified, but all have affirmed the value and significance of the research quest, its findings, ideas, and discoveries recorded in that original 2014 manuscript. Refer to the footnote for a partial list of such references. 

In this brief Postscript, I will highlight the evident differences and conclusions between an empirical interpretation of reality based upon material, perceptual evidence, and observation versus the understandings reached from an immanent and transcendent insight of what constitutes reality. 

Of course, empiricism is a philosophical view that prioritizes sensory experience and empirical evidence as the main sources of knowledge about the world. Originating in ancient Greece, it gained prominence during the Enlightenment through British philosophers like Locke and Hume. While closely tied to the scientific method and instrumental in advancing world knowledge, this philosophy today dominates the majority of worldviews characterized by material determinism. However, despite its success, empiricism’s focus on sensory data may limit its ability to address broader philosophical questions and existential issues, such as ecological, social, ethical, and psychological challenges facing humanity and the Earth.

On the other hand, Ontological transcendence, metaphysical reality, or non-subjectivist transcendence are terms that refer to a philosophical concept that goes beyond individual subjective experience or consciousness. Non-subjectivist transcendence is primarily concerned with ontology (the nature of being) rather than epistemology (how we know things). It posits the idea of the existence of something that transcends or goes beyond material reality. This transcendent element is not dependent on human perception for its existence. This idea often carries significant metaphysical implications, challenging purely materialistic or physicalist worldviews, yet it is, by far and globally speaking, the minority worldview of reality today. 

A unified comprehensive syncretic worldview integrating empiricism and Ontological transcendence for the 21st century is urgently needed to emerge to show a balanced way forward collectively.

Drawing from five decades of personal exploration across diverse cultural and historical landscapes, the expansive philosophy of Ibn Arabi’s ‘Unity of Being’ (Wahdat al-Wujud) emerges as a potential, significant framework to achieve this goal. Born in the vibrant crucible of 13th-century Andalusia, a period mirroring our own in its need for holistic global solutions, this philosophy intertwined Muslim, Jewish, and Christian thought with Persian, Greek, and Semitic wisdom, all illuminated by Quranic insights, creating a new comprehensive syncretic, metaphysical worldview framework. This revolutionary philosophy remains a profound and influential vision that can be reinterpreted for the 21st century, transcending its original religious context to offer insights relevant to modern thought and spirituality.

This subject has also been approached from other viewpoints by prominent contemporary thinkers Roger Penrose and David Chalmers. While this author does not fully agree with these later theories, their arguments combined with more historical metaphysical concepts suggest that this pivotal notion of the “existence of a realm of reality that exists independently of human perception” is worthy of our philosophical investigation. 

Why it matters.

The survival of our planet depends on our more comprehensive search for and understanding of how to deal with these primary, conflicting dualities. My research has shown that our focus lens should not be entirely on Renaissance Man but on the Other, on the margins, on the peripherality of the Spiritual modes of being that humanity has violently neglected. The aim is to put the deep value of empiricism in its proper complementary place with ontological transcendence in a unified, comprehensive framework. In other words, to see them as domains of a unified complementary mode of human interpretation of existence, not its entirety.

Based upon the above, I would like to pursue further in-depth exploration of this subject and seek potential academic funding for this research, analysis, and observations with a plan of compiling a critically edited compendium of best knowledge on this topic for publication. 

Within this expanded context, I welcome the collaboration and guidance of colleagues who would be interested in joining this exploration.

Reflections by Julio Bermudez

Since June 2014, much has happened to ACSF, our societies, and the world. If anything, the dilemmas and challenges we are now facing seem more urgent and ever more complex: international conflicts and wars, extreme polarization (whether ideological or religious), massive migration and xenophobia, global warming and climate change, economic disparities, the rise of artificial intelligence, and more, much more. 

To many of us, these existential predicaments cannot be resolved using the same worldview, beliefs, practices, and technologies that originate and feed them. A “spiritual turn” at a large scale is necessary. Notice that I don’t say “religious turn” because, after millennia of trying, religions have proven incapable of resolving the endemic issues underlying our human conditions or managing the consequences of Modernity’s success. Given that we live in what is now an urban civilization of 8.2 billion people (and becoming more so every single minute), it is not far-fetched to speculate how we could use the building environment — the physical stage upon which human lives unavoidably unfold — to encourage and support such spiritual turn. And, considering that we will build more in the next 4 decades than in the past century, it stands to reason that, should we build with that objective at heart, we could attain concrete, measurable, and positive effects in our societies and culture. This, of course, has profound and serious political, economic, and ideological implications. Now, without suggesting the need for massive social engineering in the hands of some world or national government, corporation, or what-have-you, it is in our best interest to effect positive change (i.e., a spiritual turn) at whatever level such built environment is envisioned and constructed. In other words, whatever our architectural, design, or built action might be, it is there where we could have an impact. The question becomes practical rather fast: what architectural principles, conditions, and/or heuristics would we need to deploy to foster a spiritual turn and flourishing?

These considerations explain why we wrote the Transcendent Architecture research paper 10 years ago. We architects do know that some buildings, urban spaces, and designed landscapes produce such a spiritual turn. Sacred spaces, of course, are expected to deliver such experiences. However, the vast majority of our existing built environment and, indeed, most of what is to be erected are not and will not be consecrated spaces for religious or sacred-related functions. The significance of architecture is that even when put to serve secular or ordinary purposes, it can potentially wake us up (individually and collectively) to transcendent experiences, considerations, realizations, behaviors, and more. Case in point are the 26 examples presented in our paper. By extracting the common architectural ‘conditions’ (as we term them) that underly these successful ‘specimens’ of Transcendent Architecture, we aim at nothing less than pointing to ways in which present and future designers, clients, builders, and communities could pursue spirituality-awakening projects. 

Yet, it is always dangerous to provide cooking instructions, particularly in fields as complex as architecture and urban design. The heuristics we provide (i.e., the 14 conditions) are not algorithms for quick deployment (via AI or human minds) but rather strong pointers or ‘strange attractors,’ as we explain in our paper. It is precisely because of the risks behind the misunderstanding and/or misappropriation of a list of principles, a matrix, and ideal case studies that we decided not to make our original manuscript public. For 10+ long years, it remained ‘hidden,’ only brought up occasionally under controlled conditions such as the development of the ACSF Declaration of Transcendent Human Habitats, university courses, a lecture or an interview here and there, and research grant proposals (successful or not). During these years, the authors of this white paper also encountered, reviewed, studied, and worked in areas that overlap, sometimes quite literally, with the insights and findings of our article. It is because all these experiences kept on affirming the value and standing power of the arguments, ideas, and discoveries recorded in our original 2014 manuscript that we found the audacity to go ahead and, very humbly, share this work with the world —in the free, public, and open marketplace of ideas.

What is different between this updated version and the original? If the reader were to compare the two, they would only notice a better-written text (i.e., no typos, simpler expressions, better layout, improved images) and updated references (bibliographic, online links, etc.). Its fundamental content is otherwise the same as 10 years ago.

The hope is then that someone will pay attention and continue with this work, testing its validity through various means, from empirical gauging and neurophenomenology to case studies, machine-learning inquiries, massive surveys, theological or philosophical theorization, etc. I hope that ACSF continues to be part of such an effort, but it is not necessary. What matters is that ACSF created something that, hopefully, will serve the world by realizing and utilizing the built environment to spark and support the desperately needed spiritual turn in our humanity.

Reflections by Prem Chandavarkar

I personally value the time I spent on this group and learned a great deal from the work undertaken, the interactions within the group, as well as the final presentation we made.  However, while people liked the presentation, I do not think it went much further. It did not advance us toward building shared understanding within ACSF.

The key issue we must understand is that the focus of ACSF makes it radically different from other scholarly communities. In domains of life such as “sacred” and “spiritual,” the first level of understanding is always at the level of personal practice.  If this understanding must evolve to wider communal levels, it cannot lose this connection with the personal.

This cannot happen within established academic tradition, which relies on building shared hermeneutic principles and methods that lead to shared understanding.  Hermeneutics is willing to remain at the level of theory and is not compelled to make direct connections with, or proposals for, practice.  At the most, it assumes that the theories it constructs can be subsequently applied in practice. This is a futile assumption, as the connection between theory and practice is neither direct nor logical; for practice implicates (at a fundamental level) tacit processes and levels of understanding that do not lend themselves to intellectual analysis. In fact, the relationship between theory and practice is most productive when it is contradictory: when practice critiques theory and theory critiques practice.

Theory does not implicate the personal self; on the contrary, it assumes a detached self.  But practice always implicates the self; the key question being whether it is a habitual self or a critical self who comes to the table. Spiritual practice assumes an embodied and mindful self; therefore it cannot do without an element of mysticism.  Since the sacred cannot disconnect from the personal, a shared understanding of the sacred can only be built through shared practices.  It cannot follow a scholarly tradition of shared theories, and the limitation of the Transcendent Architecture Committee is that it remains firmly within the scholarly tradition. This does not mean we jettison the theoretical, but rather that the theoretical is subjected to the critique of shared practices, and shared practice provides the bridge to shared theory.

If we wish to move forward on the basis of shared practices rather than initiatives like the Transcendent Architecture Working Group, it may be more productive to take the following steps:

  1. Build a shared repository of the work of ACSF members.  In some sense, this already exists, with papers from all the ACSF symposia being on the ACSF website.  But these are largely scholarly papers; the repository must also reflect the work of practitioners.
  2. Start making cross-connections between each of these practices to see how new levels of practice could evolve.  This will be a non-linear process – we will not know what will ensue, and it is better that these remain small, more personalized initiatives rather than something that must be presented to the entire group.

It is unlikely that this will evolve spontaneously.  Besides maintaining the repository, the process will need to be effectively catalyzed and curated.  How this can be done will need some thought applied to organizational design.

Reflections by Alison B. Snyder

I presented at the first ACSF Symposium held at Mt. Angel, Oregon, in 2009 and also at the second in Collegeville, Minnesota. I felt I had come to be a part of a group that needed to exist and was difficult to come by. In those days, we all spoke openly about the lack of perceived academic freedom to teach about many of the more phenomenological or heuristic issues that were not exactly historical (re)telling about a religious edifice or more well-known ritual or liturgy associated. The ability to literally commune with the presenters and visitors who congregate at an ACSF Symposium in a small residential cloistered way has always been part of the secret to germinating a close examination of internal and external awarenesses also, especially with regard to our surrounding environments. 

Though publications started to become a way to spread the work (through the journal 2A, in proceedings and other individual writings elsewhere, and the edited books following, by the fifth Symposium in Hingham and Cambridge, Massachusetts, it became clear our dialogue was being elevated. This White Paper’s genesis growing out of the end of ACSF 5 marked a kind of turning point that I was glad to have stepped into. I was not able to attend the ACSF 6, 2014, Toronto symposium, yet I was happy to have been a part of the collective work presented. In the following years, I took a hiatus from ACSF presentations, though I never lost touch with the Forum’s mission. In this ten-year time period, the intentions and values I build into my work remained, yet my research shifted, as did my teaching institution, and the pandemic rescheduling us all. Happily, I returned to present new research at ACSF 13 in 2023 in Queens, NYC, and ACSF 14 in Istanbul. 

To be able to revisit our decade-old work with my TAC colleagues Julio, Nader, Prem, and Phil, has been informative—if only to see if where I was then is still important to me. As others are stating, we decided to have the White Paper remain mostly as is and not to alter the original intentions (we only “cleaned” it up). Going forward, I thought long and hard about whether “transcendent” still made sense to me, and I am still glad for its transformative meanings and flexible interpretations. Also, during our original TAC deliberations, I realized that the word architecture was often being used overarchingly, and I was able to suggest we add a way to be more inclusive to recognize interior architects/designers, landscape architects, and urbanists. Our designation of adding in the word designers, along with architects, is still fitting. 

I would be remiss, though, if I did not add these remarks to my postscript: 

Being the only woman on what became the TAC, I was aware of the importance of my presence. It was not solely about recognizing what became a selection of only men’s architectural designs that we acknowledged briefly in our writing. Yet in reviewing in 2024/25, I in no way believe I put forth a comprehensive women’s point of view at the time of the original TAC. At the very least, I might have asked for a larger conversation about gender and design—and if distinguishing male or female or gender even matters, regarding the beautiful, if not iconic, choices we made. I know my own architectural choices were made because they moved me—in fact, I had visited and entered them all. I also purposely selected from different geographies, use types, and those made up of different forms and materialities. Yet, if I were selecting today, I would intentionally have added women’s work, even if I had not visited (I can think of examples from India, Mexico, Turkey, Africa, and the USA). With this stating, I remain truly honored, thankful, and indebted to working within the TAC and ACSF, a group of scholars and influential colleagues. I look forward to seeing how this transcendent work grows in the future.


APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: Working List of Transcendent Architects (64 NAMES)

This following list of architects was built during a spontaneous discussion among attendees to the Urbanism, Spirituality and Wellbeing Symposium at the Glastonbury Abbey in Hingham, MA, on June 7, 2013.

An architect was proposed by any of the attendees with the only condition that the architect/designer had to have lived in the past 100 years and at least one of his/her works had to be considered ‘Transcendent Architecture.’ When disagreement occurred, people had to argue until the matter was settled by mutual agreement or get a majority of the attendees to accept the nomination.

The list follows no particular order.

  • Tadao Ando
  • Jens Jensen
  • Louis Kahn
  • Sigro Lewerentz
  • Alberto Campo Baeza
  • Antoni Gaudi
  • Juhani Pallasmaa
  • Luis Barragán
  • Eliel Saarinen
  • Frank Lloyd Wright
  • Robert Murase
  • Laurie Baker
  • Daniel Burnham
  • Le Corbusier
  • Mario Botta
  • Roberto Burle Marx
  • Alvar Aalto
  • B. V. Doshi
  • Geoffrey Bawa
  • Carlo Scarpa
  • Dom Hans van der Laan
  • James Turrell
  • Josef Plecnik
  • Moshe Safdie
  • Peter Zumthor
  • Edwardo Souto de Moura
  • Alvar Siza
  • Rafeal Manzano Martos
  • Trey Trahan
  • Joan Soranno
  • Rudolf Steiner
  • Rudolf Schwarz
  • Peder Vilhelm Jenson-Klint
  • Jorn Utzon
  • Edwin Lutyens
  • Lawrence Halprin
  • Enric Miralles
  • Reina Pieta
  • Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
  • Hans Scharoun
  • Albert Speer
  • Richard Haag
  • John Hejduk
  • Victor Horta
  • Otto Wagner
  • Sven RRE Fehn
  • Oscar Niemeyer
  • Steven Holl
  • Gunnar Asplund
  • E. Fay Jones
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Fredrick Law Olmsted
  • Maya Lin 
  • Ada Karmi-Melamede
  • Bruce Goff
  • John Pawson
  • Wang Shu
  • John Koch
  • Hassan Fathy
  • Abdel Wahab El-Wakil
  • Gottfried Bohm
  • Charles Rennie Mackintosh

APPENDIX 2: CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY NADER ARDALAN

1. SELECTED WORKS OF LOUIS KAHN

A. SALK INSTITUTE FOR BIOLOGICAL STUDIES, LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA, 1959- 65

Kahn’s creation consists of two mirror-image structures that flank a grand courtyard. Each building is six stories tall. Three floors contain laboratories and the three levels above the laboratory floors provide access to utilities. Protruding into the courtyard are separate towers that provide space for individual professorial studies. The towers at the east end of the buildings contain heating, ventilating, and other support systems. At the west end are six floors of offices overlooking the ocean. The open courtyard of travertine marble acting as a facade to the sky adds to the monumental nature of the building, with its single steam of water flowing to the Pacific Ocean. The next challenge was to realize it through the use of materials that could last for generations with only minimal maintenance. The materials chosen for this purpose were concrete, teak, lead, glass, and stainless steel.

KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES:

  • SILENCE & LIGHT- “I sense light as the giver of all presences and material as spent light. What Light makes casts a shadow and the shadow belongs to light.”
  • MONUMENTALITY-“Derived from its spiritual quality (to convey the eternal).”
  • “Monolithicness of material form.”
  • ORIGINS-TIMELESSNESS- “I honor beginnings. I believe that what was has been, and what is has always been, and what will be has always been.”
  • His house (Luis Barragán) is not merely a house but HOUSE itself. Anyone could feel at home. Its materiality is traditional. Its character eternal. We talked about traditions as though they were mounds of the golden dust of man’s nature and from which circumstances were distilled out. As man takes his path through experience he learns about man. The learning falls as golden dust, which if touched gives the power of anticipation.”
  • THE THRESHOLD- “The joint is the beginning of ornament.”
  • “The threshold between silence and light –a threshold so thin-thinner than even thought (which may be too thick an ambient threshold- when sensed there is inspiration.
  • THE LAWS OF NATURE- The orders of nature in placemaking: light, water, wind, movement 
  • ARCHITECTURE OF CONNECTIONS- Spatial hierarchy based upon servant/served
  • UNITY-MANDALA-INWARDNESS

B. KIMBELL ART MUSEUM, FORT WORTH, TEXAS, 1966 -72

Approaching the main entrance past a lawn edged by pools with running water, the visitor enters a courtyard through a grove of Yaupon holly trees. The sound of footsteps on the gravel walkway echoes from the walls on either side of the courtyard and is magnified under the curved ceiling of the entry porch. After that subtle preparation, the visitor enters the hushed museum with silvery light spread across its ceiling. The museum is composed of 16 parallel vaults that are each 100 feet long, 20 feet high, and 20 feet wide. Intervening low “servant” channels for mechanical services separate the vaults. With one exception, the art galleries are located on the upper floor of the museum to allow access to natural light through a linear slot along the apex of each vault. The museum has three glass-walled courtyards that bring natural light to the gallery spaces. The materials consist of smooth silvery concrete, golden teak, lead, glass, and stainless steel.

KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES

SILENCE & LIGHT- Silence, the seat of the unmeasurable, has a will to express, which is material and made of light. So light is really the source of all being.”

MATERIALITY- “Matter is spent light.”

UNMEASURABLE/MEASURABLE-The former is inspirational /the latter is operational

CONSTRUCTIONAL RATIONALISM- “A good architecture is one in which it is evident how it is made.”

TECHNOLOGY- “Today we talk about technology as though our minds will be surrendered to the machine. Surely the machine is merely a brain which we got as potluck from nature. But a mind capable of realizations can inspire a technology, and humiliate the current one.”

GEOMETRIC ORDER- “Order is intangible/ it is a level of consciousness/ forever becoming higher in level/ the higher the order the more diversity in design”

KAHN ON HIS PRACTICE

HUMAN BEING: “The sanctuary of art- and what nature gives us is the instrument of expression which we all know as ourselves- (It is my belief that we live to express – which is like giving the instrument upon which the songs of the soul can be played).” “The way I do things is private really.”

INTUITION & FEELING: “Intuition is your most exacting sense. It is the most reliable sense.”

“Turn to feeling and away from thought.” “In Feeling is the psyche.” “When personal feeling transcends into religion (not a religion but the essence religion and thought leads to philosophy, the mind opens to realizations.”

FORM DRAWING: “All institutions must commence with a firm understanding of the existence-will of that institutions.” “What it wants to be.”

2. SELECTED WORKS OF MOSHE SAFDIE

A. SALT LAKE CITY MAIN LIBRARY, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, 1999 – 2003

The library occupies a full block in center of the city across from city hall. The building consists of five storey, triangular shaped structure housing the stacks and reader’s facilities, administration and a glass enclosed ‘urban room’, all contained by a sweeping crescent shape wall that leads from the piazza to the rooftop garden overlooking the surrounding the city and the mountains. The plan components are the equilateral triangle and circle.

KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES

  • INCLUSIVENESS- Community & Scholarship- The Urban Room.
  • CONNECTION BETWEEN HEAVEN & EARTH- the spiral ramp connecting piazza to roof garden.
  • THE GARDEN- internal views to surrounding landscape & rooftop garden.
  • MASS & LIGHT- concrete volume illuminated by filtered light through large glass surfaces.
  • BUILDABILITY- geometric order of structure.
  • SENSE OF PLACE- Belonging to its Context.
  • B. CLASS OF 1959 CHAPEL, HARVARD BUSSINESS SCHOOL, BOSTON, MA- 1886- 92

The chapel is a nondenominational meditative space. A cylindrical, green oxidized copper drum intersects a glazed pyramidal, interior garden that terraces down into the earth. Biblical plants, flowering trees, and water form a transparent oasis in the heart of the campus, and create a quiet transition from daily to spiritual experience. Inside, the 100-seat sanctuary is contained by undulating smooth concrete walls that rise to a height of over 8 meters. Multiple axes encourage any spatial orientation of worship. Its exceptional acoustics have regularly drawn instrumental and vocal performances to fill the room with sound. During the day, light enters the sanctuary from overhead. Within the skylights, large-scale acrylic prisms filled with mineral oil are positioned to refract sunlight and wash the walls with rainbows of light that move and change following the sun’s path. The plan is composed of the intersection of a circle and a square. 

KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES 

  • UNIVERSALITY
  • PLACE OF TRANSITION
  • THE GARDEN
  • MASS & LIGHT
  • MATERIALITY
  • GEOMETRIC PERFECTION
  • SOUND

SAFDIE ON HIS PRACTICE

  • Understanding the site and its qualities by sketching it’s first impressions.
  • Physical involvement with the design concept by sketching it, building its model at different scales and through different media from cardboard to wood to digital modeling.
  • Discovering the aspirations of the program.
  • Dreaming while swimming, flying long distance flights, relaxing.

NADER ARDALAN PERSONAL PRACTICE 

The quest for convergence point of intuition and reason

INTUITION- inward isolation

  • Dreaming
  • Esoteric realizations
  • Contemplation
  • Poetry
  • Prayer
  • Pilgrimage

EXPLORING THE SENSES-

  • SEEING: Visual beauty; awe-inspiring imagery; reading & writing on metaphysical realities.
  • LISTENING: Feelings aroused by sublime music, chanting & thoughts.
  • TOUCHING: Elegant, tactile quality of materiality.
  • TASTING: Exquisite transmutations of food.
  • SMELLING: The evocative perfume of spiritually inspiring aromas.
  • MOVEMENT: Dancing, hiking, swimming.

HAND DRAWING-

  • Planar Geometry- thinking, drawing. 
  • Spatial geometry- visualizing, drawing, building.
  • Archetypal musings.

APPENDIX 2: CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY JULIO BERMUDEZ

1. SELECTED WORKS OF JAMES TURRELL

‘Roden Crater’ in Arizona (1979-present)

Key Design Principles

  • Isolation/Insulation (away from everything and anything).
  • Access (difficulty, effort, preparation).
  • Simplicity (geometry, form, space, ritual, materiality).
  • Scale (monumentality and intimacy.
  • Silence.
  • Timelessness (cosmic/geologic time).
  • Nature = Landscape (land, mass, horizon, space, vegetation) & Sky (sun+star+moon).
  • Cosmic connection.
  • Transcendent program (function 
  • Light (natural ).
  • Outward Experience.

‘Space that Sees’ (at the Israel Art Museum, Jerusalem, 1992)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/isolation.
  • Access (preparation).
  • Focus (outward experience.
  • Simplicity (form, geometry, materials, space) – minimalism. 
  • Scale/intimacy (privacy even with others)
  • Nature (sky).
  • Silence.
  • Timelessness.
  • Sunlight.
  • Transcendent program (function). 

2. SELECTED WORKS OF PETER ZUMTHOR

Therme Vals (Vals, Switzerland, 1993-1996)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/Isolation (cut off from the world).
  • Access.
  • Simplicity (forms, materials, program).
  • Uncluttered/unimpeded space.
  • Materiality/tectonics (monolithic, details).
  • Light & Water.
  • Nature.
  • Sensuality (touch, smell, hearing … and visuality — Embodiment.
  • Uniqueness. 
  • Introvertive program (function).
  • Scale (personal).
  • Slowness.

St. Benedict Chapel (Sumvitg, Switzerland, 1988)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/isolation.
  • Simplicity (space, form, program. 
  • Materiality (monolithic, details, craftsmanship.
  • Scale (Intimacy/Safety/holding).
  • Uniqueness.
  • Transcendent/introvertive program (function).
  • Focused, inward function.

Bruder Klaus Chapel (Germany, 2007)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/Isolation (removal from the world, silence, solitude).
  • Access (difficulty, effort to get there).
  • Materiality (monolithic, details, texture).
  • Scale/Safety/Holding.
  • (intimate, private experience).
  • Uniqueness.
  • Verticality.
  • Darkness.
  • Transcendent Program (function)

3. SELECTED WORKS OF ALBERTO CAMPO BAEZA

Centre Bit (Inca, Mallorca, 1998)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/Isolation.
  • Access (hidden, preparatory.
  • Materiality (monolithic vis-à-vis Light).
  • Simplicity (form, proportion, geometry, space)
  • Nature (Sky, sunlight).
  • Uncluttered/unimpeded space.
  • Silence.
  • Timelessness .
  • Courtyard, contained experience.

The MA: Andalucia´s Memory Museum (Granada, 2009)

Key Design Principles

  • Insulation/isolation (cut-off from the city and world).
  • Silence.
  • Purity (not materiality).
  • Simplicity (form, proportion).
  • Nature (Sky, Sun).
  • Uncluttered/unimpeded space.
  • Sunlight.
  • Timelessness.
  • Singled-minded Program.
  • Courtyard, contained experience.

Between Cathedrals (Cadiz, 2009)

Key Design Principles

  • Immateriality (almost nothing) 
  • Nature (horizon: sea and sky)
  • Uncluttered/unimpeded space 
  • Silence
  • Simplicity (space, geometry, form – minimalism)
  • Singled-minded program (observatory)
  • Outward experience

GENERAL COMMENT ABOUT ALL 3 ARCHITECTS

The works of these 3 architects/artists invite the visitor to enter into a contemplative state that is conducive to the transcendent. I found many commonalities (see the repetitions above). Below is yet another take (to add not to remove the above):

  • Sense of Unity (harmony),
  • Clarity (composition, readable order yet avoiding easy grasp/understanding – keep interest and is participatory), 
  • Framing (nature, event, etc. ),
  • Non-Referentiality (i.e., abstraction), 
  • Small Materials Palette
  • ‘Preservation of Space,’
  • Light (mostly sunlight),
  • Silence
  • Making Time Appear or Disappear
  • Programmatic/Functional Reduction
  • Technology as Subservient to Architecture —not highlighted,
  • Difficulty in either getting to place or some prep to access it,
  • Insulation/Isolation condition

Put quite differently, Transcendent Architecture (at least in these eight examples) addresses issues of existential embodiment (i.e., materiality, movement, sensuality, space, etc.) and connectedness (me, nature, others,), and results in the ‘appearance’ of Being/being.

APPENDIX 2: CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY PREM CHANDAVARKAR

Architects:

  1. Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lanka)
    • Garden at Lunuganga
    • Architects Own House, Colombo
    • Triton Hotel, Ahungalla 
  2. Carlo Scarpa (Italy) 
    • Additions and Renovations at Castelvecchio Museum, Verona 
    • Additions and Renovations at Querini Stampalia Foundation, Venice
    • Brion Memorial Complex, San Vito d’Altivole 

In the course of studying these architects I started off trying to study each work and each architect separately, but subsequently found myself deviating from this approach. Although Bawa and Scarpa came from geographically dissimilar regions, and each showed strong respect for the exigencies of their region, I found it interesting that certain common principles covering both of them and all of their work seemed to emerge. So I followed this path I had stumbled upon and in this first draft will only present a short description and some images of each project and then identify some common principles. 

COMMON PRINCIPLES IN THESE PROJECTS OF GEOFFREY BAWA & CARLO SCARPA 

Independent Approach: Both architects did not take a conventional and direct path into architecture. Bawa first trained as a lawyer, after which he decided to become an architect, and qualified as an architect at the age of 38. Scarpa studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice focusing on architectural studies, but never completed a formal training that would entitle him to practice architecture, and had to depend on other qualified architects to certify his projects for execution. While one cannot assert that every architect should follow such paths, the unconventional entry into the profession led them to follow a highly personalized path of inquiry rather than an easy acceptance of axioms conventions and jargon that are established in the profession. 

Quest for Intuitive and Tacit Personal Mastery: Neither of them wrote or talked much about their work, or ever sought to project any theory of architecture. Theirs was an introspective journey towards personal mastery, learning through doing. Just as a musician ‘does’ music until it becomes a part of his/her sense of being, these architects sought a personal relationship with space, light, material, detail, and context and, through this, achieve a tacit mastery over architecture. 

Foregrounding of Presence: Having jettisoned the baggage of any theory of culture or society, the work does not need to refer to anything beyond itself. In focusing on itself, the work’s only task is to present its presence: an aura of space, material and light. 

Experience over Interpretation: By foregrounding its presence, the work invites you to experience it, and, through that experience, form your relationship with it. It does not force an interpretation that is necessary before experience. 

Attention to Detail: There is a tremendous level of attention to detail. Detail is the first level of scale by which the body relates to space. The work of Bawa and Scarpa uses detail to access the fundamental levels of bodily scale: the width of a fingertip, the grasp of the palm, the reach of the hand, the height of the body, and so on. Detail is the means by which the body can establish intimacy with the work. 

Scale Hierarchy: From the level of detail there are easy transitions of scale to the next level in the composition. In much of contemporary architecture, large surfaces of a single material involve transitions of scale from one level of the composition to the next that exceed a ratio of 1:20 or 1:50. In contrast, in the work of Bawa and Scarpa, one rarely sees transitions of scale in a ratio of greater than 1:2 or 1:3. This makes for a harmonious experience of the work, and easy shifts in gaze from part to whole. 

Utilization of Peripheral Vision: In “The Eyes of the Skin,” Juhani Pallasmaa points out that we privilege not only vision in architecture but also a specific kind of vision: central focused vision. Focused vision implies a distance between spectator and object, and in contrast peripheral vision locates us inside space. Because of this bias toward focused vision, architects tend to pay attention to the delineations of precise form that focused vision picks up, and pay insufficient attention to the gradations of scale and texture that peripheral vision depends upon. The work of Bawa and Scarpa privileges peripheral vision, relying primarily on gradations of material, scale and light; deliberately rejecting an approach of rhetorical formalism. 

Ambiguity of Limits: The line at which the work as a form ends is difficult to pinpoint: limits are always ambiguous. This makes the work always invoke something larger than itself. 

Self-Similarity Across Scales: The spirit of the work is the same at the level of detail and at the level of the whole work. The fact that one sees the same spirit whichever way the body or gaze moves helps to imbue the work with a sense of timelessness. 

Contextual Rather Than Historical: It is difficult to categorize the work of these architects in historical terms. Bawa’s work cannot be termed as either ‘modern’ or ‘traditional’: it occupies a totally different relationship with time. While Scarpa’s interventions appear more contemporary in expression, they sit so easily with contexts that are centuries old that it is difficult to conclude that it is solely a contemporary aesthetic that underlies the work. The goal seems to be to achieve harmony with context rather than to claim a position in history. 

Absorb Craftsmanship Into The Work: Both architects work extensively with other craftsmen and artists, and absorb their creation into the work. There is no attempt to define a boundary of personal authorship into which others may not transgress, which implies recognition of a quest that is larger than any individual. And the dialogue with others becomes a means of inquiry into the nature of material and mastery. 

Spirit of Material: The work depends on the spirit of the materials with which it is built: it is impossible to separate the form from its material. And no material is ever used in a way where it appears forced into its application: the inherent spirit of the material is always respected. By this recognition of the inherent life within the materials they use, the architects acknowledge a reality that preexists them.  Material is a means by which one accesses greater reality, accepting with humility the role of the architect to act as a channel through which these larger realities flow: a channel that brings these realities into focus. 

Light as a Building Material: Light is one of the materials used to compose space and form, to create the gradations that facilitate experience. The attention to detail and hierarchies of scale heighten the dynamic role of light. 

Air of Lived Life: By foregrounding presence over philosophy, experience over interpretation, the work achieves its unity by constructing an air of lived life. This allows disparate elements to sit comfortably together without any sense of discordance. I had the recent good fortune to visit Bawa’s work along with Juhani Pallasmaa, and in the Colombo House, Pallasmaa remarked on how Bawa was clearly fond of collecting chairs, and there must be close to fifty different chair designs in the house, yet there is no clash because they all fuse under this air of lived life. Similarly Scarpa’s approach allows him to put very contemporary elements into historical contexts and one never feels a contradiction. This air of lived life is best captured in this quotation from Alice Munro (which, although being an analysis of what makes a great story, is as much a comment on architecture as it is on literature: “A story is not like a road to follow … it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

APPENDIX 2: CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY ALISON B. SNYDER

I chose three “types” of buildings or “constructed” designed places to look at, contemplate, and reflect on, and to see if I could decipher the notions of ritual intended or found as a result of the designing. Two are religious structures and two are not. I am interested in whether some of the same principles we tend to apply to religious structures might be applied to those that are not and what could be learned from this kind of comparison. I might be describing all of this vis-à-vis the Practices I chose as starting points. I am deeply interested in what “principles” this kind of study will begin to yield, yet I am not sure I know what they are yet, except for the absolute experiences. 

I chose these architects because I admire them and especially these works. I also chose these examples as I have visited all four of the projects in early to mid-2000’s, and each was surprising, eliciting unpredictable responses. I find I continually reflect on each of them from time to time.

I contemplate what I have perceived and felt is beauty made from contained structures offering a series of formed, ineffable reactions. I recognize there is some degree of contrivance to “make” me feel a certain way…but then again, maybe things combined to achieve the great—that is, all of the work examples selected are powerful and also quiet, and they allow for being quiet inside them. The spaces make you wonder about them and we intuitively want to stay in these places. The possibility of the sacred or transcendent—that which allows us to separate from what is not, might also rely on the notion of liminality… the between space, the need for thresholds.

The exteriors seem to act as boundaries, yet in some ways almost missable, pass-by-able, except for Lewerentz’s church—he wants you to look around, find the weird things, the things not usually made. He has you do this to perceive the interior, to take it into oneself. He wants you to work. Barragan’s small, mostly colorful spaces enclose and contain us differently than Siza’s surprise of the white, subtle shadows and sculpted flow also make you think but also let you rest, to absorb, to drift in response. I say begin, as this may lead to some universals, or this selection may remain merely a case study along with the rest of what we have all done so far. And, I am not sure that it matters that some of these are located in different hemispheres or designed by people with different backgrounds and heritage/cultures. All of the architectural projects show and expose different auras, only begun to be described. 

Small Method: In looking to select each work, I wanted to approach each designer’s work as a physical place constructed of spaces, with textures, light, coloration, forms of many scales. I do not analyze as an architect studying plans and sections and elevations (though some are included in the case-study to observe), nor was I concerned for designer reputation. I am as interested in the surprise or the full effect of these places to allow for sacred or transcendent realizations. Below are paragraph-like lists of what I find striking, make me pause and ponder and contemplate, change my pace, asks me to look more, or relax more, stay more present. 

Then I peer into a little more, to assess if I must, what am I feeling, and maybe why or how? What are the materials?, what is the light quality? How large is this?, how do I describe the shape of the spaces, what is makes this unusual?, Do I perceive liminal qualities? Can I figure out if this place makes me do or feel these things like some performing of a sort of ritual? Why is ritual—the act of repeating or feeling the need to do again, absorb the action to also feel a deeper response, so difficult to locate and assess, taking time to describe? To get to this level of detail, is maybe the next stage of the collective work?

The descriptions intentionally float ideas and perceptions. They are whole, yet not finished, they just begin. I believe this is representative of the sacred or transcendent, that we are not positively sure about. I must note, I have not included, in this beginning research, the architects’ words on their own intentions, or what others have written. 

  1. A House or Home as Sacred and Transcendent Space ?

Luis Barragán – his Home, Mexico City (1948)

Yes, this place, these rooms, they make me reflect, and make me feel like I am part of some kind of personal ritual.  They make me want to understand why spaces or rooms can be so separated yet in a way, connected both horizontally in flow and vertically. I feel I should be mindful of what each room is for, to pause, not just to live in-to integrate that as part of living. What comes to mind? is this hermetic tendency also ascetic? This is a house along a street with a normal front wall, but inside is a mixture of a man and his needs that speak out if you look in.

Interior spaces and their interior elements are used sparingly. There are also subtle and repeated symbols that are either geometric and or really meant to be representations of crosses. Shutters arranged, make a cross with light, stairs float, and are also chiseled like from a monolith. We are asked to use the movement of the eye as the body passes through each space, like a personal journey that moves along inside and then up. Moments of open space are very quiet…they are small in scale, thick with tall walls, with framed windows showing green, walls also only allowing views to open sky—walls that contain and constantly direct your view. Even if solid, they hold and become their own points of focus with an asymmetrical placement, a division of space that is unusual, abstract, and flat. Color that is specific…gold reflects, and pink does too, as much as it surprises. The “ensemble” appears not highly detailed, but all together, there is complexity, silence, there are paced moments, sort of liminal, rooms serve a function that is repeated. 

  1. Church, Religious Structure as Sacred and Transcendent Space ?

Luis Barragán – Capuchinas Chapel and Convent, Mexico City (1952-55)

A flat unimposing façade, a series of narrow and not so narrow passages lead one further and further inside and to a place or series of anti-rooms before entering the sanctuary for literal reflection. There is a lot of quiet play with hot color, white patterned light falls on many surfaces which makes one see differently as it bends and drapes over plaster, wood and stone surfaces. Sunlight plays against what looks like candle light or hidden side light that illuminates the cross on fire, the smoothness of floor transitions and the surfaces blend. Squeezed inside, one moves to breathing in the presence of something earthy and homey in its texture, and also warm and also bigger than I can understand. Moving through a series of inside/outside interiors, I experience the return to the exterior.

  1. Church, Religious Structure as Sacred and Transcendent Space ?

Sigurd Lewerentz – St. Peter’s Church, Klippan, Sweden (1963)

Another church, but not just any church. We are asked to observe immediately from the exterior, look at the normal brick, but look at what is done with it, how other parts of the exterior and interior ask one to understand the edges of the material are being played with, talked to. We are asked to really look, not just enter and walk inside and sit down. The detailed subtlety is almost loud. The exterior glass of the windows overlaps and barely has a metal frame, the sizes shift, the surface is therefore different, we understand and do not at the same time. These are beautiful in simplicity—yet they are complex and we cannot figure it all out—should we? Light is actually dark inside, eyes adjust, as from outside to inside, the brick material is so seamless that it feels like a designed modern cave, maybe it is. The crypt in the floor is dark, has splintered edges, uprooted like, not a smooth transition to the next stages of life, buried but not, an interruption. The symbolic and also very, very real. The sanctuary, an interior chamber is broken down but also whole. There is so much hard texture, we are less comfortable, but can accept this, as we are welcomed. It must be an internal ritual.

  1. Museum, Secular Structure as Sacred and Transcendent Space ? 

Alvaro Siza – Galician Museum of Contemporary Art – Santiago de Compostela, Spain (1994)

Why is a white so incredibly powerful all alone? What makes it feel surprising and important and also subtle and mysterious? Why do angled spaces or oddly composed overlapping spaces with see-through parts excite us, beckoning us to look and feel and look? This museum is a piece of art to inhabit. Though the spaces are very different from one another there is a sort of painterly notion of one part leading to another, needing one another. Distinct and also similar, light from the outside is manipulated in many ways. Several ceilings float down into the gallery spaces; they hover, and light appears to be hanging, too. Everything is indirect. Maybe that is what makes one ponder here why it feels like a sacred or spiritual, transcendent place, even if there is no sanctuary designated. Art could be there or not, it almost could function better as a bunch of different chapels.  Maybe. 

The exterior container is right across from a centuries-old historic building that is the Museo do Pobo Galego (Galician People), and it mimics the size/scale and feeling in a modern way from the exterior, but inside, the museum has its own life. Perfectly situated, the mimesis and opposing eras bring about external and internal spatial returning, like a personal set of explorations, that unfold—but you do not exactly know what they are yet.

Very Beginning Conclusions, Principles?

Are all these buildings sacred? I am not sure. Do they allow for transcendent realizations? yes, I believe they all do. I found there is a universal sense of “keep guessing,” “keep feeling,” “keep sensing,” “rest a little,” “keep discerning,” “stay aware,” and “let it all go” in all of these places.

Yes, light, material, size of space, smooth exterior wrapped to the interior, or thick walls—all play their parts.

It is something about the ensemble.

I know that there is more work to be done to really feel and understand all this, so we (as a research group) can go further with our architectural analysis. At the same time, it is alright to decide to just see or stay in this kind of space of transcendence, awe, and peace. I am open to the next steps.

(original ABS text October 2013, revised October 2024)

APPENDIX 2: CASE STUDIES

CASE STUDIES BY PHILLIP TABB

  1. Aldo Van Eyck

Aldo van Eyck (16 March 1918 – 14 January 1999) was an architect from the Netherlands. He was one of the most influential protagonists of the architectural movement Structuralism, a member of C.I.A.M , and a co-founder of Team Ten. He attacked “functionalism” in favor of “humanism” in architecture. His ideas included identity and reciprocity, twin phenomena, the realm of the in-between, and place and occasion, each contributing to his sense of secular sacredness.

The two selected projects are:

1. Amsterdam Orphanage, Amsterdam, 1955 1960

2. The Wheels of Heaven, Briebergen, 1963-1964

  1. Erik Asmussen 

Erik Asmussen (2 November 1913 – 29 August 1998) was a Danish architect born in Copenhagen. He studied with Rudolf Steiner and practiced “Anthroposophy” with many of his sacred design principles, including what was called “organic functionalism.” He was the principal architect for the Jarna Community outside of Stockholm, Sweden. The Cultural Centre was voted the second best-liked modern building in Sweden in 2001.

The two selected projects are:

1.  Vidar Clinic, Ytterjarna, Sweden, 1985

2. Cultural Centre, Ytterjarna, Sweden

Methodology

The research brief was to identify sacred architectural design principles through the analysis of two works of architecture by two different architects. Design principles were seen within a hierarchical context that included archetypal, ectypal and typal levels, where they are articulated from more universal to abstract to more specific concrete examples. Following are two diagrams of the Tetractys that illustrate a four-fold hierarchy and perfect vs imperfect exemplifications:

Archetypal Principles

Unity Principle, Generative Principle, Formative Principle, Corporeal Principle, Regenerative Principle

Ectypal Patterns 

Circularity, Space-filling Geometry, Grounding, Verticality (Axis Mundi), Horizontality (Imago Mundi),

Anthropomorphism and Scale, Containment, Finding Direction, Multiplication, Elemental Materiality, Discriminating Views, Procession and Passage, Nature Within, Natural Light.

Ectypal Patterns 

Dome Forms, Circular Plans, Oculus, Tapered Walls, Square Grid, Operable Windows, Proportional Spaces, May-pole Ceremonies, Regional Materiality, Clerestory Windows.

General Observations

Three of the four project examples were for secular functions, while one was for religious purposes. Therefore, sacred expression in everyday architecture as well as in more public contexts, is represented through these examples. The Vidar Clinic and Amsterdam Orphanage display modest expressions of sacred principles, while the Cultural Centre and Wheels of Heaven have more dramatic designs. The former celebrates the horizontal, and the latter has more generosity of space and features vertical spaces for gathering and inspiration.

References

  1. Gary J. Coates, Erik Asmussen, architect, (Stockholm: Byggforlaget Publishers, 1997).
  2. Keith Critchlow, “Geometry and Architecture,” Lindisfarne Letter 10 (West Stockbridge, MA: The Lindisfarne Press, 1980).
  3. Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry’ – Philosophy and Practice, (Thames and Hudson, London, 1982).
  4. Francis Strauven, Aldo Van Eyck: The Shape of Relativity (Architectura & Natura, 1998).

APPENDIX 3: BIOS OF AUTHORS

(in alphabetical order, by last name)

Nader Ardalan is an Architect and President of Ardalan Associates, Consultants in Architecture & Planning. He holds a Master’s in Architecture from the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie-Mellon University. He is the co-author of The Sense of Unity, Chicago University Press; The Habitat Bill of Rights: Residential & Community Sustainable Design Guidelines for the United Nations Habitat Conference; Blessed Jerusalem: Preservation Studies of the Visual, Functional and Spiritual Character of the Old City (Harvard University); Gulf Sustainable Urbanism with Harvard University (HBK Press). He has been Visiting Critic of Design at Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Tehran University. Founding Steering Committee, Aga Khan Award for Architecture and Board of Directors, Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum.

Julio Bermudez is president of the Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum, an 850+ members (from 65 countries) organization that he co-founded in 2007. He directed the Sacred Space and Cultural Studies graduate program at the Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning from 2010 to 2023. His interests focus on the relationship between the built and the spiritual worlds through the lens of phenomenology and neuroscience, topics on which he has widely lectured, led symposia, researched, taught, published, or appeared in the media, including an episode in National Geographic’s The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. He has published three books: Transcending Architecture. Contemporary Views on Sacred Space, Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality (with Thomas Barrie and Phillip Tabb), and Spirituality in Architectural Education.

Prem Chandavarkar is the Managing Partner of CnT Architects: an award-winning and widely published architectural practice based in Bengaluru, India, with a history dating back to being Bengaluru’s first architectural firm. He received his training from the School of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi (B.Arch. 1978), and went on to do a research-based master’s degree in architecture from the University of Oregon, USA (M.Arch. 1982). He is a former Executive Director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design & Technology in Bengaluru and is an academic advisor and guest faculty at Indian and international colleges of architecture. Besides his design practice at CnT, he writes, lectures, and blogs on architecture, urbanism, philosophy, politics, education, environment, art, spirituality, and cultural studies.

Alison B. Snyder is an architect, researcher, and professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Her pedagogy and creative practice engage the meaningful and often overlooked intersections found between architecture, art, context, and the interior. She conducts urban and rural fieldwork projects in Turkey and New York to reinterpret why and how monumental and mundane settings transform. Snyder has been published widely in the United States, Europe, and Asia and is the recipient of several grants, including a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts award for her study of light and the Ottoman mosque. She has directed the University of Oregon’s Interior Architecture Program, and chaired Pratt’s Department of Interior Design

Philip James Tabb is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Texas A&M University, was the Liz and Nelson Mitchell Professor of Residential Design, and served as Head of the Department. He was the Director of the School of Architecture and Construction Management at Washington State University. He is the author of nine books, including Elemental Architecture: Temperaments of SustainabilityThin Place Design: Architecture of the Numinous, and Spiritual Wellness and the Built Environment, published by Routledge. He is the master planner for Serenbe Community – an award-winning sustainable community being realized near Atlanta, Georgia. He received his Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Cincinnati, Master of Architecture from the University of Colorado, and Ph.D. in the Energy and Environment Programme from the Architectural Association in London. He is a registered architect and holds a NCARB certificate.


References

  1.  As of December 2024, the ACSF Forum has over 850 members from 65 countries, organized another nine annual symposia (for a total of 14), and, in addition to publishing the said 2A magazine issues and book by Ashgate (Routledge today) in 2015, hosted the publication of two other journal issues: IN_BO magazine in 2016, and 2A Magazine (Summer 2020).
  2.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method#Variations (accessed 12/05/2024).
  3.  Here, we need to consider that all this happened in 2014-15, using technologies, and bandwidth with significant limitations when compared to what was eventually developed and deployed during the Pandemic of 2019-21 and that we daily use today.
  4.  Some good but embryonic work was produced in these areas. However, given its undeveloped state and the different focus of this paper, we are not sharing it here. Still, it may be helpful at some point in the future.
  5.  With 2024 hindsight, we recognize the fact of having no female designers included on the list. Clearly, such (at the time, unconscious) bias is very problematic and will need to be addressed in future work. On a positive note, ACSF has recognized two female architects with its Outstanding Achievement Awards (the maximum recognition bestowed by our organization): Briggite Shim (2020) and Marina Tabassum (2024). Refer to https://acsforum.org/engage/awards/#achievement-recipients (accessed December 4, 2024).
  6.  See John Dewey, Art As Experience (New York: Wideview/Perigee Book 1934) and Martin Heidegger, Building, Dwelling, Thinking (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1971).
  7.  Vitruvius, The 10 Books of Architecture, translated by Morris H. Morgan (New York: Dover Publications, 1960).
  8.  Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979).
  9.  Alexander, ibid.
  10. Michael Benedikt, For an Architecture of Reality (New York: Lumen Books, 1987).
  11. Juhani Pallasmaa, Encounters, Architectural Essays (Helsinki, Finland: Rakennustieto Publishing, 2008). See also his The Eyes of the Skin (Wiley, 2005); and The Thinking Hand (Wiley, 2009).
  12.  See Julio Bermudez’s lecture at the ACSF 5 Symposium entitled “’Spiritualizing’ Modernity and the City: The Future of Urbanism, Wellbeing and Spirituality.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69xRZ6V0ZP8 (accessed 12/04/2024).
  13.  See Thomas D. Albright Named President of the Academy of Neuroscience For Architecture. Salk News, November 14, 2012. https://www.salk.edu/news/pressrelease_details.php?press_id=587 (accessed 12/04/2024).
  14.  Robert Twombly, Louis Khan: Essential Texts (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2003).
  15.  Nader Ardalan personal interview, 2013
  16.  See for example, Alberto Campo Baeza, Principia Architectonica (Mairea, 2012) and The Built Idea (Philadelphia, PA: Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers, 2011). Also, James Turrell, The Thingness of Light, Scott Poole (ed.) (Architecture Editions, Blacksburg, Virginia, 2000), and James Turrell: Geometry of Light, Ursula Sinnreich (ed.) (Hatje Cantz, 2009
  17.  See Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture (Berlin: Birkhauser Publishers, 1998) and “The Magic of the Real” in World Architecture (01-2005) No.175: 18-20
  18.  L. Barragán, A. Siza, A. Toca, J.J.M. Buendía, & R. Rispa, Barragán: The complete works. (New York, N.Y: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), 208
  19.  Barragán et al, ibid., p.205
  20.  Barragán et al, ibid., p.206
  21.  Barragán et al, ibid., p.24
  22.  A. Siza & A. Angelillo, Alvaro Siza: Writings on Architecture (Milan: Skira, 1997), 206
  23.  S. Lewerentz, C. Caldenby, A. Caruso & S.I. Lind , Sigurd Lewerentz, Two Churches (Stockholm, Sweden: Arkitektur Förlag AB, 1997), 20
  24.  Muhammad Ibn Husayn Al-Sulami, The Way of Sufi Chivalry ,11th century, Iran
  25.  Wa’iz Khasaf. The Futuwwat Nama, 15th c. Iran
  26.  Ibn Battuta.
  27.  Nader Ardalan & Laleh Bakhtiar, The Sense of Unity: The Sufi Tradition in Persian Architecture (Chicago Univ. Press, 1973).
  28.  See Arthur Braverman. The Warrior of Zen (New York: Kodansha International, 1994).
  29.  Toshihiko and Toyo Izutsu, The Theory of Beauty in the Classical Aesthetics of Japan (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981).
  30.  Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, 1924, from Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Huizinga (accessed 12/05/2024).
  31.  Kenelm Henry Digby, The Broad-Stone of Honour, 1822, from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Broad-Stone_of_Honour (accessed 12/05/2024).
  32.  See Julio Bermudez, “Usus in Praesens— Drawing as a Meditation for Being Presence Through Architecture,” in J.Bermudez & R.Hermanson (eds): Collected Abstract of the Fourth ACSF Symposium (electronic). URL (accessed 12/05/2024): https://acsforum.org/usus-in-praesens-drawing-as-a-meditation-practice-for-being-present-through-architecture/  
  33.  Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A. et al. (2007). “Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 104 (27): 11483-8. Hölzel, B.K. et al (2010), “Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.08.006. Lutz, A. et al (2008) “Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation,” Trends Cogn Sci.12(4):163-9. Bishop, S.R. et al (2004), “Mindfulness: A Proposed Operational Definition,” Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice 11 (3): 230-241
  34.  We are aware that, depending on spiritual traditions, contemplation and meditation may be (and have been) differentiated. However, the wide focus and generality of this investigation allows us to consider them as synonymous. 
  35. Julio Bermudez’s neuroscience study on architecturally-induced contemplative states presents evidence and arguments in this respect. See Bermudez et. al. ( 2017), “Externally-induced meditative states: an exploratory fMRI study of architects’ responses to contemplative architecture,” Frontier of Architectural Research 6 (2): 123-136 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foar.2017.02.002 (accessed 12/05/2024).
  36.  Linda Hess and Sukdeo Singh (trans.), The Bijak of Kabir (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002).
  37.  Keith Critchlow, “What is Sacred in Architecture?”, Lindisfarne Letter 10 (Stockbridge, MA, 1980), 4-6. See also a Julio Bermudez, Spirituality in Architectural Education (CUA Press, 2023).
  38.  John Steele, Geomancy: Consciousness and Sacred Sites (New York: Trigon Communications, Inc., 1985).
  39.  Belden Lane, Landscapes of the Sacred: Geography and Narrative in American Spirituality (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 19.
  40.  For example, see Robert Lanza & Bob Berman, Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe, (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, 2009).
  41.  Here are references supporting the value of the TA research reported in this White Paper. In no particular order:
    • The ACSF Declaration of Transcendent Habitat (Nader Ardalan, Julio Bermudez, Roberto Chiotti, Tammy Gaber) 2019 
    • The Critical Conversations (Thomas Barrie, Julio Bermudez, William Storrar)
    • CONNECTIONS: Envisioning Future Sustainable Cities of Iran (Nader Ardalan, Azad U)
    • 2A Webinar: A Search for Transcendent Built Environments (Nader Ardalan, Tammy Gaber, Roberto Chiotti, Julio Bermudez, Thomas Barrie)  
    • Transcending Architecture: How to Design and Experience It (CUA-Julio Bermudez)
    • Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Book (Thomas Barrie, Julio Bermudez, Philip Tabb)
    • Semiotic and Phenomenological Study of Sacred Architecture (Julio Bermudez)
    • Tammy Gaber Student Research – Sacred Places (Laurentian University)
    • Developing a Transcendent Design Attitude (Case Study proposed to Univ of Miami (Nader Ardalan)
    • Transcending Architecture, Contemporary Views on Sacred Space (Julio Bermudez)
    • Toward a Research Framework for Transcendent Human Habitats (Nader Ardalan, Julio Bermudez)
    • Development of Manifesto of Transcendent Architecture (Nader Ardalan, Julio Bermudez, Roberto Chiotti, Tammy Gaber, Caitlin Watson)
    • Thin Place Design: Architecture of the Numinous Book (Philip Tabb)
    • ACSF/2A International Design Competition (Nader Ardalan, Nevine Nasser, Nesrine Mansour, Nooshin Esmaeili, Ahmad Zohadi + Thomas Barrie, Julio Bermudez)
  42.  “The faculty for myth is innate in the human race.”—W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (Dover Publications, 2006)
  43.  Significant philosophers and seekers (e.g., Ralph Waldo Emerson) believe in the unity of all creation and the superiority of transcendent or spiritual vision over mere logic. 
  44.  See Chittick, William, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn Al-Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination (State University of New York Press,1989)
  45.  Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind, David J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, both by Oxford University Press, 1996.
  46.  ACSF: the Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum. URL: https://acsforum.org (accessed 12/05/2024)
  47.  For example, the “global building floor area is expected to double by 2060,” and we are going to be adding/building the equivalent “of an entire New York City to the world, every month, for 40 years. Additionally, three-quarters of the infrastructure that will exist in 2050 has yet to be built.” From Architecture 2030 website: URL: https://www.architecture2030.org/why-the-built-environment/ (accessed 12/05/2024)
  48.  Refer to https://acsforum.org/declaration-of-transcendent-human-habitat/ (accessed 12/05/2024)
  49.  Two classes stand out. One is Professor Tammy Gaber’s undergraduate course on Sacred Places at Laurentian University. The other is Julio Bermudez’s graduate seminar on Transcending Architecture and the Walton Studios at the Catholic University of America. Both courses were taught at least 3 times, thus testing the insights and findings of the 2014 Transcendent Architecture article. For the record, my graduate seminar tested the 14 TA conditions listed in our 2014 paper by analyzing 26 modern and 23 premodern buildings recognized over the years (sometimes centuries) to produce profound responses on people from all walks of life and cultures. In other words, the TA conditions seem to hold in most cases. The buildings that were studied are (in no particular order): 
    • PREMODERN (prior to the 20th Century): the Parthenon in Athens; San Carlo alle Quatre Fontane Church in Rome; the town of Oia in Santorini, Greece; the Pantheon in Rome; the temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt, Borobudur in Indonesia, Le Thoronet Abbey in France, the Taj Mahal in India, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the Gaza Pyramids in Egypt; Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Friday Mosque in Isfahan, Iran; Chichen Itza in Mexico;  the Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali;  the Chartres Cathedral in France;  Machu Picchu in Peru;  the Pyramid of the Sun and surroundings in Mexico;  Stonehenge in England;  one building + context in the Forbidden City, Beijing, China;  the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy;  Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey in Normandy, France; Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza Church in Rome;  the Cologne Cathedral in Germany;  Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy. MODERN (since 1900): the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona;  the Farnsworth house in Illinois (by Mies van der Rohe); the Holy Redeemer Church in Tenerife, Spain (by Fernando Menis); the 9-11 Memorial (by Michael Arad), the Salentein Winery in Mendoza, Argentina (by Bórmida & Yanzón), the Jewish Museum in Berlin (by Daniel Libeskind); the Church of Light (by Tadao Ando); Fallingwater in Pennsylvania (by Frank Lloyd Wright); the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (by Frank Gehry); the Corrutchet House in Argentina (by Le Corbusier); the Oculus in New York City (by Santiago Calatrava); the Neuendorf Villa in Spain (by Claudio Silvestrin); the Caja Granada in Spain (by Alberto Campo Baeza); the Bahá’í House of Worship in Chile (by Siamak Hariri); the Water Temple in Japan (by Tadao Ando); the Thorncrown Chapel in Arkansas (by E. Fay Jones); the Sidney Opera House in Australia (by Jorn Utzon); the Santa Maria degli Angeli Chapel in Switzerland (by Mario Botta); the Steilneset Memorial in Norway (by Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois); the Dar al-Islam Mosque Madrasa in Abiquiu, New Mexico (by Hassan Fathy), Casa de Retiro Espiritual in Seville, Spain (by Emilio Ambasz); the National Assembly in Bangladesh (by Louis Kahn); the Hill of the Buddha at the Makomanai Takino Cemetery in Japan (by Tadao Ando); the St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle (by MODERN (since 1900): the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona;  the Farnsworth house in Illinois (by Mies van der Rohe); the Holy Redeemer Church in Tenerife, Spain (by Fernando Menis); the 9-11 Memorial (by Michael Arad), the Salentein Winery in Mendoza, Argentina (by Bórmida & Yanzón), the Jewish Museum in Berlin (by Daniel Libeskind); the Church of Light (by Tadao Ando); Fallingwater in Pennsylvania (by Frank Lloyd Wright); the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (by Frank Gehry); the Corrutchet House in Argentina (by Le Corbusier); the Oculus in New York City (by Santiago Calatrava); the Neuendorf Villa in Spain (by Claudio Silvestrin); the Caja Granada in Spain (by Alberto Campo Baeza); the Bahá’í House of Worship in Chile (by Siamak Hariri); the Water Temple in Japan (by Tadao Ando); the Thorncrown Chapel in Arkansas (by E. Fay Jones); the Sidney Opera House in Australia (by Jorn Utzon); the Santa Maria degli Angeli Chapel in Switzerland (by Mario Botta); the Steilneset Memorial in Norway (by Peter Zumthor and Louise Bourgeois); the Dar al-Islam Mosque Madrasa in Abiquiu, New Mexico (by Hassan Fathy), Casa de Retiro Espiritual in Seville, Spain (by Emilio Ambasz); the National Assembly in Bangladesh (by Louis Kahn); the Hill of the Buddha at the Makomanai Takino Cemetery in Japan (by Tadao Ando); the St. Ignatius Chapel in Seattle (by Steven Holl); the Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (by Frank Gehry); The Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana (by Richard Meier).
  50.  While academic scholarship can also be called a form of practice, the distinction I make here is that a spiritual practice is not content with the abstract realms of intellectual interpretation and analysis and seeks to directly take on challenges of action and production to offer tangible value to the daily lives of the wider constituency of people who do not belong to scholarly traditions.
  51.  Louis Kahn, Silence & Light, Solomon Guggenheim Museum Lecture, 1968, in Louis Khan-Essential Texts edited by Robert Twombly (New York: Norton, 2003).
  52.  Ibid.
  53.  Ibid.
  54.  Ibid, Guggenheim Museum Lecture, 1968
  55.  Ibid.
  56.  Ibid., Lecture at Pratt Institute, 1973.
  57.  Ibid., CIAM Talk, 1959.
  58.  Ibid., Guggenheim Lecture, 1968.
  59.  Ibid., Order Is, Yale Perspecta, 1955.
  60.  Ibid., Guggenheim Lecture, 1968.
  61.  Ibid., Pratt Lecture, 1973.
  62.  Ibid.
  63.  Ibid, CIAM Talk, 1959.
  64.  Ibid, Discussions in Kahn’s office, 1961.
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