Sacred space goes far beyond stereotypes of contemplation and spirituality, aligning instead with the political and social ethos of the city. This book is the result of a year-long investigation into the nature of sacred space and its manifestation developed with tutors Pier Vittorio Aureli and Maria Shéhérazade Giudici in the AA’s Diploma Unit 14. It consists of design proposals that range from a multi-faith school in Strasbourg to the reconstruction of a festival hall in the city of Xian, China; from a Jesuit monastery in Detroit to a women’s Islamic centre in Paris. Each proposal is introduced by critical texts that analyse the political and ideological meaning of religious architecture. The projects are complemented by essays by Pier Vittorio Aureli, Maria Shéhérazade Giudici and Hamed Khosravi that focus on the relationship between forms of worship and architecture, and argue that within sacred space form must follow function – in other words, that architectural space must adhere to the rituals through which the sacred is enacted.

9781907896637, 2016
31 × 24cm, illustrated, 240pp, paperback