Architecture is a blend between art and science. It is a science and very rational in the way that the design solution has to work logically, structurally and rationally in terms of the organisation of space in relation to its function. There are many different design solutions to an architectural brief and the creative nature of working on the different rationally viable solutions is where the practice of architecture addresses the intangible and artistic side of the discipline. This nature of architecture being constrained to the functionality and pragmatism of spatial layout and structure is partially why Arthur Schopenhauer considered architecture as the lowest form of art in terms of his hierarchy of expression of the will.
This condition can be viewed as a constraint and disadvantage, but it is also what makes architecture powerful. Architecture as art takes initiative and is active. A viewer always has expectations and has to make a specific conscious choice of wanting to go see a painting or listening to music, but with architecture, when it is well designed and all its factors and elements works in harmony, the viewer encounters it without expectations and is directly immersed in it, experiencing it; Architecture’s medium of expression is space itself.
This form of expression ranges from something as simple as a well-designed space to spaces that evoke feelings associated with the sublime. Achieving the upper bounds of this range in architecture will be the main focus of this paper. At what point does a brick become a wall? At what point does an arrangement of walls become something that is sacred? Where does the transition happen? All of these questions are relevant to the aim of paper.
This paper aims to investigate how architecture creates ineffable spaces - using materials that are very much of this world to create something that is intangible. A closer look will be taken at religious spaces, specifically Le Corbusier’s 3 churches: Ronchamp Chapel, La Tourette, and Firminy Vert. The main focus was chosen because religious spaces in architecture has a special requirement not to only function well, but to also be a place fit to be an homage to god. The church, in theory, acts as a mediator between heaven and earth; it acts as a liminal space. This requirement to be sacred makes it a fitting typology to study for the paper. Other liminal spaces in architecture such as funerary architecture and ritual spaces in history will also be looked at and compared to the churches.
In order to achieve the aim of the paper, a literature study will be done. Sacred Concrete by Inge Linder-Galliard & Flora Samuel will be serve as the background and give context to the architectural intentions of Le Corbusier’s churches. Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, The Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa and Atmospheres by Peter Zumthor will be used as reference to understand how users perceive and understand space. Poetics of Space specifically talks from a psychological angle on experiencing and perceiving architecture, touching on memory and associations people make when experiencing space. Having also had visited the churches I will incorporate personal accounts of what experiencing the buildings were actually like. Images taken by myself of the buildings will also be incorporated on the paper to be used for analysis of the space, light, architecture, etc. This visual analysis alongside with orthogonal drawings of the building will then be investigated through the lens of Bachelard’s, Zumthor’s and Pallasmaa’s ideas with the aim of finding the distinctiveness or at least identify contributing elements that makes religious architecture successfully befit as a liminal space mediating heaven and earth.