Image: Tom Purves / Flickr.com
Why Cities Feel Glorious
And why, in comparison, the suburbs so often feel flat.
6.27.13
Suburbs are often unfairly maligned as lacking the qualities that make cities great. But one place that criticism can be fair is in the area of sacred space. There most certainly is sacred space in the suburbs, but usually less of it than in the city ...
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joni butler
I totally agree that the typical church built today is greatly lacking in the aesthetic sensibilities of earlier generations. No doubt. BUT the best of them are well suited for the purposes for which they were built: to be flexible so that the building can host a church service one day, a father-daughter dance the next, the youth play for Christmas, a fundraising banquet for a local charity and my church is even cable of recording live albums and videos. Traditional structures can't accommodate all that with good lighting and sound, to boot!
Douglas Flather
There is of course another equally valid view: "the Kingdom of God is within you." I wonder what St. Francis would have thought of all this. I recently visited St. Paul's in London. As an American, I was astounded both at the grandeur, and the fact that on Sunday morning, roughly 40 people were in attendance. The priest on duty was so dispassionate and disengaged, I almost wept. As I walked back to my hotel, I was reminded of the meme that pictures a starving African child with the caption "I guess it's awesome the Pope has his own helicopter." Many (other) Protestants spend less on architecture not because they are aesthetically illiterate, but because they believe money should be invested differently. The author is certainly entitled to his opinion that larger churches are architectural horrors, but I frankly would rather sit in a well-designed space where I can see and hear, than in a cavernous empty shell with pretty stained glass.
Roger McKinney
No one wants to live in sacred places; they merely want to visit once in a while. Suburbs are close enough to visit such places when anyone wants to. People act like suburbs and cities are on different planets. The value of suburbs derives from being close enough to the city to take advantage of it while being far enough from cities to avoid their disadvantages, of which there are many. The real contrast would be between cities and small towns or rural areas. Of course, then you have to consider the sacred space of nature and the enormous value of it.
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