The rich intertwining of art, architecture, and religion in Native North American worldviews repr... more The rich intertwining of art, architecture, and religion in Native North American worldviews represents an expansive field of exploration that cumulatively addresses patterns of generational continuity, a sense of place, and the continued vitality of ceremonial and oral traditions for the more than 600 recognized tribes of North America. To engage in an overview of such a broad topic, which necessarily includes ethnographic, religious, anthropological and other perspectives, requires a selective rather than comprehensive choice of material evidence. Moreover, the topic challenges perceived understandings of art and religion, such as the familiar separation between the sacred and the profane in representations of religious life. The subject of religious art and architecture in Native North America also immediately calls attention to the ways in which this field of exploration has often been overlooked in the standard canonical histories of religion and the arts. It is rare that in-de...
Recensé : Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis. 2012. Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Glo... more Recensé : Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis. 2012. Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization: Peaks and Valleys in the Flat World, Londres et New York : Routledge. L'architecture peut-elle préserver les identités locales à l'heure de la mondialisation ? Dans leur nouvel ouvrage, Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis voient dans le régionalisme critique une réponse viable à la standardisation de l'architecture contemporaine et des paysages. Ils retracent l'histoire de ce mouvement et mettent en avant les défis sociaux comme environnementaux qu'il peut permettre de surmonter. Comment se moderniser et, simultanément, retourner aux sources ? Comment réveiller une vieille culture endormie et entrer dans la civilisation universelle ? Autant de questions fondamentales soulevées par Paul Ricoeur dans son essai « Civilisation universelle et cultures nationales », publié pour la première fois en 1955 dans Histoire et Vérité. Elles découlent du problème que pose...
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2019
The chapels at Tuskegee University and Emory University are among the most inventive—and least kn... more The chapels at Tuskegee University and Emory University are among the most inventive—and least known—works of the American modernist architect Paul Rudolph (1918–97). In Paul Rudolph and the Psychology of Space: The Tuskegee and Emory University Chapels, Karla Cavarra Britton and Daniel Ledford analyze these buildings as significant exemplars of the postwar American university chapel, finding them subject to three seminal influences in Rudolph's life: his childhood experience of Southern Methodism, his encounters with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and his admiration for Le Corbusier's religious works. The chapels evoke powerful aesthetic and emotive experiences in their audiences, reflecting Rudolph's ambition that architecture should be grounded in a “psychology of space.” The Tuskegee Chapel, designed at the apex of Rudolph's career (1960–69), engages the university's African American musical and educational legacy. The Cannon Chapel at Emory, meanwhi...
This chapter traces one key instance of a dialogically 'horizontal' relationship in moder... more This chapter traces one key instance of a dialogically 'horizontal' relationship in modern architecture between Europe and the Middle East through the particular lens of certain religious works by a prototypical figure in this colonial interplay, the French architect Auguste Perret. Perret's engagement with the construction of the Oran cathedral is indicative of how frequently local architects and clients in the Middle East during the first half of the twentieth century sought to adapt and deploy the new material of reinforced concrete as a material appropriate both to a modernizing culture and to the region's specific climatic and economic circumstances. With Pierre Bourdieu's multi-directional model of colonial influence as a background, what emerges from accounts of architectural developments such as those provided in the chapter is a corroborating pattern of the complex cultural horizontality and 'hybridization' that existed between Western Europe and its Middle Eastern colonial engagements. Keywords: Auguste Perret; cultural horizontality; Middle East; modern architecture; Oran cathedral; Pierre Bourdieu
The latest work by Jean-Louis Cohen is an original contribution to the history of modern architec... more The latest work by Jean-Louis Cohen is an original contribution to the history of modern architecture. His fresh approach brings together various
The rich intertwining of art, architecture, and religion in Native North American worldviews repr... more The rich intertwining of art, architecture, and religion in Native North American worldviews represents an expansive field of exploration that cumulatively addresses patterns of generational continuity, a sense of place, and the continued vitality of ceremonial and oral traditions for the more than 600 recognized tribes of North America. To engage in an overview of such a broad topic, which necessarily includes ethnographic, religious, anthropological and other perspectives, requires a selective rather than comprehensive choice of material evidence. Moreover, the topic challenges perceived understandings of art and religion, such as the familiar separation between the sacred and the profane in representations of religious life. The subject of religious art and architecture in Native North America also immediately calls attention to the ways in which this field of exploration has often been overlooked in the standard canonical histories of religion and the arts. It is rare that in-de...
Recensé : Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis. 2012. Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Glo... more Recensé : Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis. 2012. Architecture of Regionalism in the Age of Globalization: Peaks and Valleys in the Flat World, Londres et New York : Routledge. L'architecture peut-elle préserver les identités locales à l'heure de la mondialisation ? Dans leur nouvel ouvrage, Liane Lefaivre et Alexander Tzonis voient dans le régionalisme critique une réponse viable à la standardisation de l'architecture contemporaine et des paysages. Ils retracent l'histoire de ce mouvement et mettent en avant les défis sociaux comme environnementaux qu'il peut permettre de surmonter. Comment se moderniser et, simultanément, retourner aux sources ? Comment réveiller une vieille culture endormie et entrer dans la civilisation universelle ? Autant de questions fondamentales soulevées par Paul Ricoeur dans son essai « Civilisation universelle et cultures nationales », publié pour la première fois en 1955 dans Histoire et Vérité. Elles découlent du problème que pose...
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2019
The chapels at Tuskegee University and Emory University are among the most inventive—and least kn... more The chapels at Tuskegee University and Emory University are among the most inventive—and least known—works of the American modernist architect Paul Rudolph (1918–97). In Paul Rudolph and the Psychology of Space: The Tuskegee and Emory University Chapels, Karla Cavarra Britton and Daniel Ledford analyze these buildings as significant exemplars of the postwar American university chapel, finding them subject to three seminal influences in Rudolph's life: his childhood experience of Southern Methodism, his encounters with the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, and his admiration for Le Corbusier's religious works. The chapels evoke powerful aesthetic and emotive experiences in their audiences, reflecting Rudolph's ambition that architecture should be grounded in a “psychology of space.” The Tuskegee Chapel, designed at the apex of Rudolph's career (1960–69), engages the university's African American musical and educational legacy. The Cannon Chapel at Emory, meanwhi...
This chapter traces one key instance of a dialogically 'horizontal' relationship in moder... more This chapter traces one key instance of a dialogically 'horizontal' relationship in modern architecture between Europe and the Middle East through the particular lens of certain religious works by a prototypical figure in this colonial interplay, the French architect Auguste Perret. Perret's engagement with the construction of the Oran cathedral is indicative of how frequently local architects and clients in the Middle East during the first half of the twentieth century sought to adapt and deploy the new material of reinforced concrete as a material appropriate both to a modernizing culture and to the region's specific climatic and economic circumstances. With Pierre Bourdieu's multi-directional model of colonial influence as a background, what emerges from accounts of architectural developments such as those provided in the chapter is a corroborating pattern of the complex cultural horizontality and 'hybridization' that existed between Western Europe and its Middle Eastern colonial engagements. Keywords: Auguste Perret; cultural horizontality; Middle East; modern architecture; Oran cathedral; Pierre Bourdieu
The latest work by Jean-Louis Cohen is an original contribution to the history of modern architec... more The latest work by Jean-Louis Cohen is an original contribution to the history of modern architecture. His fresh approach brings together various
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