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Silent Sacrum in the Contemporary Architecture

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Silent Sacrum in the Contemporary Architecture E-Theologos, Vol. 4, No. 1 DOI 10.2478/etheo-2013-0010 Silent sacrum in the contemporary architecture Micha ł Dmitruk, MA Sacral architecture as the background of quarrels and reconciliations Because of the diversity between religions, the approach to faith often provokes social divisions. History provides us with proofs of society's various approaches to those divisions. Sacral architecture is usually their background, and dealing with the temples often determines, or at least reflects, the relations between advocates of various religions. The variabil- ity and complications of mutual relations is clearly seen in Israel from its history, to the contemporary.. Around 960 BC "following Lord's command" the first Jerusalem temple was erected on top of Moria hill 1. The building was considerably large in size, with little decoration and contained the Jews' sacred Ark of the Covenant. In 586 BC, Nabuchodonozor II, the Babylonian king, invaded the Promised Land and, as a sign of his victory, destroyed the Jewish tem- ple and introduced Jews to 70 years of the Babylonian captivity. After being liberated by the Persian king, Cyrus, they returned to their land and raised another Jerusalem temple, based on the prototype but significantly more modest. Around 20 BC, king Herod the Great had the temple restored. He wanted to mark the golden age for the realm of Israel and the power of the Judaism 2. How Wojciech Kosiński described it: Temple "was creating a wonderful urban landscape, rich in hierarchi- cally set squares, subshadows, porticoes of columns, gardens and ponds, surrounding the proper building. Scrumptious materials were applied at the construction - the Lebanese cedar, the white calcium-dolomite Jerusalem stone and substantial quantities of gold. However, these valuable materials were used for the serious and restrained way, peculiarly minimalist. The 1 In Bible times, the hill was called Moria. Moria in Hebrew means "chosen by the Lord" 2 Rittmeyer, Leon. 2006 The Quest. Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Wyd. Carta Jerusalem & The Lamb Foundation. Jerozolima. 109 E-Theologos, Vol. 4, No. 1 DOI 10.2478/etheo-2013-0010 metaphor of this aesthetics was adequate for the customs and the Jewish religion - and the geometric abstraction driven from that had it's escape in aesthetics of buildings, details and decoration (pic. 1). As a result of mani- festing these features by the believers - Jewish religion, (extremely monothe- istic and abstract, referring to the intellect and imagination rather than to sculptures and images; belief in the invisible God, not-represented icono- graphically, not to say not called by any name) - was for other nations, in opposition to other mythological, anecdotic, anthropomorphic and pictorial 3 religions, from Babylon to Rome, unimaginable and unbelievable ." Pic.1. Model of II Temple of Jerusalem. Historical Museum in Jerusalem. Source: ziemiaswietawkatechezie.pl - date: 27/04/2012 After the rebuilding, the Israeli gold era was soon to end. Although Je- rusalem was under the Occupation of the Roman Empire, a relative free- dom of religion prevailed, providing that all of the due taxes have been paid. After the defeat of the Jewish uprising in 70 BC, the temple was razed and replaced with a new temple devoted to Jupiter, a sign of tri- umph and contempt towards the Israeli. In the western part of Jerusalem, on the Calvary hill, they raised a provocative temple devoted to the frivo- lous goddess, Venus. 3 Kosiński W. Architektura sacrum wobec konfliktów, tolerancji i pojednania. Historia, współczesność, perspektywy ,. Przestrzeń i forma, nr 15/2011 s.15 110 E-Theologos, Vol. 4, No. 1 DOI 10.2478/etheo-2013-0010 With this act of the religious vandalism the Jewish sacred places were violated and the place of Christ's ordeal, where his first advocates were still gathering then, was insulted and built over 4. After the loss of the temple, their own country and the Holy Land, fate of the Jews both in and beyond Jerusalem, were very unstable, stormy and more than once dramatic. Relations to Jews and their holy places were varied, from the extreme anti-Semitism, to the peaceful coexistence, founded in mutual tolerance and respect. In 638 new Islamic rulers of Jerusalem conquered the city. They were characterized by their exceptional respect, understanding and openness. They recognized the three religions of Abraham as brotherly, proclaiming belief in the same God, with ceremonial differences. Christians and Jews, wishing to prays on the Jerusalem hill encountered no difficulties from Mohammedans' side. Under command of the caliph Malik, in 691 Mo- hammedans raised the historic mosque called the Dome of the Rock, which really was, a monument surrounding the rock, where, allegedly, Abraham wanted to sacrifice his son, Isaac 5. Pic. 2. Dome of the rock. Source: ateo.pl – date: 27.04.2012 4 Rittmeyer, Leon. 2006 The Quest. Revealing the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Wyd. Carta Jerusalem & The Lamb Foundation. Jerozolima. 5 Goitein, Shlomo Dov; The Historication background of the erection of the Dome of the Rock , Journal of American Oriental Society, Vol. 70, No. 2, 1950 111 E-Theologos, Vol. 4, No. 1 DOI 10.2478/etheo-2013-0010 Another important Islamic temple is the Al Aksa mosque built in 701 which visually dominates above the Jerusalem district called "David's Town". Both buildings have the significant place in the Jerusalem land- scape and today the very town after Mecca and Medina, is the third most important city for Islam 6. Crusaders were characterized by a totally different approach towards coexistence of various religions in the Holy Land. They were not tolerant towards Jews, nor Mohammedans, and all of those who did not recognize the pope's sovereignty were burnt at the stake. They were changing the internal decor of temples, rearranging them in a catholic way and banning the cult of any other religion. Jews, initially willing to cooperate and ready for the compromise, turned their back from crusaders and picked the side of Muslims 7. Changing historic eras were rich in political, social and cultural events but did not bring peace in the Holy Land. To that end there was little change. Conflicts between denominations seemed to grow, and dissimilari- ties in the interpretation of faith were impossible to be brought together. These conflicts are also clearly visible in the contemporary times, espe- cially between Islamists and Jews. Other religious minorities have a pecu- liar tolerance which allows them to coexist in Palestine. It is the effect of the marginal influence and being somewhat apart from the main trend of the conflict. Jews received consent for the construction of the third temple several times, however, construction has never begun. Islamic priests have claimed that the erecting such a symbol of religious domination, would lead to the end of the world. It is possible to find plenty of similar examples of this peculiar "reli- gious arms race" where temple raising was a winning card. Starting with the construction of Hagia Sophia temple in Constantinople 8 and of its au- thor's, the emperor Justinian’s, famous words : "I beat you, Salomon 9", through the giggle of history in the form of rebuilding of that Church into the mosque in 1453, till barbaric and full of consequences knocking down Budda's majestic statues 10 , destroyed by the Taliban in Baiman, in 2001. History is teaching architects a valuable lesson in the form and social function of sacral architecture. The necessity of coexistence of various cultures and the religions, in the contemporary world a very problematical 6 Al-Ratrout, H. A., The Architectural Development of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Early Islamic Period , ALMI Press, London 2004 7 Runciman S., Dzieje wypraw krzyżowych , Warsaw 1987. 8 Today Istanbul, Turkey 9 Anna Różycka-Bryzek , Encyklopedia Kultury Bizantyńskiej , Warsaw 2002 10 as above 112 E-Theologos, Vol. 4, No. 1 DOI 10.2478/etheo-2013-0010 situation, however it is the only chance for peaceful development and future of humanity. This situation is forcing to search for suitable forms of expressing faith, both in the sphere of the social coexistence and in the form of the contemporary sacral architecture. The sacrum without God Sacral architecture does not necessarily involve the subject of faith or cult or the religion directly. The enlightenment era brought the revolution in the way of religious comprehension. The pendulum of times, hung be- tween rationalism and prejudice and superstitious idealism, directed itself, like two ages prior during the Renaissance, towards the first of them. The European religious thought got rid of prejudices, gaining the abstract, clear form. Many enlightenment thinkers abandoned entirely the deistic concept of the Creator and began to search one's sacrum in the sphere of the hu- man activity, civilization progress and achievements. In Paris as an after- math of those iconoclastic ideas, there emerged an idea to raise a com- pletely secular temple, The Great People's Pantheon. The religious func- tion of the building, which initially was supposed to be the Saint Gene- vieve's church, was not accepted by the French National Assembly which decided in 1790 that the building will become the national museum 11 . This gigantic "monument of mankind" was built in the neoclassical style - with a very ordered and clear form, cross outlined, with the dome put centrally and the pillared portico, finished with the Roman Pantheon style fronton. In 1837 a decorative message: " Aux Grands Hommes La Patrie Reconnais- sante 12 " was put above the portico. From that time, the building is being the temple of the progressive thought, the secular place dedicated to great people and timeless values. Among other things, in the crypt of the pan- theon, there are located tombs of: Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Louis Braille, the inventor of text for the blind, and of Maria Skłodowska-Curie.
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