Sacral architecture (also known as sacred architecture or religious architecture) is the design and building of sacred or deliberate spaces such as churches, mosques, stupas, synagogues, and temples. Religious and sacred spaces are among humanity's most spectacular and long-lasting monolithic structures. These structures define our society and the people in it.

Religion in architecture

Religion is a social-cultural system of designated behaviours, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics or organizations that relate humanity to supernatural and transcendental elements. Religion is a way for humans to express their relationship to that which they revere as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine and worthy of special reverence. This relationship can be expressed in terms of an individual's relationship with one or more gods or spirits or the human community or the natural world.

Img 1: The Pantheon is a former Roman temple and since the year 609 a Catholic church (Credits: Image© Flickr user Jun licensed under CC BY SA-2.0

In many of the most ancient civilizations, architecture evolved around the concept of religion. Throughout time we've seen religious buildings represent a number of key different types of architecture and evolve their own styles in doing so. The religions themselves have evolved too, some changing radically from year to year, bringing about shifts in the way their buildings must be constructed - especially due to different climates around the world and cultures that have divided or united at various times throughout history.

Role of religious architecture in society

Importance of religious buildings

Religion is something that has always been a topic of debate. The verdict is still out on whether or not it does more harm than good, but it can certainly be argued how beneficial religion really is and to who. Religion offers the means for guidance, comfort and a sense of security. Whether one believes in religion or not, it's undeniable that religion offers solace to many people. Religion can also serve as a foundation to help shape moral beliefs and behaviours. It creates an important connection to tradition and offers support in times of trial and turmoil. In some cases, this once meant help with farming, disease control etc., But due to modernization, protection from disease and wars became less relevant for most so now we rely more on emotional support instead of protection from natural disasters or from enemy attacks.

That being said, religion has inspired some of history's greatest architectural works, spurred on by the desire to create spaces where humanity could come closer to a higher power. The role of "religious" spaces is changing from the iconography of organized religion to ambiguous spaces that reflect the idea of "spirituality" as a whole. It's worth noting that most major religions have no fundamental or required form for worship rooms.

Yet we still associate Islam with minarets and Catholicism with Gothic cathedrals. Many sacred spaces have been easily converted from one religion to another depending on who was in power at the time. The Pantheon, for example, had its pagan god sculptures removed and replaced with Christian imagery, but the architecture remained the same and served the same purpose. Churches, mosques, and synagogues have all been constructed on Biblical sites. Built sacred spaces, regardless of religion, have a lot in common in terms of using light and scale to evoke a sense of awe and piety.

Img 2: Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque in Beirut, Lebanon (Credits: Clara Rayes)

Religious architecture and buildings today

Due to strong sense of beliefs, historical architecture, on the other hand, has rarely created venues that can accommodate multiple religions. ‘Multi-faith’ as a term rose when globalization took place. Typologies like airports, retail malls, hospitals, jails, schools, and government facilities housed rooms that allowed people of different faiths to practise their customs. These rooms were often empty spaces without the essence of any philosophy of faith or any design principles, described as "mundane places without an aura."

With consumerism and hyper-connectivity bombarding us with incessant visuals, sounds, and information, the need for spaces to contemplate, meditate, and sense solitude has never been more important. In this approach, spirituality in architecture can be divorced from organized religion and given a new purpose: to produce a sense of wonder, a space for introspection, and a peek into clarity through design.

The techniques for recreating the environment of self-reflection and wonder without the need for religion can be gleaned from historical architecture. The role of spiritual spaces can begin to develop a new typology through shape, space, scale, materiality, and light, one that today's society can benefit from. Another method that architects have approached the topic of how to create spiritual places is by incorporating natural elements. The way the water laps gently against the coast, or the dappled shadows created by the branches of an ancient tree, are all moments in nature that create a sense of peace, working to raise the human soul.

Img 3: The church on water by Tadao Ando

The continued relevance of religious architecture is evidenced by our fascination with cathedrals, mosques, and temples. Although we may not all adhere to organized religion's traditions and beliefs, the effects that these structures have to imply a new sort of architecture that could be important and perhaps essential in today's environment.

Img 4: Church of light by Tadao Ando signifying the need for religious spaces that caters to the soul of people and the space

Types of religious buildings

mosque community religious example site word prayer structure monastery history hindu Img 5: Building typologies in religious building

Worship:

Worship architecture includes gathering of communities/individuals for the traditions and customs of a particular tradition in places like churches, temples, mosques, monasteries, cathedrals, synagogues etc. These locations offer strong beliefs and shelter for the images, relics and holy areas of the religion in question.

Img 6: Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence, Italy

Shrines

Shrines are holy sites consecrated by religious communities, families, or private individuals to a saint, divine icon or sacred place. These sites owe their importance to their association with the life of an important religious figure. Catholics and Jews alike study at shrines of prophets and saints and these places become attractions for pilgrims as well. The shrine may be a small building (such as a chapel) or an established site where people go to worship in the open air. Shrines can also be constructed in honor of sacred figures/elements of nature whose relics are held in catacombs or crypts below the church itself.

Funerary architecture

Funerary/burial architecture is a creation by societies that have a materialistic belief in the afterlife and by individuals who desire to commemorate and express their temporal significance. In today’s world to celebrate and mourn a person’s life as per their beliefs/deeds, interventions like memorial center, crematoriums, crypts & mausoleums, graves etc fall into burial architecture and buildings.

religious building religious buildings religious community buddhist shrine governmental functions modern world human beings larger building blue mosque religious order muslim place related words meeting place structure designed great variety place of worship religious building

Img 7: ‘Epicurus’ entry for Circle of life: Design a cemetery

In the last century, religion's place in society changed significantly. For example, as we move into the 21st century, there are less religious structures on Earth than ever before. Just a few hundred years ago, it was common for entire cities to have been heavily influenced by their religious populations. For example: until less than 100 years ago during its heyday, Christian churches were at the heart of every town across America. Many of those “cathedrals” today continue to serve the community that they were built to serve and maintain the grandeur they achieved when they were first created by local people who cared deeply about faith and family - most of whom volunteered their time to help build them!

The winnowing of religious expression has direct implications for architects. Architecture was a form of religious expression for millennia: Mayans, Buddhists, Jews and later Christians and Muslims created sacred spaces that often dominated cityscapes and were civic points of pride. Until the 20th century, it was common that the largest buildings in cities were cathedrals, and in the U.S., the central focus of almost all small towns was a church. Today we see less explicit signs of religion on most city government buildings as well as corporate headquarters across our country.

A more relevant issue is whether architecture can escape the fate of religion. Will architects have better results at demonstrating their relevance to people’s lives than religious leaders did in the 21st century? How do we make buildings that are relevant to human scale, use, the surrounding context or environment?

Architecture Competitions

Architecture competitions have been a big part of historic construction innovation for religious purposes or public buildings. For centuries, architecture competitions have helped source the best and most unique designs for projects, spurred community development (think: urban planning), and created huge publicity around new projects.

Competitions are a great way to try out new things, make mistakes and learn from them. They're also a great opportunity for portfolio building because everything you submit gets contextualized based on where it ranks against everyone else's work. And perhaps most importantly, they give you extra insight into what the judges see in your submitted work as well as how they don't see it - which is yet another fantastic way to improve your designs in unexpected ways!

Some of the competitions for religious architecture being hosted all over the world are The Sacred Space by Archdais, KAIRA LOORO INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION SACRED ARCHITECTURE, Annual Religious Art and Architecture Design Awards by Faith and Form and so on.

Explore projects under religious buildings published on UNI website:

UNI Design Competitions

UNI is a global network of architects and designers who are solving some of the most challenging problems around the globe. UNI brings together the world's largest pool of design challenges that are curated by the finest architecture academicians and professionals globally. With over 200,000+ registered members, UNI brings academia and the professional spheres of architecture together through a unique knowledge-sharing web platform.

Since 2017, UNI has hosted more than 200+ architecture competitions for various idea level to realization level briefs. In the past, UNI has helped 50+ organizations, universities, and government bodies to use our platform to generate architecture and design solutions through competitions. There are many competitions hosted by UNI on our website for religious building design disciplines such as Circle of life, Congregate, Abbey, Faith, Eco-chapel and so on.

Discover other competitions: https://competitions.uni.xyz