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Shaping the Religious Experience: Pietro Belluschi's Inspiring Work
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10993 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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11 / 1993 |
2,281 Words |
| Author
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Stephen Henkin
Stephen Henkin is an arts editor for The World & I. |
Although architect Pietro Belluschi is best known for his collaboration in landmarks such as the Bank of America headquarters in San Francisco and the Pan Am Building and the Juilliard School of Music in New York, his religious edifices may be his finest work. A pioneer in the Modern religious architecture movement in America, Belluschi was fortunate in that he was able to take advantage of rapidly developing technologies in order to construct churches and synagogues on the cutting edge of his craft.
During his long and extraordinary career, Belluschi, now much less active in his nineties, transcended normal aesthetic requirements and the pressures for conformity that have created over the years a blight of uniform and bland religious structures. His humanistic work, despite being rooted in the practical concerns of construction techniques and scientific innovation, nonetheless provided unique environments that both facilitate the spiritual experience as well as lend themselves to flexible use. He has always compromised the architect's needs to those of his clients. Belluschi's work has been an enduring example of a Modernist style whose mechanical functionalism flows out of an organic point of view based upon architectural themes derived from landscape, function, and materials.
The technical skills he acquired, coupled with a keen sensitivity derived from his own early religious experience, contributed to the architect's sublime understanding of how to shape an environment conductive to a religious experience. In his various houses of worship, which span the breadth of the United States, this venerated architect has consistently striven to respect the age-old symbols of what constitutes a church.
In the book Spiritual Space: The Religious Architecture or Pietro Belluschi (University of Washington Press, 1992), architectural history professor and Belluschi biographer Meredith Clausen cites the basic tenets of the architect's sacred design: scale, harmonious proportions, fine materials and craftsmanship, most of all, eloquent moving space."
Indeed, Belluschi's religious buildings are so in tune with the unarticulated needs of the religious community he designs for that the buildings effectively harmonize the various, and sometimes conflicting, aspects of religious life. According to Professor Clausen, Belluschi would define a successful religious building as one that meets the twofold spiritual needs of the worshipper: "One that creates a setting allowing meditation, encouraging private or personal contact with a higher
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