I am a residential architect and have long been interested in bringing the spiritual dimension into home design without turning the house into a temple or violating any of the other things a home should be. I was thrilled to find this web site the other day, but dissappointed in the lack of activity. So, here is an opening salvo.
One of the things that must be remembered is that a home is an important financial investment an must maintain general market appeal, so the sacred nature of the home should probably remain subtle and non-specific.
Writings on the subject are also pretty non-specific and hard to translate into an actual architectural expression, but I have run across a few things that I find helpful and would like to share.
In "Existence, Space and Architecture" by Norberg-Schulz, he defines 3 basic types of architectural space. 1) Centers: an inward-looking space; a monument or space in the middle of a piazza; your home is your psychic center in a city, the Kitchen or fireplace may be the of a home. It is the place from which you depart and to which you return, your point of reference in the world. 2) Paths: A linear space along which you travel toward a goal. 3) Domains: An enclosed area (the enclosure might be actual (a wall) or implied (a change of landscape texture or a political boundary); the inside is known and safe, outside is adventure and uncertainty.
The places where these 3 kinds of space intersect have special importance. The intersection of 2 paths is a metaphor for a decision, a change in life direction. A doorway or portal or theshold has obvious symbolic possibilites, and so on.
"Spiritual Path, Sacred Place" by Thomas Barrie looks at temples and other sacred places from different times and cultures. He concludes that they often employ similar devices to convey meaning. Some of these are 1) a gate, door or threshold, a point of transition from the outside world to an inner domain. 2) Orientation of the buildings to points of the compass (and therefore to the cosmos) or to significant features in the landscape (Mecca). 3) An enclosure separates the outer world from the inner. 4) A path symbolizes a journey, a preparation. There might be certain events or changes, a progression along the path. 5) A heirarchy of spaces leading to a climax, an inner sanctum (maybe a Master Bedroom or personal space within the home) 6) Symbolic use of fire (hearth, family) or water (ritual cleansing in preparation for entrance to a sacred place, nature, peace).
No one suggests that these be used as a cookie cutter formula for incorporating the spiritual dimension into a home. But, thinking about them might lead to an interesting design idea.
To give an entire property a sense of enclosure using walls, landscaping, gates, berms, to separate the domain of "home" from the outside world can make it a kind of sacred precinct.
You can set up hallways as vistas through the house and beyond (Paths and Intersections), maybe a hallway leads out through a glass door to a fountain in the yard. I once worked on a house with a huge specimen oak in a center courtyard. We made an axis line from the center of the tree through the front entry, down 3 steps, through the Living Room, out through a feature window to a mountain peak in the distance. It gave the house a sense of orientation in the landscape and connectedness to things beyond.
I think that a home can be a "place where one might discover and inhabit one's place in the cosmos". (I swiped and paraphrased that line from someplace; don't remember where, but I liked it.) It aint much, but I hope it will evolve into an interesting discussion.
Thanks for your thoughts. For sure my home is always my inner universe.
One idea I had along the lines of making a subtle non-religious spiritual dimension would be an inset area that I would use like an altar but could be an "art nook" just as easily.
I seem to collect things like stones or beach glass or little objects as well as have an area where I remember people whose birthday or anniversary or illness or death is something I want to keep in mind or in heart.
For these kinds of spiritual practices a little nook altar area specially set aside for this purpose is something I would like to structurally include in a place I get to really make mine.
Good idea...a place for any art or personal or natural object that move you. It is not specific to any religious practice and could be used any way you like.
Today, as I was driving around, I was thinking about a home remodel I worked on 4 or 5 years ago. The original house was nice but ordinary at first sight. It was a 1-story ranch with spanish influence, maybe 1200 sq.ft.built in the 1930s. But as I looked more closely I realized that there was something very special about it. There were simple but special individual details; there were 2 or 3 small pieces of furniture that had matching details; the rooms were well proportioned, comfortable and the house was well-built. It turns out that the owner's grandfather had built it (he was a building inspector in that town in 1938). The point is that, although it seemed like an ordinary house, the builder poured such care and spirit into it that it has stayed in the family for 3 generations. On some level, his spirit is still in the house and can be felt.
If any work of art is a self portrait, an expression of who you are, maybe when you design and build a home while in a certain state of mind, it becomes infused with your spirit whether you like it or not...completely apart from whatever spaces or features you put into it.
I once visited the cathedral at Chartre. They say it is the premier example of French Gothic and so forth. When you see pictures of it or read accounts by historians it seems significant but all of that talk is pretty academic. It walked in and without seeing very much at first (its dark inside) was immediatley struck hard by the spirit of the place, as if you could feel the devotion of the workers who built it. I think others feel it too and that is what makes this place great, not the groin vaults or the buttresses or whatever.
