Territories of Faith
Religion, Urban Planning and Demographic Change in Post-War Europe
Edited by Sven Sterken and Eva Weyns
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Edited volume - paperback
VIEW Edited volume - ebook - PDFA novel and interdisciplinary perspective on post-war church building
In the 1950s and 1960s, thousands of churches were built across Europe in an attempt to keep up with the continent's rapid urbanisation. This book addresses the immense effort related to the planning, financing, and construction of this new religious infrastructure. Going beyond aspects of style and liturgy, and transcending a focus on particular architects or regions, this volume considers church building at the crossroads of pastoral theology, religious sociology, and urban planning. Presenting the rich palette of strategies and methods deployed by congregations, dioceses, government bodies, and private patrons in their attempt to secure a religious presence in the rapidly modernising world, Territories of Faith offers a broad view of the practice of religion and its material expression in the fast-evolving (sub)urban landscapes of post-war Europe.Contributors: João Alves da Cunha (Universidade Católica Portuguesa), Alba Arboix-Alió (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya / Universitat de Barcelona), Umberto Bordoni (Scuola Beato Angelico), Angela Connelly (Manchester School of Architecture), Maria Antonietta Crippa (Politecnico di Milano), Kees Doevendans (TU Eindhoven / KU Leuven), Davide Fusari (Politecnico di Milano), Jesús García Herrero (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Judi Loach (Cardiff University; Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes), João Luís Marques (Universidade do Porto), Mélanie Meynier-Philip (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Lyon), Ellen Rowley (University College Dublin), Sofia Anja Singler (Cambridge University), Sven Sterken (KU Leuven), Marina Wesner (TU Berlin), Eva Weyns (KU Leuven), Ferdinando Zanzottera (Politecnico di Milano)
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Introduction
NEGOTIATION
1. Planning for Faith in Wythenshawe, Manchester
2. Lyons’s Post-War Churches
3. Constructing Country, Community and City
4. Faith in a Divided City
EXPERTISE
5. Rethinking the Urban Parish
6. Catholic Parishes in the Lisbon Master Plan of 1959
AUTHORITY
8. A Laboratory of Pastoral Modernity Church Building in Milan under Cardinal Montini and Enrico Mattei from 1955 to 1963
9. Reconstructing the Diocese of Barcelona
10. Mass Housing and the Catholic Hierarchy in Dublin, 1930s–1970s 305
11. Epilogue
Format: Edited volume - paperback
Size: 238 × 170 × 20 mm
360 pages
Illustrated b/w
ISBN: 9789462703094
Publication: January 31, 2022
Series: KADOC-Studies on Religion, Culture and Society 30
Languages: English
Stock item number: 146465
Sven Sterken is professor at the Faculty of Architecture of KU Leuven.
This well-conceived, well-researched and immaculately presented book (full of urban and church plans and photographs) captures well a specific moment in European history from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. Its account of how the Catholic Church planned its missionary and pastoral response to the phenomenon of rapid urban expansion during this period skilfully identifies its wider resonances. The shift to a post-war secular age in Europe presented huge challenges to the Catholic Church and the book beautifully captures the way in which modern (mainly) Catholic places of worship became theologically inflected to articulate a new relationship between the church and the world. This explains the interdisciplinarity of the volume as it attempts to integrate the perspectives of urban and religious sociology, urban planning and policy, modern church history and theology into a seamless and critical whole.
Christopher Baker, Politics, Religion & Ideology, https://doi.org/10.1080/21567689.2023.2219133
The scholarship in this book is energetic and fresh. Chapters include many stories featuring compelling personalities, important organizations, and intriguing buildings, all grounded in excellent archival work. Although the authors focus on institutional thinking and formal planning, each chapter also includes a discussion of specific architecture, and many authors raise preservation and heritage questions about those buildings today. This collection is not only packed with new information, but it is also coherent and conceptually sophisticated.
Gretchen Buggeln, Church History , Volume 91 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 969 - 970 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S000964072300015X
På 1950- och 1960-talet byggdes tusentals kyrkor över hela Europa i ett försök att hålla jämna steg med urbaniseringen efter andra världskriget. De elva bidragen i denna volym skildrar hur detta gick till, vilka tankar som låg bakom, och hur kristna samfund och myndigheter samarbetade på olika sätt i planeringen av nya kvarter. År 2017 höll arkitekturfakulteten på det katolska universitet i Leuven (KU Leuven) ett internationellt seminarium som nu har blivit en bok, redigerad av arkitekturprofessorn Sven Sterken och doktoranden Eva Weyns. Det är en bok om samhällsplanering, delvis också om kyrkoarkitektur, och den berättar om ett tidevarv av kristen optimism som i dag ligger bakom oss.
olle brandt Ett centralt tema i årsboken med titeln Demokrati, krig och mänsklig värdighet är det spända säkerhetsläget som uppstått sedan Rysslands invasion av Ukraina i februari 2022. Boken innehåller elva artiklar författade av Cyril Hovorun, Jan Henningsson, Hans Corell, Elisabeth Gerle, Magnus Hagevi, Anders Wejryd, Misha Jaksic, Magdalena Dahlborg, Jan-Åke Alvarsson, Jonas Jonson och Annika Sjöqvist Platzer. Recensionsdelen i årsboken omfattar inte mindre än 48 böcker kring ämnesområdena teologi, filosofi och psykologi samt historia och samhälle. I de fyra förstnämnda artiklarna behandlas kriget i Ukraina utifrån olika perspektiv som kompletterar varandra till en helhetsbild. Inledningsvis nämner Cyril Hovorun myten om det heliga Rus, av Putin använd som täckmantel för anfallskriget, vilket understötts av den rysk-ortodoxe patriarken Kyrill. För att grymheterna i Ukraina inte ska upprepas måste det ryska folket ”avputiniseras”, menar Hovorun, och eftersom kyrkan medverkat till putinismen är det också genom teologiska argument som den kan dekonstrueras. Ortodoxa kyrkan kan här få bidrag från andra teologiska traditioner, liksom från andra samhällsvetenskapliga discipliner, menar han. Jan Henningsson lyfter fram den bakomliggande historien till Putins ”heliga” krig. Han berör även förhållandet kyrka – stat och de näraliggande problemen kring
Olle Brandt, Signum, 3/2023
In conclusione, il volume merita un’attenta considerazione da parte degli storici dell’architettura italiani, non solo per l’interesse dei contenuti e per l’inedito taglio interdisciplinare tra scienze demografiche, religiose e urbanistiche, ma soprattutto per la solidità e l’articolazione del progetto di cui il volume costituisce l’esito editoriale condiviso. A fronte di un pullulare di iniziative editoriali e convegnistiche frammentarie, con tempi di scadenza incalzanti dovuti a esigenze produttive e concorsuali quantitative, il cui risultato sono saggi di dimensioni esigue, scritti in un inglese solitamente improvvisato e improbabile, il volume dimostra come – per scrivere una raccolta realmente comparativa, interdisciplinare e innovativa – servano diversi anni di lavoro, sostenuti da un progetto ambizioso (seppur flessibile e inclusivo), sviluppato da un gruppo di studio affiatato e chiaramente strutturato (con ruoli diversi per promotori, revisori, discussant e ricercatori) e che fa del dialogo (non doppiamente anonimo, ma guardandosi negli occhi!) uno strumento essenziale di studio e correzione reciproca. Gli esiti di tale faticoso percorso non possono che essere saggi corposi, che devono poter prendersi lo spazio necessario per esegesi raffinate di fonti di natura diversa, e che – nonostante il labor limae curatoriale e redazionale, metodologico e linguistico – non sono appiattiti su un medesimo format letterario o scientifico, ma lasciano trasparire le differenze di scuole, di tradizione di studi e di genere di scrittura.
Andrea Longhi, Studi e Ricerche di Storia dell'architettura, Numero 12-2022
Holiday Book List 2022, Docomomo US staff
https://docomomo-us.org/news/holiday-book-list-2022
Erik Sidenvall, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift 2022
'Territories of Faith' is an important contribution to the understanding of European postwar religious architecture that left the past behind in order to remain relevant in the present. The pan-European perspective also makes comparable the different approaches to liturgy but also the different interpretations of the role of the church in postwar urban contexts. A very interesting read!
German Postwar Modern, 7 December 2022
This edited collection focuses on the extraordinary flourishing of religious architecture in European cities between roughly 1945 and 1975. We are reminded throughout the volume – which concentrates largely on the Roman Catholic church – of the astonishing pace of building in this period [...] Through use, for example, of material in diocesan and municipal archives, we gain a rich understanding of the sociological mechanics behind so many architectural masterpieces of this era.
Territories of Faith is an important contribution to the understanding of church building, especially roman catholic, in post-war western Europe. It examines the processes that underpinned post-war church building, which so manifestly deviated from tradition. This book certainly contributes to a better appreciation of these usually atypical buildings. The focus of this book is primarily on roman catholic churches, which makes the essays more mutually comparable.
Marcus van der Meulen, FRH, https://www.frh-europe.org/territories-of-faith-church-and-the-post-war-city/