I was privileged to deliver a conference paper titled “Beauty and Transcendence in Architecture: Four Ideals for the Secular Age” at the 2022 CAVAD Architecture Symposium – Imagination, Transcendence, and the Secular Age held at California Baptist University, Riverside, CA on October 21, 2022.

ABSTRACT: We live in a day and age in which the built environment plays a critical role in either nourishing or diminishing cognitive, behavioral, spiritual, and emotional health and well-being. “More than ever before,” argues Juhani Pallasmaa, “the ethical and humane task of architecture and all art is to defend the authenticity and autonomy of human experience, and to reveal the existence of the transcendental realm, the domain of the sacred.” Finding beauty and the sacred in a secular age is difficult considering the atheistic philosophy that dominates both modern culture and our schools of architecture. “Our built environment speaks of a culture that has banished the sacred to the periphery of our modern lives,” explains Karsten Harries. While this may be the case, Charles Taylor argues that the secular age forces individuals to confront notions of belief and unbelief. Thus, it is our unique privilege living in a culturally diverse and predominantly democratic world that enables us to choose for ourselves based on evidence, history, and faith rather than popular ideologies. Beauty and transcendence are inextricably linked to the sacred. Looking to the past, Alberto Perez-Gomez reminds us that Renaissance cosmology believed that “number and geometry were a…link between the human and the divine.” Others influenced by Newtonian transcendental thought argued that by observing the “immutable, mathematical laws…of natural phenomena” architects would be able to design with beauty and thereby approach divinity. The latest neuroscience research is likewise confirming our tendency to seek the beautiful or spiritual in order to fulfill the human need of nourishing our emotional brain. Applying these lessons to the secular age we ask: how can architects attempt to transcend the mundane and ordinary through beauty? Can the domain of the sacred be revealed through beauty? How might these principles be taught to the next generation of architects? I seek to answer these difficult questions by examining four ideals that might help us address beauty and transcendence in architecture. These can be summarized as follows: 1) design with beauty, 2) defend the authentic, 3) build for time, and 4) inspire the spirit. I conclude by sharing lessons learned from applying these ideals to architectural education in the secular age.

VIDEO PRESENTATION:

CITATION: Brandon R. Ro,”Beauty and Transcendence in Architecture: Four Ideals for the Secular Age.” Paper presented at the 2022 CAVAD Architecture Symposium – Imagination, Transcendence, and the Secular Age. California Baptist University, Riverside, CA, October 21, 2022. Video presentation: https://youtu.be/xRhhdWGo7iQ

Accepted version of paper is available online:  https://www.academia.edu/93361852/Beauty_and_Transcendence_in_Architecture_Four_Ideals_for_the_Secular_Age