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America's Religious Architecture: Sacred Places for Every Community
Author(s): Marilyn J. Chiat (Author)
- Publisher: Wiley
- Publication Date: October 7, 1997
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 480 pages
- ISBN-10: 0471145025
- ISBN-13: 9780471145028
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The churches, synagogues, and meeting halls featured in America’s Religious Architecture meet specific criteria–all are listed on the National Register of Historic Places; all represent an ethnic culture; all played a vital role in their communities; all have architectural merit. Chiat takes the reader on a tour through nine regions in the U.S., pointing out the creative combining of ethnic traditions with local building styles and materials.
The entry on Maine, for example, reveals a diversity of that region that may surprise the reader. A province of Massachusetts until 1820, the Congregationalists were the bedrock, to be penetrated in the 1770s by the hardy German Lutherans (Maine’s rough weather and terrain and its territorial battles discouraged settlement). Its two Anglican parishes would later blossom into an elaborately architected Episcopaleanism, and it would see the migration of Acadian French Roman Catholics from Nova Scotia. This is a good representation of the book’s format–a discussion of the significant ethnic arrivals, their faiths, and the subsequent buildings. There’s a photograph (black and white) on every page, with the address of each building and the name of the architect and builder.
In such a compilation, there are bound to be omissions which will jolt any reader who has his or her own favorite historic haunt. For example, there is no mention of the Moravians who settled Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the 1700s and no images of their elegant, strikingly simple form. That religious community left behind a wondrous core of civic and religious buildings still vital to the community’s spiritual and educational life. But America’s Religious Architecture is an otherwise informative and well-organized tour, replete with fascinating tidbits such as this comment on the Rodef Shalom Temple in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: “The Moorish style began appealing to Jewish congregations in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time when Jews were seeking an architectural style that would not be confused with Christian church architecture.” A noble reference work, belonging somewhere between your crafts shelf and your coffee table. –Hollis Giammatteo
From the Publisher
From the Inside Flap
The United States has more houses of worship than any other country in the world: churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, and meeting houses. America’s Religious Architecture profiles 500 of these wonderfully varied places–each one a powerful living symbol of the religious freedom on which the nation was founded.
You will find vivid details about the origin, architectural features, and social history of each structure, plus information on the patterns of religious settlement in every state. With hundreds of photographs of these distinctive buildings–many listed in the National Register of Historic Places–this book presents a fascinating portrait of the American spiritual landscape and the faith that sustains it.
From the Back Cover
The United States has more houses of worship than any other country in the world: churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, and meeting houses. America’s Religious Architecture profiles 500 of these wonderfully varied places–each one a powerful living symbol of the religious freedom on which the nation was founded.
You will find vivid details about the origin, architectural features, and social history of each structure, plus information on the patterns of religious settlement in every state. With hundreds of photographs of these distinctive buildings–many listed in the National Register of Historic Places–this book presents a fascinating portrait of the American spiritual landscape and the faith that sustains it.
