Thought on Architecture
Today I took the Chicago architectural tour via the Chicago river. It was pretty cool…the tour guide talked about 80 buildings in the 90 minute tour. Anyway, I’m going to try to give you a brief observation about architecture as I understand it:
Modern Architecture– the guide called modern architecture “glass on sticks.” She showed us that modern architecture has no superfluous design — just glass boxes, mostly. In her words, modern architecture “wants us to be impressed by it’s structure.”
Postmodern Architecture — the guide showed us several examples of postmodern architecture that is marked by 3 things: 1. unique tops of buildings 2. pays homage to different styles of architecture (art deco, classical, gothic, etc.) and 3. she kept showing us examples of how “postmodern buildings are aware of their surroundings and pay homage to building it sits next to.
To me, the parallels to church scream out…and it’s a no-brainer as to what I think the church should be more like.
I think that being “aware” of their surroundings is so huge. I remember talking with someone once and they were telling me how they were going to start a new ministry. They were confident that in 18 months it would look a certain way… When I asked them how they were making it a unique expression for the community that they were moving into, it turned out that they had not even done any demographic work yet….
so they had made a plan for what God wanted to do for 18 months without:
1. meeting anyone from the community.
2. finding out what the unique needs of the community were
3. learning what was unique strengths or character of the community…
in other words they didn’t care about the community… they cared about there ministry plan… sounds like “glass on sticks” to me.
brandon
September 20, 2007 at 2:42 pm