Lauren Schaaf- Architecture

I read the chapters in Sacred and Profane Beauty about Architecture since that has always been an admiration of mine. Especially after traveling around Spain this past summer and seeing some of the oldest and most beautiful churches I was interested to see what the author and other philosophers thought about them. It was surprising the majority of the chapter talked poorly about architecture. They argued that what made God holy was his humility and grandiose buildings did not represent that.

I understood the argument, but I think of churches of some of the most beautiful buildings that demonstrate a person's love and respect for God that they would build something in his honor. Most of the churches I've visited also have a lot of artwork inside the building and music which are 2 of areas of art that we've discussed this year.

I thought the 3 types of art would work together to create something extremely beautiful that many philosophers would appreciate. However, one of the chapters did acknowledge that Goethe called architecture frozen music which I thought was a very interesting description that seemed to fit well. It also said that architecture expresses holiness through it's massiveness and demonstrates the influence of emptiness which was interesting to hear them also express some positivity to come out of large churches

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