The topic of sacred spaces is nothing new for University students. From their first admissions tour to their final march down the Lawn at graduation, they know they're on hallowed ground.
Tomorrow night, this hallowed ground becomes the backdrop for an architecture symposium that will explore sacred spaces in America. The symposium, entitled "(Un)Common Ground," brings together scholars from around the country to expand on a graduate seminar taught by Architecture Prof. Louis Nelson.
The response to Nelson's seminar, called "Sacred Spaces," was so positive that he pushed for a symposium.
"One of the problems often found in American architecture is that religion is never addressed," he said. "U.Va. has such a strong architecture department and such a well-known religious studies program, and there seemed to bea natural intersection of the two disciplines."
He cites a wide target audience for Thursday's symposium, including scholars, community members, clergy, students and faculty.
"We want to address big issues but remain very accessible at the same time," he said. "It's a symposium on how academics think about sacred space, but we want to avoid academic rhetoric."
Organizers want to avoid defining sacred space too narrowly, or even avoid defining it at all.
"Sacred space is not just Christian churches," Nelson explained. "We're hoping this symposium will blow the discussion of sacred space wide open."
The possibilities are wide open, indeed. Scholars will present on topics that range from early 19th century churches in Connecticut to recent African-American yard art.
Other speakers plan to focus on spaces such as the Monastic Abbey in Minnesota, Central Park in New York City, American Hindu temples and Catholic architecture. The highlight of the evening will be keynote speaker Martin Marty, aprofessor emeritus from the University of Chicago and a leading thinker on the place of religion in American culture.
"Professor Marty doesn't normally lecture on architecture, so this will be a unique experience," Nelson said. "His talk is entitled "The Terrible Beauty of Sacred Space," and the title is part of the surprise -- we're not really sure what it means but it's extraordinarily provocative and appropriate for Halloween."
The symposium, which is free to students and faculty, will begin at 6:30 in the Architecture School tomorrow night. Nelson admits the time was carefully chosen.
"We wanted to get started after the trick-or-treating on the Lawn," he explained. "But we also wanted to finish up before all the Halloween parties get started."
He hopes students will take a break from their Halloween festivities to discover how scholars view the sacred spaces around them.
"A sacred space is something that is defined by a community and realized by practice, not something defined by an architect," he said. "It's the people that shape the space that make it sacred."
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