SACRED MODERNITY - THE HOLY EMBRACE OF MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE

Sacred modernity documents the movement in modernist sacred architecture across post-war Europe. This was the period when the church married the atheist architect, and bore a child of pure form. Half a century on, this study traces how their materials and ideals have matured and patinated. They are future visions from the near past and there is nothing quite like them in our architectural landscape.

SACRED MODERNITY BOOK - PUBLISHED WITH HATJE CANTZ - SPRING 2024

Jamie McGregor Smith’s Monograph will be published with Hatje Cantz in spring 2024. You can pre-order a signed copy of the book at a special pre-order price here…

In the summer of 2018, I left my London home and moved to Vienna. I started by searching its architecture for clues about my new society. As a photographer, im always motivated by the bold cultural changes affecting our social landscape. I first visited the Wotruba Catholic church. I was bewildered, that this piece of progressive art had been commissioned by such a conservative institution. It redefined my idea of what a church could be. At once beautiful yet brutal. My search broadened, and I quickly discovered a whole movement in modernist sacred architecture.

Then, the global pandemic hit, my photographic work came to a standstill and I was left in limbo in my new home. Miraculously, I discovered that church doors remained amongst the only ones left open. Whilst civilisation held its breath, I silently navigated these unorthodox spaces and attempted to understand how and who had realised them. Whether you believe in a God or not, they remain awe-inspiring.

This began a photographic journey that has, over three years, taken me from inner-city housing estates to Swiss mountain villages. Growing up amongst the medieval churches of England I was captivated by these extraordinary, supernatural structures that so freely express imagination. As the project grew, I realised this design epoch did not have the attention it deserved. This would be the first attempt to document and coulisse this movement in their matured colours and present in a single vernacular artistIC vision.

The book features essays by the architecture critic and writer Jonathan Meades and Professor and writer Ivica Brnic.

" The choreography of emptiness. The images suggest either the numinous or god's long term absence. They ask questions and supply no answers." - Jonathan Meades

SACRED MODERNITY FILM

HISTORY

Following the end of the Second World War, the Catholic Church undertook the Second Vatican Council, a once in a century reformation aimed at modernising and reimagining faiths current and future context in a new world reshaped by global conflict. A new generation of bishops collaborated with a new school of young architects and created ground breaking pieces of contemporary architectural sculpture that still remain amongst the most unique buildings within our public sphere.

Half a century later, their futuristic unfamiliar forms suggest at an obscure religion, and perhaps predict societies current shift away from organised religion towards an individual spirituality. Boldly designed, outrageous and provocative for their time, the aesthetic of this period still ignites great debate between modernists and traditionalists, whilst being revisited and reimagined by contemporary designers and scholars.

SACRED MODERNITY KICKSTARTER

Sacred Modernity the book was successfully launched on Kickstarter in July 2022 receiving their ”Projects We Like” seal and gathering press with Wallpaper Magazine, Arch daily and Fast company.

 

NARRATED ESSAY