The Secret Language of Sacred Spaces: Decoding Churches, Cathedrals, Temples, Mosques and Other Places of Worship Around the World

(Hardback)

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Description

From Stonehenge to the Sagrada Famlia, from the Acropolis to Angkor Wat, human beings have directed extraordinary amounts of energy toward the creation of architecture that expresses their religious beliefs. Indeed, in most cultures throughout history, the greatest buildings are religious ones. Both an overview of architecture and a survey of major faiths, The Secret Language of Sacred Spaces offers fascinating insights into some of the most impressive man-made structures in the world. By revealing how these historical places of worship were used and how the tenets of a faith are encoded in both their structure and embellishment, the book enhances our understanding and appreciation of these enduring testaments to belief and ceremony.

The superb full-colour photographs are supplemented by ingenious decoder sections by using the selective isolation of photographic detail, first we see the whole in glorious colour, and then the detail in context with fascinating explanatory annotations. While the book emphasises the key living faiths, with major sections on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, early chapters also look at the great sites of prehistory and antiquity, including the stone circle at Avebury, in southwest England, and the Pyramids at Giza.

Reviews

"...the superb, full-color photographs are interspersed with carefully designed 'decoder' special features that reveal to the reader the meaning of a building or one of its decorative elements as it was intended by its creator and understood by its original audience. A stunning reference book..."
- Creations Magazine (December/January 2014)

Author Bio

Jon Cannon has worked for the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and for English Heritage. In 2001 he was shortlisted for the David Watt Memorial Prize. He was the presenter of the BBC TV series How to Build a Cathedral, and his book Cathedral: The Great English Cathedrals and the World that Made Them was published to great acclaim.