Holy Nothing: Sacred Architecture Through Non-Religious Eyes

Sacred architecture manifests as focal points for faiths around the world. Religious phenomenology is a field in which the experience of sacrality is assessed. This research challenges the work of religious phenomenologist Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) who argued sacrality is only accessible to a religious man. Through the use of reflective hermeneutics after philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), a methodology with which to understand the experience of the spatial dimension of sacred architecture is deployed. In the data collection stage, the present study is analysing the public experience and connection within monotheistic sacred places. This interrogates whether the non-religious or interfaith (individuals who belongs to a different religion) can spiritually experience the sacred. The study aims at evoking a response to the question of whether the interfaith or non-believer connects with sacrality. Through doing so, the hypothesis set out by Eliade is tested, which the initial research outcomes have proved to reject. Following qualitative analysis of these case studies, dimensional analysis is deployed to cluster the Interfaith perception. Eight personas were created and used to test Eliade’s hypothesis in order to shed light on non-religious man’s position within sacred architecture. This will be vital in not only understanding why people connect with sacred architecture, but also benefit architects, designers, conservationists and policy makers in responding to sacred architecture, and the evolving role of contemporary sacred architecture