DECEMBER 2006 » book review

Strongly Compact

Castles of God: Fortified Religious Buildings of the World
by Peter Harrison
The Boydell Press, Rochester, NY; 2004
312 pp.; hardcover, 41 monochrome figures, 44 color illustrations; $60
ISBN 1-84383-066-3

Reviewed by Noah Waldman, Archdiocese of St. Louis

In "A Way to Love God," Robert Penn Warren wrote: "Everything seems an echo of something else." Warren expresses the inherently symbolic character of all-that-is, calling to consciousness common themes once forgotten, transformed now by the passage of time and of its final waning – its "echo" – which ends in the terribleness of forgetting.

In this remarkable book, Castles of God: Fortified Religious Buildings of the World, Peter Harrison sounds the depths of a subject heretofore "little studied or understood" for echoes of impulses deeply rooted in the human spirit: its natural desire for security and order, and its spiritual thirst for religious meaning. By the time we are finished reading Harrison's book we are able once more to hear an ancient resonance. And in this resonance, and by means of it, Harrison has succeeded in identifying no less than the essence of a new architectural typology, one which is not merely evident in many diverse forms from the post-Classical to pre-Renaissance periods, but which predominates, telling a new architectural story of the Middle Ages: a two millennium pas de deux of fortress and temple.

Now, the "old story" of medieval architecture is one most of us are familiar with. Most of us will recall it from art history courses. Its plot centers around a different dyad, not a duet but a conflict between the solidity of the wall and the desire for openness and height. Between them, the architect struggles like Sisyphus to open the wall to light and space. The scene of the drama is more or less centered upon Western Europe. It is, like most stories, not without a polemic: the early Christians, with their heads in the clouds, weren't the best of builders. They were able to adapt the old Roman types (the longitudinal basilica and the round martyrium) only to a limited degree of skill. Their churches assumed heavy postures, and wall maintained dominion over column and arch – and most of all, over the freedom of the architect – for nearly a millennium. Justinian and Carolingian permutations of those types demonstrated a limited development, instilling some new meaning into the Roman forms, but even with these architects had to settle for mosaic and alabaster to create lighting effects.

Then suddenly (like the Incarnation itself) with the Promethean genius of Abbot Suger, the Gothic arch and the flying buttress allowed for a new soul to be breathed into the old forms, freeing them from earth. Cathedrals soared. Walls dissolved into glass, space, light, and (at last) meaning. Were not Suger and his new Gothic freedom the forerunner and foretaste of modernity's dream, fulfilled in the coming of the final architectural messiah Le Corbusier and of his gospel, the plan libre?

Such was the story (myth really) told to generations during the 20th century. While it is not my intention to take too lightly what is true in the previous account (Otto von Simpson's Gothic Cathedral shall remain an indispensable classic, and the story it tells of formal evolution is not without depth of vision, as myths do contain certain truths!); nevertheless – why should we so easily believe that analysis of form should become the sole determiner of our understanding of architectural evolution? And why should form be the lens through which we gauge our retrospective standards of perfection and symbolic potency? Are the echoes of meaning in the forms of things, or in what lies beyond form, in a matrix of history and memory? Formal evolution has a nearly mathematical logic of its own that points to a changeless structure of human values; yet a story of form and of taming the primal forces – though an invariant datum of explanation, part science and part myth – cannot substitute for the fuller human dimensions of history and culture that, though often conditional and accidental, comprise those occasions of a form's coming-to-be.

An intuitive grasp of the human situation in life is one of Harrison's greatest strengths. Of course, he does not ignore formal considerations, for no discussion of typological diversity and commonality is possible without some examination of form. Yet, Harrison always contextualizes (and therefore gives meaning to) typological expression by considering history, cross-cultural connections and religious visions that, like new sources of radiance, charge the old story and the old formalizations of medieval architecture with a fuller sense.

Using this method, Harrison begins his book with a very simple observation: a common typology that binds religion and defense into one can be traced to the Essene settlement at Qumran of 100 B.C., and possibly well before that. Harrison then shows how this typological genus is like a seed that can blossom into a myriad of forms across history, culture, local building tradition and religious belief.

To be more specific about the typology Harrison identifies, it has within it two recognizable formal elements: a worship space, which may be interpreted as an element of vertical or transcendental meaning, and a tower/enceinte, which he interprets according to horizontal or political necessities and local influences. As nucleus and membrane of a cell are necessary components of one living being, these two elements stand in relation to one another as composing one type. The common elements of worship space and tower/enceinte do show up time and time again, but in variations on a single two-part theme, according to religious orientation and to its situation in the world – so that this one typology echoes its essence into the world in many ways. The typology is not limited to Europe or the Christianity. It can serve as a genus common to the Christian West and East and also to Islam and, to a lesser degree, to Tibetan Buddhism. In Ethiopia, the typology may materialize as monastery with qasr. In Egypt and Iran, it may show up as Islamic mosque and minaret. Often, both elements may conflate into a single expression, as in the tower churches of Denmark or the donjon churches of the Templars. Or, they break forth into fragments and repetitions, as in the vast palace complexes of Tibet.

Harrison's repertoire is considerable. In the Christian tradition that makes up the main of the book, he examines the round towers of Ireland, the later Norman churches, priories and tower houses. The castles and great "fortress cathedrals" of the Iberian Peninsula, Latvia, Prussia and the Latin Middle East are studied in light of the Crusades. In England, Scotland and Wales, he analyzes gatehouses, peles, marches and tower churches. The great monasteries and abbeys of France display the highest degree of typological differentiation, whereas the round and freestanding fortified churches of Denmark and Sweden demonstrate a brilliantly cool efficiency of form. Mt. Athos and the "sky monasteries" of Greece are discussed, as are the very terrestrial designs of the fortified church villages in Transylvania, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and their more complex variations, such as Moscow's Kremlin and Georgia's cathedral complex at Ninocminda. Even the Vatican and missionary churches in the Americas and the Philippines are given notable representation.

A small but important section of the book considers Islamic variations on the type, including foursquare ribats, the khanaqah of the Sufis, and the castles of the Assassins. Finally, Harrison examines a few important Hindu sub-types, such as the fort monasteries of the dob dobs, the chalet-like dzongs and the Dalai Lama's Portala Palace.

Certainly Castles of God will change the way we think about the evolution of architectural form during the Middle Ages, and possibly the evolution of architectural form far into antiquity. The book is wonderful for exposing the casual reader to a subject of architecture little studied. The glossary of terms, bibliography and index are extensive and helpful; organization and layout are beautiful and precise. Marvelously researched, beautifully written and illustrated (the lovely diagrams and photographs are Harrison's), this book is scholarly without flaw.

But there is something more here, both for the architectural imagination and for the mind: if there were an architectural form in which the echo of all other forms found sonority, what would it be? Would it be found in the cities and dwellings of the Ancient East, or in the cathedrals and solitary skyscrapers of the West? Could there be a universal type embracing architectural opposites? While Harrison's sobriety as a scholar prevents his going so far as to explicitly tackle this question, the breadth and trajectory of his study can imply nothing else. This fortress/temple typology, in its embrace of the full span of human experience – from worldly survival to the hope of other-worldly transcendence – seems the iconic fusion of the city and the sanctuary into one. Is this not, therefore, that one type that contains in its germ all possible architectural types within its sphere?

Even if Harrison does not go so far as to relish the fullest possibilities of his masterpiece, by no means does he falter in the least. Castles of God is a groundbreaking work. Once introduced into architecture curricula, it will change the way medieval architecture is taught at the university level. It will draw architecture students back from the world of forms into the world of history, which is the world of man. Architectural historians will find this book an invaluable tool to weave together the story of architecture. The architect will discover in its pages a treasure of inspiration and insight into the design of churches, monasteries and parish centers. So, too, this book will (inevitably, in time) become a touchstone for those seeking deeper resonances between anthropological and theological meaning. For no peaceable city, no city of man that lacks strength and security from the forces of the world, can allow the hearts of its citizens to soar to the heavens. One thinks of the psalm verse:

I rejoiced when I heard them say:
"Let us go to God's house!"
And now, my feet are standing
Within your courts, O Jerusalem—
Jerusalem—City built strongly compact!

Grace cannot be built but upon nature. Love of god, in any religious tradition, requires protection from the community of the unenlightened, to grant man the freedom to love God. And freedom is weakened by the possibility of fear. If this indeed is the condition of man, then it must be echoed throughout the architecture of the world. In recognizing the universal sound of this echo, Harrison has written nothing less than a classic. TB

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