Hybrid Church: The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact

Hybrid Church: The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact

Introduction

The book written by Dave Browning by the name of Hybrid Church: The Fusion of Intimacy and Impact basically covering the different architectural designs of the churches of the modern era in United States. The author is of the idea that there are big churches as well as micro churches throughout the United States and it shows the transformation in the architectural designs of the church. Therefore, the purpose of writing the paper is to discuss the different aspects of the designs and their intimacy and impact over the society.

Discussion

Church architecture is well institutionalized as a discipline, but the field of architecture has a 'weak identity' and is in constant need of legitimization. In church architecture many different competences and positions are involved, and these cannot easily be synthesized or be mastered by a single person. It is basically related to but also differs from art, and lives somewhere in between the incompatible 'extremes' of art and engineering. The heterogeneity of the field of church architecture also shows in the social 'persona' of the architect: 'I find myself involved in a variety of fields - architecture of course - but also in urban master planning, exhibition installation, furniture and product design, as well as writing architectural thought and criticism. One can argue that as far as a church exists internally in the discursive space of the discipline of architecture - founded by the history of architecture, and enacted in the space of architectural criticism, magazines and catalogues, exhibitions and tourism, school books and the canon - the work of church is just like a work of art.

But unlike the artwork - which can only properly operate within the institutionalized, homogeneous space of the art world and has little use and meaning when it functions merely as an anonymous thing, image, sign or object - the work of church architecture is usually also a building. As such, it has a considerable mute presence and impact, an appearance and a meaning for its inhabitants and users, also when those are completely unaware of its status as architecture. This means that although Tafuri is certainly right in arguing that church architecture is an operative concept, this ideological discursive operation never results in an effective isolation of the work of architecture from the world. And this fact is even - although never elegantly - acknowledged within the internal discourse of architecture. Paper architecture certainly exists, and some people will claim that architecture is nothing but design. But it remains very difficult to argue principally that it is wrong or improper to approach architecture also as a building-in-the-world, and that one should consider a project or a building exclusively as a 'statement' in the conversation of architecture, or a 'move' in the game of architecture.

In the history of the United States, and from antiquity onwards, hybrid churches role has been considered as a social science. This basically implies that architecture stands above the knowledge of the artisan or ...