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The Architecture of Prayer

January 2023

The Architecture of Prayer

The Center Art Gallery at Calvin University presents The Architecture of Prayer, an international survey of the contemporary church. The exhibition showcases drawings and travel photography of historic church buildings in dialogue with new projects built between 1999 and the present-contributed by aver 40 global architecture firms-including: 

Ad Jaye Associates Centerbrook 
Coop Himmelb(L)Au 
Dellekamp Arquitectos 
John Pawson 
Mario Botta Architetti

Marlon Black Well Architects
Neri&Hu 
Niall Mclaughlin Architects

Olson Kundig 
Ply+ 
Robert A.M. Stern Architects

Shigeru Ban Architects

Nazrin Shah Building – Steelwork

July 2015

Nazrin Shah Building – Steelwork

Just over two years since our first tentative steps towards imagining what sort of space a new auditorium for Worcester College might possibly be like, we find ourselves enclosed within a spidery sketch, looking up to the trees through a skeletal enclosure of steel. We watched in excitement as our drawings were scribed across the site, first in neon spray paint and little red sticks, later excavated into deep ravines. We pick our way across the lines that had become so familiar on paper and are now concrete obstacles in a muddy field. The reality of this transition only became real as we stood looking across at the steel columns in this picture. They map out the positions of the stone fins that radiate around the curved facade of the new auditorium, with the sloping beams above us silhouetted against the bright July sky marking the future locations of the sculpted folds to the soffit.