theology and built environment colloquium

The Theology and the Built Environment Colloquium is being chaired by Dr Murray Rae of the University of Otago, Dunedin. Architects, theologians, philosophers, and art historians, from the UK, the USA, Canada, France, and New Zealand have been gathering to engage in a conversation between theology and the spatial arts.

For the latest information, see the Theology and the Spatial Arts website.

what are the 'spatial arts'?

The term 'spatial arts' refers to all those arts that contribute to the formation of our built environment, to the shaping of public and private space. They include, of course, architecture, engineering and urban planning-those endeavours concerned directly with the construction of buildings, roads, bridges etc., and their arrangement and combination in cities and towns. But they include too, a range of other arts that similarly shape our experience of the spaces we inhabit; sculpture, interior design, furniture design and so on. So, while we are concerned with something defined clearly enough as the built environment - the shaping of space for the facilitation of our human projects - the range of arts involved in the shaping of space is very broad indeed.

aims of the project

The project does not aim to give good advice to artists, nor does it seek to impose upon them an obligation to fall in line with its view of the truth. It hopes rather to benefit from the conversation with the arts by discovering new ways of understanding and expressing its own particular subject matter.

It seeks to encourage research and publication in theology and the spatial arts. Planning is currently underway for a series of publications on the themes of  'Space', 'City', and 'Sanctuary', each with the subtitle, 'Explorations in Theology and the Spatial Arts'.

application of the 'forms' of engagement to the spatial arts.

Jeremy Begbie identifies above a range of forms of 'theology through the arts'. Each of these may be applied to the spatial arts.

  1. A focus on art that overtly engages theological matters - art with a relatively clear Christian content.
  2. Theological wisdom can be furthered by attention to the characteristic ways in which an art-form is structured and operates.
  3. A theological engagement with the arts can serve to heighten our sensibility to the theological dimensions of cultural movements
  4. A theological engagement with the arts can serve to heighten our sensibility to aspects of our human condition.
  5. There is much to be gained by a thorough engagement with the second-order disciplines of the arts.
  6. Engagement with the arts may generate theological wisdom by providing a 'negative' print of theological truth.
  7. The arts can contribute to theological wisdom by shaping and forming the theologian.

For more about how these forms might be applied to the spatial arts, see the Theology and the Spatial Arts website.

research themes from the first colloquium

For more details on these themes and papers which addressed them, see the Theology and the Spatial Arts website.

the future

It is hoped that in the long term there will be several monographs arising from the research project. The medium term goal, however, is to publish a collection of essays to be edited by Murray Rae and Alan Torrance.

> See also:

> back to top