Till We Have Built Jerusalem - Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred

 General Description:

Philip Bess

"The city comes into existance... for the sake of the good life."  So wrote Aristotle nearly 2,400 years ago, articulating an idea that prevailed throughout most of Western culture and the world until environmental consequences of the Industrial Revolution called into question the goodness of traditional urban life.  Urban history ever since has consisted largely of efforts to ameliorate the industrial city by either embracing or challenging the idealization of nature that has followed it.

Architect Philip Bess's Till We Have Built Jerusalem puts forth frsh arguments for traditional architecture and urbanism, their relationship to human flourishing, and the kind of culture required to create and sustain traditional towns and city neighborhoods.  Bess not only dissects the questionable intellectual assumptions of contemporary architecture, he also shows how the individualist ethos of modern societies finds physical expression in contemporary suburban sprawl, making traditional urbanism difficult to sustain.  He concludes by considering the role of both the natural law tradition and the communal religion in providing intellectual and spiritual depth to contemporary attempts to build new - revive existing - traditional towns and cities, attempts tha, at their best, help fulfill our natural human desires for order, beauty, and community.

Philip Bess is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture.  He is also the principal of Thursday Associates in Chicago, a firm committed to rethinking American architecture and urbanism.  The author of two previous books, his essays have appeared in Civitas, First Things, the Christian Century, and Classicist, and the Humanist Art Review, among many other periodicals.

A Tiber River reviewer hasn't written a review for this book yet.
Sign up as a Tiber River reviewer and see your review here!
(Apart from fame, you can also can get free stuff and gift certificates.)

 Browse For Similar Items In

• Catholic Books >
• Catholic Books >
• Catholic Books > Philosophy / Theology Books > The Arts/Beauty
• Catholic Books
• Catholic Books > Catholic Culture Books > Catholic Art and Architecture
• Catholic Books > Catholic Summer Reading > Catholic Summer Reading 2007

Related Articles

1. The Way - a New-found Interest in an Old Tradition 10/25/2011

2. The Dormition Fast in the Eastern Churches 07/31/2009

3. Fr. Vincent Capodanno - Priest of Heroic Virtue 06/01/2009

4. Feast of the Holy Trinity 02/26/2009

5. The Seven Capital Virtues 01/06/2009

6. St. Thomas Aquinas 01/06/2009

7. A Resource Guide to Books by Pope Benedict XVI 11/25/2008

8. Learn About Mary 11/24/2008

9. Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary 11/20/2008

10. Learn About the Church Fathers 11/13/2008