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Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred (Religion and Contemporary Culture)

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If the following paraphrase is not too crude a summary of Philip Bess' brilliant synthesis in this book, the author believes that we all carry a kind of moral DNA within us which not only urges us not to murder but not to allow urban sprawl to devour our landscape and kill our authentic civic life. How ironic that we Americans hunger for the beauty of European small towns, for example, but don't realize that their "human scale" is related to ancient notions of what cities are for -- to make people good (i.e., excellent). This is not a political nor a polemical tract: Bess takes the reader into serious philosophical waters and his emphasis on virtues-based theories of human behavior mirrors the current work of leading philosophers and psychologists like Alasdair MacIntyre and Martin Seligman.

In this interesting but highly abstract collection of essays, Bess tries to teach cultural and religious conservatives (and indeed, religious people of all political leanings) about the virtues of traditional urbanism and its 21st-century heir, the New Urbanist movement. Bess argues that traditional neighborhoods where churches and other civic institutions are the highest buildings ennoble us by teaching us what we should cherish; by contrast, in 20th-century suburban sprawl churches look no different from Wal-Marts.

One of the best things about this book is its use of quotes. Some of my favorites:

*"To value anything simply because it occurs, is in fact to worship success, like Quislings or men of Vichy." (quoting C.S. Lewis).

*"If a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once upon this downward path, you never know when to stop. Many a man has dated his own ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time." (qutoing Thomas de Quincey)

*"the gratification in climbing consists of the conquering of one's own inert heaviness for the purpose of attaining a high goal- an experience inevitably endowed with symbolic connotations. Climbing is a heroic, liberating act; and height spontaneously symbolizes things of high value." (quoting psychologist Rudolf Arnheim to explain why height and beauty often go together)

*"It is not only insufferable arrogance to think that one can begin theologizing in sovereign disregard of history; it is also extremely uneconomical. It seems rather a waste of time to spend, say, five years working out a position, only to find that it has already been done by a Syrian monk in the fifth century. The very least that a knowledge of religious traditions has to offer is a catalogue of heresies for possible home use." (quoting Peter Berger)

*"The utter failure to create any meaningful pedestrian environment (that is, a rewarding public realm} defines the heart of Atlanta today. Every bad idea in the service of contemporary urban design [has come] together [in Atlanta] with a public attitude that can be summed up as the outside doesn't matter." (quoting James Howard Kunstler)

*And once from William Penn that he (wisely) criticizes: "The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God, but in cities little else but the works of men." As Bess points out, human endeavor, like the natural world, is infused with divine presence.

One possible weakness: Because this is a collection of essays rather than a freestanding book, Bess doesn't engage defenders of the sprawl status quo as thoroughly as I would like.

(A version of this review first appeared in the March 2009 issue of The Christian Century.)

This book is an encouraging indication of what a renewal of traditional architecture and urban planning might involve. Philip Bess is the head of the graduate school of architecture at the University of Notre Dame, which is spearheading a countercultural focus on traditional design.

Bess offers an array of explorations - from a meditation on the Ghent altarpiece to a dissection of Nietzsche's aesthetics. But he also offers a blueprint for academic engagement of a fiercely secular field. Despite theology's impressive track record for inspiring beautiful architecture, there is almost an ironclad indifference toward traditional belief among architectural theorists today. Bess counters this indifference bluntly: "I am obviously not uninterested in comprehensive narratives, most especially true ones." Rather than cutting a deal with the architectural establishment, Bess repeatedly cuts to the chase. "Modernist social fantasies," he explains, "underestimated the pervasiveness of what theologians call sin, while overestimating the redemptive power of steel, glass and electricity."

Till We Have Built Jerusalem is therefore not the place to go for a Christianized version of critical theory. Bess knows a rival when he sees one. "Critical theory ... by its own logic - e.g., its views of the primacy of the will-to-power, and of the 'constructedness' of nature--is notoriously poor soil for a theory of sustainability or, for that matter, of a just social pluralism, each of which is arguably better grounded in traditional Western religious views of the created character of man and nature and their relationship to each other and to God."

Bess lays his Catholic cards on the table as he marshals biblical religion, Aristotelian philosophy and natural law theory in his effort to reinvigorate traditional architecture and urbanism. He is suspicious both of contemporary architects who use religious language that is disconnected from religious communities and of religious leaders who build synagogues and churches that owe more to architectural fashion than professed beliefs. But the possibility for a revival of traditional architecture is a real one for Bess because "human beings generally can only stand so much ugliness in their built environments." Bess does not call for one particular style, but he does provide solid, historically informed proposals for what successful church and synagogue building today involves.

Unsurprisingly, his proposals are not modern. Bess concedes that some modern buildings, and even some modern churches, are successful, but he also points out the irony that "the best of them typically were created by architects educated as traditionalists." Bess suggests that premodern buildings admirably serve people who worship because often their architects were themselves worshipers. Art produced by living worship traditions should therefore be resumed.

While critical of the theorists he calls the "heirs of Nietzsche," Bess pulls some architectural critics, such as Colin Rowe, into the orbit of his more religiously informed vision. He does the same for the New Urbanism, a movement that seeks humane alternatives to suburban sprawl. Bess understands that if New Urbanists are to succeed, they will need to draw on more than nostalgia for a brownstone past. For urbanist projects to keep from becoming Projects, they require more than a retro aesthetic--they require a "belief in sacred order."

Till We Have Built Jerusalem contains an informed discussion on the nature of beauty: "Completeness is precisely what the natural order lacks, and this is exactly why aesthetic experience has religious implications, because it seems to reveal to us a glimpse of some other order outside of nature." And while the book may take theological and philosophical detours, it does not lose its practical edge: "The way to make traditional urbanism less expensive is to make it less rare." One of Bess's more radical proposals is that churches should partner with developers to form a city around themselves. "Though we cannot avoid being modems," says Bess, "we can certainly avoid being Modernists."

Philip Bess (Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, University of Notre Dame School of Architecture) presents Till We Have Built Jerusalem, a scholarly examination of the relationship between traditional architecture, urbanism, and human flourishing, as well as the types of culture necessary to sustain traditional towns and city neighborhoods. Chapters analyze questionable intellectual assumptions of contemporary architecture, and reveals how the individualist philosophy of modern societies is physically expressed through suburban sprawl, to such an extent that it undercuts urbanism's ability to sustain itself. Till We Have Built Jerusalem concludes that the natural law tradition and communal religion can both provide the needed intellectual and spiritual depth to modern attempts to build new (and revive existing) towns and cities. Urban locales, at their best, help fulfill the human drive for order, beauty, and community, Bess argues, in this fascinating study of old versus new urbanism. Black-and-white and a few color illustrations add a visual touch to this persuasive manifesto of the common links between improving the human condition through better urban architecture and the bonds of shared religion.

This book makes the case for both traditional urbanism and new urbanism by laying the solid philosophical foundation that has been lacking up to now in writings in the field. Philip Bess takes the Aristotelian tradition running from Aristotle to the brilliant contemporary philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre and links this tradition to the practical necessities of building sustainable communities that create the optimal setting for human fulfillment. He establishes an objective and convincing basis to show how traditional urbanism and its "new urbanist" adaptations promote the common good in an age when that concept has almost vanished. Bess, in calm and measured tones, establishes a balanced and fulfilling world view as an alternative to a world currently fixated on private greed running amok in unfettered markets distorted by subsidies granted by governments commandeered by special interests. Bess not only shows us how to make places that we can love, he shows us that this art, almost lost in the modern world, is the way to an environmentally sustainable future that creates meaning and purpose in life. He reaches back to timeless traditions to show how we can transform our current world, complete with modern conveniences and cars, into a better place. This book is both practical and philosphical, and will appeal to thinking people, but not to those who just are looking for a "quick fix." This book, if read and understood by enough people, can transform the world.

Professor of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture Philip Bess, like nearly all architects of his age, was educated as a modernist. However, he considers himself to be a traditional urbanist. In defining traditional urbanism, Philip Bess writes that the "essence of traditional urbanism--and inter alia, of New Urbanism--is entirely Aristotelian (in reality if not necessarily theory): the city (polis) is a community of communities that exists to promote the best life possible for its citizens, both individually and collectively. Hence, this view of cities assumes that the best human life necessarily entails both individual freedom and communal belonging and obligation, and recognizes both of these as goods necessary for the good life for human beings" (p. 279).
This book attempts to describe how the natural law informs public planning. In the words of Aristotle, "The city comes into existence ... for the sake of the good life" (from the back matter). The purpose of the city is to help its citizens to live lives of virtue, and thus, achieve happiness. Part of this means living in community. New urbanism, in accord with these principles, seeks to plan cities in a way that promotes and enables community among its members.
We can talk about new urbanism because of a city called Seaside in Florida. It is in many ways traditional and defies many of the commercial stereotypes in which developers are typically pigeonholed. New urbanism, as exemplified by Seaside, Florida, represents a commitment to "limited scale development, and a bias toward site-specific designs rather than Platonic ideal types" (p. 4). As the first of new urbanist neighborhoods, Seaside was so popular that property values rose and it quickly became a resort town and even served as the set for The Truman Show, a film made about an ideal but fictitious community. New urbanist towns have sprawled up all across America because of the popularity of Seaside, and have become affordable to many Americans.
Professor Bess also attempts to put forward a definition of the beautiful and of its relationship to the sacred. He provides an anecdote: "You may have had the experience of thinking, or have had someone say to you, `I've seen [say] the vestibule of the Laurentian Library in Florence; I know there's a God.' And moving from the anecdotal to the academic, recalling our earlier consideration of beauty, we consistently find the idea that one of the characteristics of objects we describe as `beautiful' is their unity--which is to say their completeness, `to which nothing could be added, diminished, or altered but for the worse,' as Alberti put it" (p. 48). What are the implications of witnessing this beauty? Because the natural order lacks completeness, aesthetic experience has religious implications: "it seems to reveal to us a glimpse of some other order outside of nature." Put another way, "the beauty of an object supervenes on its natural properties" (p. 49).
The core of Bess's view of the city and the purpose that it should serve is communicated with these words: "I also carry around a mental image of the kind of city in which I would like to live, an image that also informs what I do in my professional life and what I teach to students. It is the mental image of a city the inhabitants and guardians of which understand and respect the cycles of nature; that in its practical pedestrian qualities is scaled to the physiology of the human person; that is economically healthy; that is more rather than less just, and more rather than less inclusive; that promotes individual freedom, respect for others, the life of the mind, and the life of the spirit ... I think of this city as something like the City of God; it may even be something like the city of New Urbanism. If it is the latter, we will neither achieve it nor comprehend it with the modernist language of causality and determinism. Fundamentally, great cities have been made not to `determine behavior' or even to `create community.' We make all our cities in some better-or-worse conception of and effort to achieve the good life, but our greatest cities are products of love. They are artifacts made in imitation not only of nature (as Aristotle would have it), but even more fundamentally in imitation of the divine--what Dante called `the Love that moves the sun and other stars'" (p. 49).

Architecture is visual. In this book, the emphasis is on the abstract. As such, the subject and its presentation seem disconnected. Granted, the book has illustrations; however, they're generally tiny compared to what one normally sees in a presentation on a visual art. The text also contains numerous tiny footnotes throughout. These footnotes are distracting. The author makes numerous references other writers, coming across as someone who's collected a bunch of interesting quotes and wanted an excuse put them together in a book. It gives something of an intellectual stream of consciousness effect. I've read other books on architecture such as Tom Wolfe's From Our House to Bauhaus, Michael Rose's Ugly as Sin, and Lewis Mumford's Sticks and Stones, and got a lot of enjoyment and insight from them. I thought I'd really like this book but found it so boring and hard to read I gave up before finishing the first chapter.