Churches

As much as a church is a set of beliefs and practices related to a particular philosophy for conducting the worship of Jesus Christ or a community of believers which are joined together by adherence to those beliefs and the performance of those practices, churches must also be considered in terms of their basic functions as physical spaces, which both flows from and in some cases has influenced the ideas which form the core of church doctrine. Because of the particular emphasis brought to questions of the relationship between abstract beliefs and physical reality by the functions of a church in regard to dealing with metaphysical issues, the various shapes taken by the visual design of individual churches have been the cause of great deals of study and debate, and at time contentious debate.

The design elements that are used in the creation of churches can be seen as either religious and secular, which also relates to the issue of the divide that is drawn in culture between a church and secular life. A noted trend that has been studied by scholars of architecture and church belief has been the degree to which religious and secular forms of architecture exercises influence on each other, with some eras in the building of churches seeing such buildings influencing the design of buildings created for secular purposes and in other eras churches being influenced by secular architecture.
The earliest period in the use of churches excluded design as such, and saw residential buildings being put to use for the use of secret church meetings. At this point in time the Christian church had yet to assume political, social and intellectual ascendancy over the life and ideas of the European world, and in fact had been banned by the Roman Empire as an upstart sect which challenged its authority. At some points the early Christian sects practiced their services of worship in synagogues, and at other points in covered courtyards and the upper floors of homes belonging to Christian worshipers. When the Christian church had assumed dominance over the area which still belonged to the Roman Empire due to the decision of Emperor Constantine to adopt the religion as the empire’s official faith, many Christian churches were moved into the buildings known as basilicas under the earlier pagan era of the Roman Empire, with statues of God represented in terms of earthly monarchs replacing the figures that were once erected of the Roman Emperor.

The high point of the medieval era, which was marked by the strength and dominance of the Catholic church over European life, also helped set the mold for existing principles in church design architecture. Much later in the nineteenth century when the Industrial Revolution appeared to be clearing away established standards of traditional life, such traditional building practices as were put to use in the design of church architecture came to influence practices in the construction of secular buildings. The 20th century saw secular architecture heavily influence church design principles.