Envisioning Art Monastic Architecture
We’re using a website called Pinterest to collect images of what Art Monasteries might look like. So far we’ve collected quite a range of great images—structures that are historical, modern, big, small… We’re letting our imaginations run wild. Here are just a few of the hundreds we’ve gathered:
Peter Zumthor is an artmonk (don’t tell him, though)
Two things to notice in this Guardian profile of artmonkish architect Peter Zumthor: 1) what it takes to be called a monk by the architecture world, and 2) that it’s an insult, synonymous with “otherworldly” and “arrogant.” You would be wise not to call Peter Zumthor a monk. He may be white-bearded and dark-clad and ...
Economies of Merit
In many monastic and religious traditions, ethical and spiritual “merit” gets traded like a commodity.1 Nuns and monks agree to live a certain way, abiding by a certain kind of behavior (which their society has deemed the most virtuous or ethical), and in exchange they don’t have to earn their own money to stay alive, ...
A “single-monk monastery” by Suriya Umpansiriratana
At last, a fresh take on monastic space: Writing for Fast Company‘s Co.Design, John Pavlus turns us on to Thai architect Suriya Umpansiriratana’s “Monk Cell Project,” a “single-monk monastery (called a ‘cell’) whose circular structure assists walking meditation while symbolizing the cyclic routines of the monk’s daily life.” Suriya Umpansiriratana’s “Monk Cell Project” turns the monastery ...
Architecti et usus meditatio: Vitruvian Echoes in Contemplative Practice
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST: This Webinar will explore the effects of Vitruvius’s 1st century BCE descriptions of meditatio and contemplatio as they ripple through the history of architecture’s practices. Vitruvius’s words establish meditatio–from the Greek medesthai–as the essential mode in which architects do their work: the singular practice of ...
Announcing: 2011 Artmonk Retreat, Joshua Tree, CA
What Artmonk Retreat. 10 days, 9 nights. Part silent meditation retreat, Part transformational art ritual. Vipassana, Gregorian chant, musical improvisation, ritual theater, group exercises, and more, in an incredible setting. When The second-ever Artmonk retreat will begin (after a concert in the Integratron by a handful of artmonks) in the late afternoon on Saturday January ...
Monastery: Žiča
I’m in central Serbia this week, visiting in-laws. Tomorrow I’ll visit the bright red monastery at Žiča. A note on architecture: Zica is built according to the Raska school in the Romanesuque style. The monastery was originally painted red in the tradition of the Mount Athos monasteries. There are few frescoes dating back to the ...
Getting the questions right
Examples of the secular world learning from the world’s ancient contemplative and spiritual traditions abound. Neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, cognitive scientists and cosmologists are learning from inner technologies of meditation and contemplative practice. But what of the outer, visible, measurable technologies of those traditions? How are we learning from those technologies that fit into what is ...
