A top 10 is an impossible challenge, and then are we talking inside or outside? The Duomo in Florence on the exterior has no peers. Michaelangelo's goal with Saint Peter's was to do something that could at least compete with Brunelleschi's master work. Saint Peter's (sans Moderno's regrettable extension of the nave and dreadfully flat and lifeless facade) is arguably as divine as Brunelleschi's exterior, but clearly not better. I was pleased to see Corbusier's Notre Dame d' Roncamp on the list, not simply becasue of it's demonstration that divine design did not stop after WWII, but for its size. It is bold and grand and intimate all at the same time--kind of like God. A church I did not see mentioned that deserves it? The 22 domed pilgrmage church on the Russian island of Kizhi (http://www.cepolina.com/photo/Russia_Kizhi_cathedral_Transfiguration.htm). If that is not a divinely inspired structure nothing is!
The posts are great even, and perhaps even especially, the ones from unbelievers and those who think religious architecture is a waste of resources. These buildings speak for themselves and require no justification, although I am reminded of a comment made by Saint John Neumann. The Catholic Cathedral in Philadelphia, PA, (definitely worth seeing on Logan Circle at the entrance to the Benjamin Franlin Parkway) was continuing to be built even as there was a severe economic downturn affecting the city. Standing near the construction site some bystander castigated Bishop Neumann: "How can you be spending so much money on this lavish construction while so many men are out of work?" Looking over at the men working on the Cathedral the bishop remarked: "They're not." While, hopefully, divinely inspired great churches are most definitly the work of men and women and reflect the greatness (and frequently the foibles) of humankind as much as the greatness of God. Halleluia!
I was pleased to see Corbusier's Notre Dame d' Roncamp on the list, not simply becasue of it's demonstration that divine design did not stop after WWII, but for its size. It is bold and grand and intimate all at the same time--kind of like God. A church I did not see mentioned that deserves it? The 22 domed pilgrmage church on the Russian island of Kizhi (http://www.cepolina.com/photo/Russia_Kizhi_cathedral_Transfiguration.htm). If that is not a divinely inspired structure nothing is!
The posts are great even, and perhaps even especially, the ones from unbelievers and those who think religious architecture is a waste of resources. These buildings speak for themselves and require no justification, although I am reminded of a comment made by Saint John Neumann. The Catholic Cathedral in Philadelphia, PA, (definitely worth seeing on Logan Circle at the entrance to the Benjamin Franlin Parkway) was continuing to be built even as there was a severe economic downturn affecting the city. Standing near the construction site some bystander castigated Bishop Neumann: "How can you be spending so much money on this lavish construction while so many men are out of work?" Looking over at the men working on the Cathedral the bishop remarked: "They're not." While, hopefully, divinely inspired great churches are most definitly the work of men and women and reflect the greatness (and frequently the foibles) of humankind as much as the greatness of God. Halleluia!