The Greek temple remains an ideal; a perfect architectural reference point to an age of philosophical and physical beauty. The experience of the temple is almost lost as history and interpretation have conspired to smother this icon.
Opposite my 1920’s suburban house lies a small church, nestled between two rows of houses. The church is essentially a shed, one storey high with a simple pitched roof. The façade of this building is a classical Doric one, with four columns and a pediment. The Church is Catholic, being of the Order of St Pius X, an order that seeks to promulgate a more traditional Catholicism that existed before the second Vatican council. The leadership of this group is excommunicated from the Church of Rome.
In this suburb then, we come across this tiny temple, a rebel sanctuary within an area that is indifferent, ordinary.
The temple in the modern urban environment is often a building that is overlooked, lost, waiting for us to come across it. As we do so, we are given the possibility of a connection with the divine.
Temple links:
Francesca Woodman, Temple
Liz Hingley, Under Gods