ABSTRACT
Among the innovations of American sacred architecture after World War II was an interrogation of the decorative arts’ role both in religious life and in architecture itself. One approach used by American architects can be defined as “opticalism,” a neologism that denotes the deployment of aggressive and large-scale visual effects within spaces of worship. Opticalism reflected a semiotic innovation, having to do with attenuating the relationship between sign and symbol. Three religious buildings constructed in Baltimore, Maryland between 1954 and 1963 illustrate opticalism’s characteristics: the Church of the Redeemer (Pietro Belluschi, Architect); Har Sinai Congregation (Buckler, Fenhagen, Meyer, and Ayers, Architects); and St. Paul’s Lutheran Evangelical Church (Charles Stade, Architect). In these buildings, religious imagery was displaced within worship spaces by the use of exaggerated optical effect. No longer merely situated within architecture, artwork instead determined the spatial precinct of the sacred experience.
