Architectural typologies: the search for meaning and truth in religious architecture

Fashion and Design Ideology in Sacred Architecture: 

A Review of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

by Nikos Salingaros

Where to begin? Well, there are hardly any right angles in this building. Broken forms, discontinuities, and protrusions in its geometry both inside and outside characterize the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Such imbalance and departure from mathematical harmony is usually explained away by labeling it a “postmodern-deconstructivist” building, as if style were sufficient reason to violate tectonic harmony and geometrical coherence. We have here a celebration of asymmetry, which might be understandable if there were a sound reason for it coming either from design necessities, or from religion. But there is none. The building’s asymmetry serves an essentially negative purpose: to deny coherence and harmony.

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