react/review: a responsive journal for art & architecture

“What is ‘religion in plain view’ when it doesn’t ‘look like’ ‘religion’?” I propose that both the Canadian Pacific Building and 450 O’Farrell use a strategy I call “material disestablishment,” in reference to Promey’s concept of “material establishment,” to downplay their religious aspects. Although W. L. George may have correctly noted religion’s diminished visual prominence, this need not mean that religion has disappeared from the American city. Urban religious power is sometimes exercised subtly; it is a force field that is often intentionally obscured. I propose that hybrid religious and rental buildings blur the boundaries between sacred and “secular” and lend support to the argument that, despite an immense increase in religious choice, our age is not necessarily irreligious. In this article, I explore and trace the genealogy of this notion, specifically in Christian Science and then extending to an Episcopal church.