react/review: a responsive journal for art & architecture

The editors of the zine-style volume FORCE/FIELDS that inspired the theme of this current issue define a force field as “a barrier that protects someone or something from attacks and intrusions.” They ask “[w]hat are the force fields we hold up? What are the force fields we fight against?” Alexander Luckmann’s “Skyscraper Churches and Material Disestablishment at the Fifth Churches of Christ Scientist” demonstrates that certain New York and San Francisco churches do not fight against, but rather participate in dominant fields of force. They do so through “material disestablishment,” the handing off of real-estate dealings to developers and accepting visual integration into the secular skyline. Far from oxymorons, pitting the incentives of private capital against religious missions, skyscraper churches indicate an alliance. I argue that through this alliance, skyscraper churches uphold fields of force that exacerbate socioeconomic disparity in U.S. cities.