Houses of God
Subtitle: region, religion, and architecture in the United States
By: Peter W. Williams.
Series: Public expressions of religion in America
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Urbana
Language: eng
Number of pages: 321
Subjects: Church architecture -- United States.; Liturgy and architecture -- United States.; Synagogue architecture -- United States.; Mosques -- United States.; Temples -- United States.
Description: Houses of God is a fascinating look at how Americans shape their places of worship into multifaceted reflections of their culture, beliefs, and times. Peter Williams divides the nation into seven distinctive regions - New England, the Mid-Atlantic states, the South, the Old Northwest, the Great Plains and Mountains, the Spanish Borderlands, and the Pacific Rim - and traces the historical development of and geographic influences on religious building in each.

Beautifully illustrated with over 100 photographs - some by extremely well known photographers such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange - this handsome book is the first to provide a broad survey of American religious architecture. It is a deeply interdisciplinary study in which Williams examines the influences of immigration and internal population movements; landscape and stylistic changes in architecture; and "secular," liturgical, and theological influences.

Accessible to the general reader as well as to the scholar, this volume will be welcomed by students of American social history, religion, and American studies, as well as by travelers and those who find religious architecture fascinating.
Notes: Includes indexes.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: New England; title: The Mid-Atlantic states; title: The South; title: The old northwest; title: The great plains and the mountains; title: The Spanish borderlands; title: The Pacific rim; title: Conclusion; title: Photographic credits; title: Index  .