About Philip Nielsen

Phillip Nielsen holds a Master of Architecture degree from Notre Dame, and a Master of Environmental Design from Texas A&M University. He has written on aesthetics for various journals.

Depicting the Whole Christ: Von Balthasar & Sacred Architecture

By |2024-03-10T14:44:45-05:00March 10th, 2024|Categories: Architecture, Beauty, Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Culture, Featured, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Timeless Essays|

Architecture, just like sacred music or art, must fulfill its highest calling, aiding the participant in seeing the glory of God. An architecture that is ordered to fulfill only its human, or even liturgical use, fails its higher purpose. The theological work of twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar has only recently begun to take [...]

America’s First Cathedral

By |2022-08-12T17:01:03-05:00June 2nd, 2013|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Architecture, Books|Tags: , , |

The Baltimore Basilica: America's First Cathedral, by Mary-Cabrini Durkin In America’s First Cathedral, Mary-Cabrini Durkin presents a beautifully illustrated history of the Baltimore diocese’s cathedral from Latrobe’s original designs through its rise as a national symbol of American Catholicism, culminating in years of restoration that have only recently been completed. The first half of America’s First Cathedral places the [...]

Sacred Architecture: The Wisdom of Duncan Stroik

By |2022-06-01T19:56:33-05:00February 24th, 2013|Categories: Architecture, Art, Books, Christianity|Tags: , |

Duncan G. Stroik, The Church Building as a Sacred Place: Beauty, Transcendence and the Eternal. Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2012. 182 pages, 170 photographs and drawings. Notre Dame’s Duncan Stroik has led the field of Catholic architecture for the last twenty years with unrivaled unity of purpose. He has designed and built churches as an architect [...]

Depicting the Whole Christ: Von Balthasar & Sacred Architecture

By |2022-08-12T12:41:37-05:00January 17th, 2013|Categories: Architecture, Beauty, Catholicism, Christianity, Communio, Culture, Featured, Hans Urs von Balthasar|Tags: |

An ideal Balthasarian church building has shown the distance between God and his creatures. It has awed and silenced the faithful. It has enfolded them in its side chapels to await the Word from God, the Logos. But where in the architecture is the image of Christ to be found? The theological work of twentieth-century [...]

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