Research Questions
From the outset, we were keen to investigate Multi-Faith Spaces (MFS) not only as symptoms of socio-religious change, but also in terms of their ‘agentic role’. Put more simply, these are spaces that have the potential to influence and modify the relations between religious and secular worlds (and worldviews).
This project therefore pursued a number of key issues:
- Do MFS encourage pluralism or house difference?
- Are MFS positive socio-economic investments?
- How might MFS be better designed and built?
- What are the long-term societal effects of these spaces?
The two headline terms within our project title (symptoms and agents) stemmed from our conceptual framework, influenced by Science and Technology Studies. However, they also tallied with strands of architectural theory that emphasised the recursive relationship between the material/spatial and the social/behavioural. In other words, one could not be seen as unproblematically 'causing' the other.
The practical upshot was that we sought to delve deeply into the question of whether there was an 'architectural language' of MFS, as a precursor to defining, cataloguing and ultimately disseminating examples of 'good practice'. In order to render these complex issues into an manageable empirical research programme, we disaggregated them into the following (discreet but complementary) research questions:
MFS as Symptoms
- Who were the typical actors (clients, municipalities, religious groups, architects, etc.) involved in the realisation and subsequent development of MFS?
- What were the motivations, concerns, and strategies of these individuals and groups, with specific reference to potential controversies around the creation and maintainance of MFS?
- Could MFS be said to embody a genuinely new relationship between different religions, and/or between the state and religion?
MFS as works of Architecture
- How could we seek to conceive of, or recognise, an 'architectural language' of shared spirituality?
- In what practical ways do MFS connect physically to their specific secular contexts?
- What criteria can be established to promote 'good practice' in MFS design?
MFS as Agents
- In what ways do MFS encourage pluralism, in the sense of an energetic engagement with diversity, or do they rather serve to house difference?
- In what ways can MFS be seen to provoke new kinds of conflict?
- How are (potential) conflicts resolved and controlled, and might some conflicts actually be 'productive'?
- Does genuine religious (and ethnic) mixing occur best within certain types or styles of MFS?
The Social History of MFS
- When and in what context did MFS emerge, and how did they spread?
- In what way has the design of these spaces 'evolved'?
- Does historic precendent tell us anything about how MFS are conceived of, and used, today?
- In what ways do the management protocols, use patterns, and overall 'agency' of particular MFS change over time?