This dissertation explores Buddhist architecture in America from the nineteenth century through the present day. It examines significant examples of Buddhist architecture with respect to the spiritual beliefs of the practitioners who created them. Its goal is to understand these structures from the point of view of human experience. Given the large number of Buddhist structures that exist in the U.S., the narrative navigates the major contours of its development. It follows in isometric fashion the parallel history of Buddhism's emergence in America that started with the California Gold Rush and its influence on the New England Transcendentalists. Proceeding chronologically through the twentieth and early twenty-first-centuries, the historical sweep of Buddhism's architectural presence in America is articulated by exploring important structures in depth with respect to Buddhist belief, human emotion, socio-political contexts, and religious faith. A number of hermeneutic binaries are employed throughout the history presented here. Space and Place, East and West, Interior and Exterior, and Spirit and Matter are the major motifs implemented to explicate the buildings and environments under investigation. The overwhelming feeling pervading the discourse and design of Buddhist architecture and its co-extensive belief system is that of the heart. The human proclivity to attach personal meaning and deep emotion to a space or a place is at the express core of the Buddhist structures that house Buddhist practices. As a result, the study's methodology is inspired by Yi-Fu Tuan's humanistic geography, whose work explores the relationship between environment and human subjective experience. The study finds that ritual, lineage, and heritage work in tandem with heart, home, and the human body in the construction, understanding and experience of Buddhist architecture. It argues that traditional forms and practices derived from each community's home culture infused a sense of shelter and protection onto these buildings. Buddhist belief and its associated architecture assuaged the new and sometimes hostile setting of the United States. As the first study of its kind, this dissertation opens the field of Buddhist architecture in America as a distinct branch of scholarly inquiry.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of Buddhist architecture in North America and provides an analysis of Buddhist architecture and communities. Exploring the arrival of Buddhist architecture in America, the book lays out how Buddhists have expressed their spiritual beliefs in structural form in the United States. The story follows the parallel history of the religion’s emergence in the United States since the California Gold Rush to the present day. Conceived of as a general history, the book investigates Buddhist structures with respect to the humanistic qualities associated with Buddhist doctrine and how Buddhist groups promote their faith and values in an American setting. The author’s point of view starts from the ground floor of the buildings to move deeper into the space of Buddhist practice, the mind that seeks enlightenment, and the structures that help one to do so. It discusses Buddhist architecture in the United States in a manner consistent with the intensely human context of its use. A unique and ground-breaking analysis, this book adds to the study of Buddhist architecture in America while also addressing the topic of how and why Buddhists use architecture in general. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, architecture, space and place, U.S. history, Asian Studies, and Buddhist Studies. It will also be a valuable addition to the libraries of Buddhist communities across the United States and the world, since many of the observations about Buddhist architecture in the United States may also apply to structures in Europe and Asia.

"This book is the first comprehensive overview of Buddhist architecture in North America and provides an analysis of Buddhist architecture and communities. Exploring the arrival of Buddhist architecture in America, the book lays out how Buddhists have expressed their spiritual beliefs in structural form in the United States. The story follows the parallel history of the religion's emergence in the U.S. since the California Gold Rush to the present day. Conceived of as a general history, the book investigates Buddhist structures with respect to the humanistic qualities associated with Buddhist doctrine and how Buddhist groups promote their faith and values in an American setting. The author's point of view starts from the ground floor of the buildings to move deeper into the space of Buddhist practice, the mind that seeks enlightenment, and the structures that help one to do so. It discusses Buddhist architecture in the U.S. in a manner consistent with the intensely human context of its use. A unique and ground-breaking analysis, this book adds to the study of Buddhist architecture in America whilst also addressing the topic of how and why Buddhists use architecture in general. It will be of interest to scholars of religion, architecture, space and place, US history, Asian Studies and Buddhist Studies. It will also be a valuable addition to the libraries of Buddhist communities across the United States and the world, since many of the observations about Buddhist architecture in the U.S. may also apply to structures in Europe and Asia"--

Making Sense of Buddhist Art & Architecture is designed to equip the cultural tourist and art student with the means to interpret paintings, buildings or artefacts in terms of the iconography and symbolism of the Buddhist religion. One hundred clearly illustrated and varied historical works are thoroughly examined, enabling readers to identify the telling details that mean so much to Buddhist devotees. The book's layout is both visually striking and accessible. Each double-page spread features a full-page colour photograph of either a detail of the work or its context, depending on the subject, with a second photograph chosen to illustrate important aspects of the work. Alongside is a detailed exposition of the work's significance in Buddhist art history and philosophy, with key historical facts about the work, including where it may be seen today. By tracing the paths between Buddhist belief and artistic intention, Making Sense of Buddhist Art & Architecture deepens understanding not only of Buddhist art and architecture but also of Buddhism itself.

Buddhism, often described as an austere religion that condemns desire, promotes denial, and idealizes the contemplative life, actually has a thriving leisure culture in Asia. Creative religious improvisations designed by Buddhists have been produced both within and outside of monasteries across the region—in Nepal, Japan, Korea, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Justin McDaniel looks at the growth of Asia’s culture of Buddhist leisure—what he calls “socially disengaged Buddhism”—through a study of architects responsible for monuments, museums, amusement parks, and other sites. In conversation with noted theorists of material and visual culture and anthropologists of art, McDaniel argues that such sites highlight the importance of public, leisure, and spectacle culture from a Buddhist perspective and illustrate how “secular” and “religious,” “public” and “private,” are in many ways false binaries. Moreover, places like Lek Wiriyaphan’s Sanctuary of Truth in Thailand, Suối Tiên Amusement Park in Saigon, and Shi Fa Zhao’s multilevel museum/ritual space/tea house in Singapore reflect a growing Buddhist ecumenism built through repetitive affective encounters instead of didactic sermons and sectarian developments. They present different Buddhist traditions, images, and aesthetic expressions as united but not uniform, collected but not concise: Together they form a gathering, not a movement. Despite the ingenuity of lay and ordained visionaries like Wiriyaphan and Zhao and their colleagues Kenzo Tange, Chan-soo Park, Tadao Ando, and others discussed in this book, creators of Buddhist leisure sites often face problems along the way. Parks and museums are complex adaptive systems that are changed and influenced by budgets, available materials, local and global economic conditions, and visitors. Architects must often compromise and settle at local optima, and no matter what they intend, their buildings will develop lives of their own. Provocative and theoretically innovative, Architects of Buddhist Leisure asks readers to question the very category of “religious” architecture. It challenges current methodological approaches in religious studies and speaks to a broad audience interested in modern art, architecture, religion, anthropology, and material culture.

A superb visual reference to the principles of architecture Now including interactive CD-ROM! For more than thirty years, the beautifully illustrated Architecture: Form, Space, and Order has been the classic introduction to the basic vocabulary of architectural design. The updated Third Edition features expanded sections on circulation, light, views, and site context, along with new considerations of environmental factors, building codes, and contemporary examples of form, space, and order. This classic visual reference helps both students and practicing architects understand the basic vocabulary of architectural design by examining how form and space are ordered in the built environment.? Using his trademark meticulous drawing, Professor Ching shows the relationship between fundamental elements of architecture through the ages and across cultural boundaries. By looking at these seminal ideas, Architecture: Form, Space, and Order encourages the reader to look critically at the built environment and promotes a more evocative understanding of architecture. In addition to updates to content and many of the illustrations, this new edition includes a companion CD-ROM that brings the book's architectural concepts to life through three-dimensional models and animations created by Professor Ching.