Design Intervention: Mel McGowan on Redeeming Space

Suburbia has failed, and has rendered our attempts to return to the paradise from which our first parents were cast ineffective.  The vision of combining the archetypal garden and city into one space have resulted not in the enhanced communities and relationships designers hoped for, but rather in the ugly, unsustainable suburban sprawl that millions leave each morning as they begin their long commutes.  These suburban landscapes cater to a demographic – married couples with children – that is quickly shrinking, and are adding to the transportation and energy problems consumers love to hate.

As the “garden-city” paradise slowly becomes part of the city,  people are spending more and more time in the “place-less” environments provided on the internet.  Combined, these seemingly unrelated trends make for a challenging dilemma: how does the Church communicate the Gospel to a people who live increasingly dis-incarnated lifestyles, divorced from their neighbors and from the very spaces in which they live and work?  As architect Mel McGowan noted in a Q Shorts article entitled Saving Suburbia: From the Garden to the City:

“… when we divorce the word community from the reality of a particular human-scaled place, we fundamentally lose something in the mix.  Today, many church planters and next generation Christian leaders feel a called to be “architects of community” in either urban or suburban settings.  However, most are ill equipped to answer this call because they lack a biblical understanding of place… Without an adequate theology of place, we resort to either devaluing it (throwaway church buildings) or overdoing it (by trying to re-build the temple).  And without a greater understanding of how physical human ecologies and environments either facilitate or constrain community, we will fail to be truly present in the places and cities to which God has called us.”

In his Design Intervention: Revolutionizing Sacred Space, McGowan showcases ways in which the Church can reconnect the spaces and people around them, thus returning the Church and Christ’s message to the center of community life and witness.

A church, we are often reminded, is not a building – not a place.  Unfortunately, this leads many to disregard the important role that place ought to play in the lives of the individuals who make up a community.  McGowan’s Visioneering Studios has reclaimed and begun to redeem church and civic spaces all over the globe, always with an emphasis on communicating the good, the true, and the beautiful to the people around them:

“America is increasingly becoming a postmodern, post-Christian nation, and church architects who drop fiberglass steeples in front of converted Wal-Marts are part of the problem.  Without rethinking Biblical definitions of authentic church and community, they continue to endorse the same generic solutions around the country.

However, generic is irrelevant – and not always cheaper.  Instead of throwing more money at less effective buildings reaching fewer people, a design intervention considers the surrounding culture, unique identity, DNA, and purpose of the individual ministry.” (21)

Can the city be redeemed?  Can the suburban sprawl that merges with the city while mocking the garden be made sacred?  Design Intervention answers with a resounding yes. This unique coffee-table type book showcases descriptions and photographs of places where McGowan’s own work has done so successfully, providing ideas and inspiration to those whose theology demands an incarnational communication of Jesus’ life and message.