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Transcending Architecture: Aesthetics and Ethics of the Numinous. Interdisciplinary Symposium organized by The Catholic University of America School of Architecture and Planning. October 6-8, 2011. Symposium director: Julio Bermudez. Architecture is called to do a lot more than to guarantee the public health, safety and welfare of building users. In fact, the promise of architecture begins fulfillment when such expectations have been met and transcended. At its highest, architecture has the ability to turn geometric proportions into shivers, stone into tears, rituals into revelation, light into grace, space into contemplation, and time into divine presence. A transcending architecture disappears in the very act of delivering us into the awesome and timeless nonspace of the holy. Louis Kahn called it the ‘immeasurable’, Le Corbusier the ‘ineffable’, and Rudolf Otto the ‘numinous’. In an age obsessed with speed, consumerism, technology, immediacy, and quantity, an architecture that transcends constitutes a radical and risky act of love and compassion born out of a spiritual and cultural awakening. By providing us with a respite, such environments afford us the rare opportunity to re-discover our bearings and, in so doing, frame our existential condition within the larger matters of life and the divine. If there was a time when such an architecture was necessary, it is undoubtedly today! A remarkable group of presenters will provide attendees with ample opportunities for intellectual, spiritual, and professional growth. Confirmed speakers include Juhani Pallasmaa, Honorary FAIA (Pallasmaa Architects), Karsten Harries (Philosophy, Yale University), Lindsay Jones (Center for the Study of Religion, Ohio State University), Thomas Barrie, AIA (Architecture, North Carolina State University) and Michael Crosbie, AIA (editor, Faith & Form).