Silence, Song and Shadows: Our Need for the Sacred in Our Surroundings

by Tom Bender, 2000. Fire River Press, Manzanita, Oregon. Paperback, 123 oversized pages, $27.

The book is a richly illustrated primer into the spirit of place, and the place of spirit, in buildings. (Bender’s forthcoming work,

Building with the Breath of Life, promises to provide more details.)

Bender, an architect and deep thinker about sustainability, speaks of how we can create sacred spaces, places of the soul—“A place with a soul gives refuge and sanctuary. It fills primal psychic needs for protection, for warmth, for companionship, for meaning.” He tells us about making a garden of the spirit, “a place ... of giving, of that impulse of love which underlies all life and creation.” Many accepted practices of sustainable building are re-visited and set into this larger context. He encourages building for durability, which he says “grants a generosity to the places we make that can be obtained in few other ways.” In support of indigenous, natural materials, he suggests that they offer “a truth of meaning and connection to our places.”

Bender illustrates his points with wonderful photographs, which make it much easier to understand how we can actually implement what he speaks of. He argues that only by considering our place in the natural world, and indeed the cosmos, can we heal the diseases of the spirit that underlie our most damaging practices: “In our surroundings, this requires the honoring of the materials, the elements and forces of nature, the rhythms and cycles of life, the users of a place, and other forms of life.” This book will help you think about how to do this in your own work.

— Marc Rosenbaum