Unfamiliar Familiar Spaces of Early Modern Devotion

Open lecture at KADK By Professor Mette Birkedal Bruun, Department of Church History / Centre for Privacy Studies, University of Copenhagen. 

Early Modern devotion requires personal commitment. Across confessions believers engage in individual devotional programmes that supplement the official liturgy and add other devotional sites to the sacred space of the church.

Domestic chapels stage the cult within the home, chambers and gardens offer seclusion fit for prayer or saintly reading. Altars, images and furnishings as well as particular gestures, practices and mindsets set such rooms apart from the rest of home, adding a tinge of the holy to familiar spaces. 

The lecture is part of the ‘Strangely Familiar’ lecture series arranged by MA Spatial Design, Institute of Architecture and Design.