Since the 1900’s, sociologists have realised from their researches that social processes go hand in hand with the technical progress. In the past Century, technology improvement and modification has been the main focus of many scientists and architectures in the bid to make buildings look more appealing with various purposes in the society. For example some may want to have a unique and appealing building to help them stand out from the rest; others will do that for prestige and some people will have uniquely constructed buildings to act as landmarks (Libcat.arlingtonva.us, 2016). In Canada, after the 1900, technological advances in the architectural field enabled the architects to design and foresee the building of some of the most magnificent and spectacular church structures in the world. In this paper we will focus on the Broadway Church in Vancouver and how technology has influenced its architecture and the society.
The church was started in 1961 with a small congregation of just about 112 people. Today it hosts the second-largest Canadian protestant congregation under the leadership of Pastor Darin Latham. The church is an architectural brilliance because of how they have been able to manipulate the space inside the church to achieve maximum space exploitation without hindering the comfort of their congregation and at the same observing all the architectural laws (Nationalpost.com, 2016). The church boosts of 85000 square feet of utilizable space (Nationalpost.com, 2016).
Considering all the facts, it is the advancement of technology that has enabled the church to expand and grow structure-wise and in the number of people in the congregation. For example, the use of more rigid and more advance made steel bar to reinforce structures in the past century has enabled structures like the Broadway church in Vancouver to be made. This means that the structures can support more weight without crumbling or risking the lives of people that would use them (Nationalpost.com, 2016).
With the growth of technology in the architectural sector, most churches around the world have the capacity to build bigger and better looking churches s their congregations grow. On the other hand, the increase in size of the churches leads to development of new problems like difficulty in reaching the members of the congregation thus compelling the church to use more advanced technologies to aid in that (Nationalpost.com, 2016). For example, in the Broadway church there are six giant screens to help those seating far away from the pastor to see the pastor and on the other hand they also have the United Nations-style headset to help the new people in the congregation that do not understand the English language. This process is aided by the volunteers that sit behind the seen and translate the words in real time (Nationalpost.com, 2016).
The improvement of architectural technology through the centuries, right from the use of concrete in the Roman Empire to the present day use of steel and titanium cables in the building and reinforcement of structures has significantly influenced the social evolution of the people around the architectural masterpieces (Sales Carbonell, 2014). According to the 2011 household survey in Vancouver, it was realised that almost half of the population did not affiliate to any religion (Nationalpost.com, 2016).It was also discovered that it’s at East Vancouver where most of the organised Christianity eventually dies but on the other hand Broadway hasn’t been affected but on the other hand its congregation continues to grow in Vancouver (Sarvodaya, 2012). This shows how architecture can influence a social revolution among the people around it.
In the bid to deal with the environmental issues, the Broadway church architectural design allows it to use solar energy as a way to ensure energy security and sustainability. This also reduces the amount of carbon (II) Oxide released into the Ozone layer during the production of power by the geothermal power generation method and the use of generators thus conserving the environment (Sarvodaya, 2012).
- Libcat.arlingtonva.us. (2016). Great Buildings: [The world’s architectural masterpieces….. [Online] Available at: https://libcat.arlingtonva.us/Record.b1398097x [Accessed 16 Mar. 2016].
- Nationalpost.com (2016). Church for people who aren’t into church: Protestant mega-congregations packing the pews in Canada. [Online] Available at: http:// www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/holy-post/protestant-megachurches-surging-in-canada-even-as-secularism-grows-and-most-Sunday-attendance-plummets [Accessed 16 Mar. 2016].
- Sarvodaya. (2012). How architecture can impact the society. [Online] Available at: https:// romneymanassa.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/how-architecture-can-impact-society/ [Accessed 16 Mar. 2016].
- Sales Carbonell, J. (2014). Roman Spectacles Buildings as a Setting for Martyrdom and its Consequences in the Christianity Architecture. Journal of Ancient History and Archaeology, 1(3).
