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The Aesthetics Of Friends' Meeting Houses, Roger Homan

Quaker Studies

In an attempt to identify a Quaker aesthetic as it applies to English meeting houses, this article draws upon the physical evidence of English Meetings past and present, upon the records of discussions preceding the design and construction of meeting houses, upon interviews with Friends at some thirty meeting houses and upon the observational and interpretative literature. The main part of the discussion is structured around the moral principles of plainness, worthiness and simplicity. A distinction is made between the effect of plainness, which has in the past been regulated, and simplicity, which is here explored as a moral attribute …