Lecture: Architectural Design & Construction as Spiritual Guidance with Iliona Outram Khalili

This lecture asks the question, “How can architects re-awaken the knowledge, latent in the world’s diverse religious systems, of architectural design and building construction as an orderly process of spiritual guidance?” Seeking answers, I will share my long-term research into “earth art and architecture”, generally known as masonry.

Traditionally, masons did not write about their work yet today many continue to build with techniques developed thousands of years ago. My experience of building sustainable “earth architecture” in California and elsewhere using masonry’s timeless principles of arches, vaults, and domes, is presented with reference to my doctoral study of Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, which reveals the masons’ experience by analogy with its living liturgy, iconography, and architecture.

Studying a typical masonry building constructed entirely from earth’s natural materials while experiencing hands-on building with its timeless principles, one finds the primary figures of a theological meditation emerge. These are not limited by cultural or religious symbolism but present perennial archetypes that are brought together in conscious combinations during design and construction. They become a powerful active meditation. I will seek to present a few of these universal figures in theory and practice.

Lecturer bio:
Iliona Outram Khalili graduated from the Architectural Association School in London. She went on to study “earth and ceramic architecture” under humanitarian architect Nader Khalili, by designing and building hands-on, and was designated by him a “Master Builder in Earth Architecture”. Her childhood in London was filled with diaspora Greek culture from her mother Rima, and architecture from her renowned father, architect John Outram. In California she married and worked with Khalili to develop his innovations on traditional earth architecture, which were inspired by the mystical poetry of Rumi in his native Persian language. As a widow she continued her spiritual education with Sufi healers Taner and Muzeyyen Vargonen Ansari.

She attained RIBA registration as an architect late in life and her doctoral thesis was also completed recently. Seeking academic dignity for the seemingly simple hands-on masonry methods still continued by modern masons, she wrote the thesis, “Unity within diverse multiplicity; masonry, method, and analogy in Byzantine architecture.” Iliona currently lectures in Manchester Metropolitan University and teaches with New Earth UK.