Docta lgnorantia: Paradoxes of faith, doubt and architecture

This essay considers notions of spiritual exile, doubt, faith and 'mastery' and the ways in which they are embedded in the architectural thought of Howard Raggart. While other scholars have discussed Raggatt's religious ideas, they have not linked them to specific Biblical texts of theological propositions to do with knowledge and doubt - the via negative and negative theology. Using a framework provided by the Old and the New Testaments, Neo-Platonism and St Augustine of Hippo's The City of God (426 AD) the argument follows Raggatt's practice through early exhibitions and his masters' projects to works he has completed with Aston Raggatt McDougall (ARM). While I do not suggest that Raggatt stands somehow as a synecdoche of ARM, I do draw thematic links between his work as a sole practitioner and as a member of a larger practice.