For vlar Professor dram MO Professor Moore it is my pleasure and the great honor to welcome you to this uh actually this cycle of lectures which um now it’s your turn to tell us something about architecture and Freemasonry and indeed you’re probably the best expert um in my opinion uh um
To to speak on this subject by all means I shall just inform our um audience and your audience as well of a few words about your professional CV so Professor William D Moore holds a joint appointment between the department of history of art and architecture and the American and New England studies program
An interdisciplinary American studies scholar he has Specialties um in material culture the built environment and cultural history he holds an AB in folklore and mythology from Harvard University and both an Ma and a PhD from the American and New England studies program at Boston University he researches lectures and publishes on vernacular architecture
Folk art American fraternalism public history the interpretation of historic sites and the history of surfing he’s the author of Shaker fever America’s 20th century fascination with the communitarian sect published by the University of M Massachusetts press in 2020 and Masonic temples Freemasonry ritual architecture and masculine archetypes published by the University
Of Tennessee press in 2006 he has contributed numerous articles to exhibition cataloges books and scholarly journals he serves on the editorial Boards of the journals winter Thor portfolio and buildings and Landscapes he’s currently working on a book on the architecture of Cape Cod and its adjacent Islands which will be published
By the University of Virginia press as part of the Society of architectural historians buildings buildings of the United States series Professor Moore it is my pleasure now to give you the floor thank you and I’m going to share my screen and um yes we can see it okay
Um okay so would you like to um put it on slide like uh the full screen this is the icon in the at the bottom register the icon that is actually uh close to the volume bar the first next to it to the left that small icon that looks like
A screen a rolled up screen and after that you can CH the right one okay I’m I’m having a littleit trouble if not if not we’re we’re perfectly fine with things the way they are I mean we can see them because it’s projected also on a big screen not only
On a uh on a laptop so I think every everyone can see regardless okay I um hold on just a sec oh I’m sorry about this never mind just take your time we all have experiences with zoom during Corona times so we know how it works or
Doesn’t Okay so there we are can you see yes perfect thank you great all right and here is uh this is the outline of uh what I want to talk about today where um so my the I’m going to first talk about what Freemasonry is and where it
Comes from and its premodern roots so that we have a a shared understanding um and along with that um the solom Monarch ritual that defines the fraternity and then I’m going to talk about the spatial aspect of that where where these rituals take place which is in a space called
Lodge rooms uh where the Masonic rituals play out where the fraternity really takes physical manifestation um and then then I’m going to stalk a little bit about the buildings that are built around uh these lawrs and then there talk about other fraternal uh groups that grow out of
Freemasonry that are kind of branches of fraternal of Freemasonry the Knights Templar got it right and then ending up with Shriner mosques and the Shriner mosques are primarily an American manifestation but so so the amazing thing about Freemasonry is that it’s a global movement that starts in uh the early 18th century um
And again there’s lots of discussion about when exactly it start some people say as early as 1590 but it’s an organization that grows out of a craft guilds it’s originally um it it’s it grows out of stonemason guilds where they have um craft uh rituals that where they teach secrets
And and have um bonds that that tie them together and then at the beginning of the 18th century suddenly there are English gentlemen who want to join this fraternity and start to go through the rituals and they’re no longer actually building buildings they’re now using the stone Mason’s tools and the stone
Mason’s um symbols to express ideologies and to talk about ideas of Brotherhood and fraternity and egalitarianism so the and again the at the beginning of it it’s very or disorganized and then really the the first hard date we have which again more recent scholarship has even started to
Call this into question is that the Grand Lodge of Grand Lodge of London is formed by four different lodges coming together and cooperating and they create the Grand Lodge of London in 1717 and then they published the first um book the first constitutions of the fraternity in 1723 and that’s what you
See here on the screen is the first constitutions of Freemasonry so from this original group of four different lodes in London coming together Freemasonry spreads out to be a global movement and the the fascinating thing about Freemasonry is that even though there are things that are continuities all around the globe there
Are also things where any any statement you make about Freemasonry in one place can be absolutely false in another place it ends uh Freemasonry ends up uh being very local at the same time that it’s International and it fits and um adapts itself to the local culture and the local
Conditions um so what I’m going to be talking about today is mostly about what how work in uh the United States that’s what I know the most about um but again there will be continuities that are Global now the other thing I want to mention at this very beginning is that
Freemasonry itself likes to think of itself as one organization that there is a single Freemasonry but more recently Scholars have started to use the term Freemason Rees that there are multiple Freemason Rees that um that act in different ways and um and have different um different uh trajectories different
Patterns and this comes from my friends work on the history of Freemasonry in Latin America where there are multiple different Freemasonry that are slightly different from each other so one of the things that that is really the continuity that we see from the very beginning is a focus on King
Solomon’s Temple and the ritual of Freemasonry that defines the lodge is all uses the symbolism and the history of the building of Solomon’s Temple as um the center of the fraternity so here’s an engraving by votar from 1750 this is an English engraving and in it you see King Solomon
With his scepter sitting on the throne in the center and then and uh the the second most important figure in Freemasonry hyam the king of Ty you see to the left and then ham a Biff who is the architect that builds the temple on the and these are the the three figures
Around who the Freemason the Masonic ritual circulates so they’re called the three ancient Grand Masters but also from this engraving from the 1750s you can see that some of the Masonic symbolism has already become stable ized so here we have these two pillars right which are supposed to be the pillars on
The porch of Solomon’s Temple that’s yachin and Boaz and then um this checkered checkerboard pavement here which ends up being a tesselated pavement they call it that um is supposed to symbolize the the inner sanctum of Solomon’s Temple and then the three um the three candlesticks which
Are called the three great lights of Freemasonry and these symbols end up being used to teach ideas about um the existential quest of Being Human and of living in society and so we’ll see these symbols over and over again as we go through the lecture so from England as I said
Freemasonry spreads across the globe um and again it’s about groups of men primarily men although um there are lodges that accept women as well but it’s primarily men initiating themselves into the organization and teaching each other the ideology of the organization through the ritual process um so this is
An engraving from the 18th century in France showing um showing a man being initiated into the fraternity you can see here it says an assembly of Freemasons for the reception of an apprentice so there are three stages in these initial rituals of Freemasonry the Entered Apprentice the
Journeyman and the Master Mason and in this scene from a French Lodge in the 18th century you can see here’s the master of the lodge who plays the role of King Solomon sitting at the east of the assembly room and you can tell he’s a ma he’s the master of the Lodge cuz
He’s wearing a hat that he also has on the Square that’s the symbol of the of his office of the master and then here on the floor is what’s called a a um tracing board or a Trestle board or a master’s carpet which you can see once again symbolizes Solomon’s Temple here
Are the two pillars Y and Boaz and the tesselated pavement and then here are the symbols of the Lodge and there’s the Master’s square right so this gentleman is being um initiated into the lodge and again this is what we call speculative Freemasonry meaning that these are
Gentlemen who are doing this as a philosophical activity rather than Century earlier would have been operative masonry actual uh Stone B teaching each other the the the um the lessons of their Union so to speak and and the the ideology that they are teaching is led to the enlightenment so ideas about
Egalitarianism ideas about individuals role in society ideas about self-rule right and um and in this time period Freemasonry um was found to be threatening by both uh the royalty and the aristocrat and by the Catholic church because it um threatened the hierarchical structures of those institutions through teaching these Enlightenment
Principles so this uh is a British engraving um from 1735 and it’s a list of The Lodges that are associated with the Grand Lodge of London so you can see this spread we talked about 1717 there were four lodges in London by 1755 you’ve got all of these different
Lodges including number 126 in this um engraving is in Boston in New England right so it’s spreading to the British colonies and at the same time it’s also um spreading around the globe to Europe to South America and it ends up Freemason ends up being particularly strong any place that the British Empire
Has for this station so Freemasonry spread in um in North America through the British occupation but also through um the elite gentlemen who want to find a way to be linked back to London you know the the wealthy Planters in Virginia who see themselves as British gentleman even though they’re in
Virginia um like to have link to the Imperial Center in London and Freemasonry provides that Center so throughout the spread of the uh uh through the out the spread of the British Empire you end up having free masonry um in India uh in the Middle East in Palestine anywhere the British
Are you end up having U Masonic uh organizations so showing the spread of Freemasonry 2 North America I wanted to just show you these are two R paintings that are in the collection at the Grand Lodge of New York um and you can see that they’re quite similar to the
Tracing board that I showed you from uh London from from France in the 18th century these are from probably 1790 to 1810 and again in each case you can see that you have these pillars that are the pillars on the post on the porch of Solan right and uh again you’ve got the
The Sun and the Moon the allseeing eye right and the g which stands for the grand architect of the universe so this is all linked to Enlightenment you know the the deity is referred to as the grand architect the person that designs the temple that um that all men are
Building and I want to call attention to these two symbols here this is the rough ashler that comes from the quaries right and you can see it’s it’s um it’s not good to build with right it’s um it has it’s got rough edges no right angles you
Could not build a temple using this rough ashler right but on the other side of the painting The the perfect ashler which has the the the the plain sides and the right angles so this is a man in his Natural State this is a man after he’s been improved by
Freemasonry and again the tools here of of the Mason are what are being used to create a man as a perfect ashler so that Society can be built with him so this is all images of the individual’s role in society how do you build a democratic organization how do you build an
Egalitarian society that is up that that practices self-rule right and in North America it it becomes Freemasonry becomes kind of a Civic religion in the time period of the new American Republic um and uh George Washington who you see here in a portrait taken from Life in
His Masonic regalia is in many ways um idolized in the United States as the ultimate perfect ashler the man who um is thinking about the good of the nation rather than his own self-interest you know he M he steps down um from being the general of the Continental Army and
Um it turns down the opportunity to become the king of North America he later becomes elected president but after two terms he once again steps down so that somebody else can take a rule take the rule so again this idea of what we come to think of as Republican virtue
That people can work together and they can give over power that there can be a peaceful transition of power and Freemasonry is kind of where George Washington and other Americans had understood this idea of self-rule while they were still um while they were still uh subjects of the British Monarchy so
Freemasonry plays this role in American society by teaching how um self-government can happen so with these rituals they end up being held in this time period in a variety of different settings they’re they’re they’re not necessarily being held in specific Masonic spaces um frequently they’re held in coffee houses
They’re also held in taverns um but then also these rituals can take place in uh spaces in the homes of prominant people so this is an example um it’s called the Salem townhouse it’s named after a man named Salem town so um this is this is a little bit confusing because sometimes
You talk talk about a townhouse as being a space that’s owned by a uh municipality but this is actually a house that’s named after a man named Salem town and on the second floor of his house he was a Mason and he created a space where the Masonic rituals could
Take place so um in this plastered room you see on the walls the the tall seeners of Lebanon these are references to um The Cedars that are used in the construction of Solomon’s Temple but you can also see here on the ceiling the allseeing eye and the Stars
Right of the Masonic ceremony right so this is the first example I’m showing you of masonry and architecture it’s a a space that’s been modified for the Masonic ritual but it’s not designed specifically for it in Upstate New York this large room this large building was built in
1820 um and uh dwit Clinton who was the governor of New York who also was an active and um and important Freemason he ceremonially lays the Cornerstone for this building which at this point this is kind of out in the provinces this is not a um a very developed part of the
State but they have enough men that they build this Lodge building to have their Lodge room in and you can see it’s built in um kind of a neoclassical Georgian or adamesque style um you know with these wonderful H fans and and the fan light over the door but once again here we’ve
Got the S the temples the pillars from Solomon’s Temple on the front and the g showing that it’s the a masonic space the grand architect of the universe but this arch with the Keystone also symbolizes that there is another set of rituals that are going on here this is
The fourth ritual of Freemasonry it’s called The Royal Arch degree so you’ve got the Entered Apprentice the the journeyman the Master Mason and then this is the Royal Arch which is the beginning of an expansion of degrees that we see throughout the 19th century there are more and more different
Rituals being developed that um that are added on to Freemasonry so in this time period as I said with George Washington um many of the Elites in American society are Freemasons um and at the same time there’s also an Evangelical um Christian Movement taking place in America American society the
Second Great Awakening which um is concerned with that Freemason right might be becoming a new aristocracy and they also see Freemasonry as a threat to Evangelical Christianity so there’s a movement in American society called the antimonic movement in which um they there’s both political and religious suppression of
Freemasonry so this is a an a a pamphlet that was produced in 1831 as part of this expression of Freemasonry and it’s wonderful I’m showing it to you because it’s got this cartoon which is showing um a man once again being initiated uh you know kneeling at the altar with his hands on
The Square and Compass um and yet these people are the opposite of gentlemen they’re Ruffians you know and they’re U having this ritual not done in a place of respect or privilege instead it’s being done up in an attic and I love these little rats running here along the
Beam you know showing um how disreputable the Masons are having their secret ceremonies up in this Attic So the anti-masonic movement um really um plays a major role and many of The Lodges the majority of the LOD in the country um go out of business in the 1830s and
1840s um and starting in the 1850s Freemasonry starts to um revive itself and in this time period the The Lodge rooms become more formalized and the rituals become more formalized and also at this time the American um Industrial Revolution is taking place which means that there’s more Goods available there’s the the
Nation is wealthier so there’s more money to be spent on Masonic regalia Masonic supplies and so there’s a a real golden era of Freemasonry that start starts to develop in the 1850s really comes together in the 1870s and stretches through to 1930 when the Great depression changes
The world again and during this period you end up having specific rooms that are built to hold the LOD ritual so these are purpose built LOD rooms and here on the left I’m showing you a an u a um representation of one of these LOD rooms and here again you’ve got the
Master of the lodge sitting up on three um on three platforms this is called the east of the lodge right and here’s the letter G that’s always in the East and again he’s playing the role of King Solomon right and then here’s the this is an
Altar which you see in the center of all lawrs and this is where members who are being initiated take their Oaths of membership and and you see here on the the right this is an an image of the man taking his oath on the the Bible and
Again here you know here part of the ritual is that he’s on what’s called a cable toe and he’s got his hands on the Square and compass on the Bible and if we just um go back for a minute you can see this is the same image here he is at
The altar with the cable Toe with his hands on the Square and Compass right it’s just that the representation here is making it look elevated and important as opposed to that mimicry of it that was taking place in the earlier image and then around the altar you’ve got
Space what came to be called floor workor which is the acting out of the Masonic ritual right and um part of the ritual the story of the ritual is the murder of king of HFF the architect of Solomon’s Temple being hit with a a setting mall right so here we see the uh
And mid 19th century image of this action of the the the murder of HFF by Ruffians using the setting wall and that would be taking place in this space around the altar so in LOD rooms you frequently have or you always have seating around the exterior of the room facing in
Towards the Altar and open space in the center for this floor work to be done and the men who were making up the membership of the lodge are sitting around the the lodge room watching it take place so it’s kind of theater in the round where they’re seeing the
Actions of the fraternity of the ritual at the same time that they’re also seeing the faces of their brothers on the other side of the room so in this period that I’m talking about the Golden Age of of Freemasonry in the United States every town in the
United States has a masonic lodge room and they all have this same floor plan with the seating around the exterior of the lodge the master in the East with the G over his head the the altar in the center and then here we’ve got the three great lights of Freemasonry around the
Altar um and and some of them become extremely elaborate you know they can just be a space um in a rented room above a store or above a bank um they’re always on an on a second or third floor they don’t tend to be on the street
Floor um but they can also become very elaborate in kind of um palaces in the major American cities so here I’m just showing you an example of one lodom from the Masonic temple in Philadelphia um that’s built in the 18 7s and then they’ve got a um an interior
Decorator named George hor Herzog who comes through and decorates the the different luds in different styles and and because Freemasonry tried to um identify itself with the building of Solomon’s Temple in um in the Middle East you know there was an idea of antiquity um so many of the lrams ended
Up being decorated in this uh Egyptian Revival style like this spectacular example in Philadelphia so I mentioned this is taking that these um that this is taking place in the period of industrialization in the United States where materials are becoming cheaper and goods are becoming more easily accessible so in the end of
The 19th century these rituals end up being done in C and there’s an entire industry that develops to provide ritual costumes for the Masons to do their rituals so here you see on the left the ritual team of norsman lodge number 878 in Brooklyn in their ritual costumes and again notice
Here’s King Solomon in the center and then these are um images from a ritual paraphernalia catalog from the American mid west from the early 20th century so no matter where you lived in the country you could write in an order and get these uh these ritual costumes sent to
You so the the buildings that um that held the Masonic ritual rooms came to be identified with Solomon’s Temple because the ludum is the place where Solomon’s rituals are taking place so many of the building things um have architecturally added to them pillar on the facade so these are Yin
And Boaz the Masonic pillars on the front of this example uh in El Dorado Arkansas designed by Charles S watts and again um you know particularly after you had the egomania of King Tut’s tomb being discovered um people love the Egyptian symbolism so again you can see
That you’ve got here a mismash of masonic symbolism and Egyptian Revival symbolism and then here’s a couple of other wonderful examples these two uh in St Lewis Missouri on the left built Mount Mariah Masonic temple and again that mount Mariah is a reference to the location of Solomon’s Temple and again
These wonderful uh pill on the on the front these um Egyptian um pillars and then on the right again this one amazingly is now a temple of Scientology you know the Mason sold it and the scientologists loved the architecture so they bought it and you’ve got this
Fabulous zigurat roof as well as these Lotus topped columns on the facade and identifying it as Solomon’s Temple so this idea of the importance of Solomon and um the imagery of Solan leaks out of Freemasonry and ends up kind of permeating American society so I just want to show you these two
Wonderful windows by the Tiffany Studios that were produced um showing Sol in stain glass right so kind of a two-dimensional representation and and um the one on the left Edward J Simmons this is a memorial to a man who was the grandm of masons in the state of New
York so during his life he had kind of played the role of Solomon so in this Memorial window Tiffany has portrayed him as Solomon in his robes and in splendor uh the one on the right um is in a private collection the dry House Collection but we don’t know what the
Provenant is of it but it’s obviously again the same design made by Tiffany for another uh for another client and then this is a uh maum built by a group of Masons um outside Kansas City Missouri completed in 1927 um and once again obviously referencing Solomon’s Temple right so
This is a a maum so that m could spend eternity buried in a mum that spoke to their Masonic membership and that spoke to their linkages to the solomonic tradition and um if you go inside it you’ll find that um it has a LOD room in
The center of it so that when the Masons were buried in this mum they could be sent off uh onto the other side with Masonic rituals within a masonic lodge room all right so so I mentioned that there are other Masonic groups that that grow out of
These three U the the the three basic rituals the that those three rituals are sometimes referred to as craft masonry or uh blue Lodge masonry and starting in the 18th century there are esoteric ideas that kind of circle around Freemasonry which in the 19th century take form and become um physical
Manifestations and one of these is the idea of the night’s Templar right and the Knights Templar um starting in the 18th century in France there were Masons who didn’t like the idea that um Freemasonry came out of the working class they wanted it to be more aristocratic than that so they started
To claim that Freemasonry had its roots in the Holy Warrior years of um of the Crusades and so there’s this military aspect of Freemasonry which manifests itself after the American Civil War in the United States and you start to have um groups of Masons that are um having
Armories and drill halls and dressing in uniform and having kind of a military aspect this is a different aspect of masculinity that’s being expressed rather than the masculinity of being a laborer of being an artisan this is um being a holy Warrior and here on the
Left you see a a floor plan that shows these lockers where the Masonic uniforms could be stored uh in between when they’re not meeting and on the right this floor plan of the Troy New York Masonic temple from 1874 and you can see that a this is the
Upper level this is a twostory lodge room right and then f is the banquet hall right and then I here is the drill Hall where the ma where the Knights Templar were able to practice their Marshal Drilling and um and marching in uniform and then C is where the the
Lockers were and where all the r where the uniforms were kept and here are the kns Templar out in public marching in their uniforms ready to protect um Christianity to protect righteousness you know this is the kind of military wing of Freemasonry so also you had another
Group of Masons that that developed in the 19th century that was called the Scottish right um again even though it’s called Scottish it’s actually of French origin the EOS right and claiming kind of a primitivism that’s linked to Scotland and the the Scottish right was linked into the esoteric Revival of the
19th century with elus Levy and Paris and ideas rosac crism um and they had a series of 33 degrees which originally were um held in uh individuals being initiated in uh lods with many different kinds of material culture associated with it but over time these rituals um started to be
Presented um in Theatrical representations where um instead of having a single man initiated at a time you would have numerous men initiated and instead of having law germs with with lots of different ornamentation they started to present the rituals theatrically and you had scenery that was developed um by uh Theatrical supply
Companies that gave you romantic and esoteric spaces and instead of going through the ritual yourself you paid money and watched the theatrical presentation and learned the ritual ideas in these spaces and the the fraternal organizations loved this because it meant that they could make a lot of money by charging people
To watch these theatrical presentations so they built larger and larger auditoriums you see this one from Fort Wayne Indiana from 1915 on the left and here are some examples some more examples of these esoteric wonderful um theatrical backdrops um on the left is a scenery of um Solomon’s Temple in the
Temple in Kansas City and on the right is an image that’s kind of a salesman’s sample that um people that were selling the scenery would take and say this is the kind of imagery that we can produce for you and this culminates in huge temples so this is one of the largest
Built in the country in the United States this is in St Louis designed by the architect William nner completed in 19 24 and it seated 3,000 people so again if they’re all paying you know initiation fees this is a huge amount of money that the fraternity can make by uh
Charging people to be initiated in these huge auditoriums so the the Knights Templar and the Scottish right both have European Roots the the final one I’m going to talk about is the Shriners and I think the shiners are only in North America they’re in the United States but
They’re also in uh Mexico and Canada and they develop starting in the 1870s um and they claim to be a playground of Freemasonry where where the the blue Lodge rituals and the Knights Templar and the Scottish right they were all about righteousness and U and correct Behavior the Shriners use
What they saw as being Arab or middle eastern imagery as a way to get away from the strictures of judeo Christian morality and they pretended to be Arabs as a way to um to behave in ways that they wouldn’t necessarily expect to that they took on um a different ideology and
Here you see um the leader of Mecca temple in New York City this is from about 18 90 on the left and then all the leaders of Denver’s El jabel Temple from the 1920s and here they you know they believed in um sensuality and consumption and and dancing girls right
And they started to build temples in which they could um they could um laugh and have a good time and and come together um and again these temples that they built had um need morish or Arab um architectural identification on the left is Lulu temple in Philadelphia and on
The right is the floor plan of kiz temple in Brooklyn and what I wanted to point out to you here is that this is again the same asonic ludum except expanded significantly right instead of holding 40 or 50 people this is a huge space holding again up to a thousand
People but again everybody looking at where the ritual is going to take place but it’s a ritual that is has different ideology than the original ludum and here is um again an example this one’s in New Orleans from 198 designed by the one of the city’s leading Architects
Emil whe um and here I am visiting it in 19 uh this is me last year in New Orleans and again you can see it’s got a stage right just like the worshipful master up on the East and it’s got the seating around the outside but it still has this
Open space in which the ritual can take place in which um the the Shriners are initiated into their space right but again these become these fantasy Realms in which American men can move away from the way they’ve been brought up they can pretend to be somebody else they can
Practice a new 20th century morality of consumption and of leisure um through the shrine all right so that that’s my presentation um and again uh so we’ve got the the the the prehistoric or the premodern roots in 17th and 18th century Britain which then translates around the world with
Spaces developed to the LOD room that then end up being um built into Masonic temples that uh represent Solomon’s Temple but then you also have these other freemasonic orders that have different masculine identities of the the Knights Templar the holy Warrior the Scottish right being the wise man or the
Initiated and then Shriner mosques where they pretend to be somebody that they’re not and then finally I just want to say all of this um is more fully developed than I was able to do today in my book Masonic temples which you can get online um from Amazon or other sources so with
That I’m I hope I haven’t um bowled you over or confused you but I’m more than happy to open the floor to convers for conversation and questions if you have them thank you Professor Moore I think we should really give you a big Applause because you have really fascinated us
With these uh with all the information that you gave us the systematic uh treatment of the information also with all the imagery that you showed us uh most of us I’m an art historian but to me also this was something very new some of the things I knew but most of the
Things I didn’t know I didn’t know including the Shriners which I I’m fasc ated by that as somebody who lived in the Middle East for example so I could uh relate to to the Shriner’s uh um Aesthetics and um I’m I’m sure that our our public here our audience here has
Quite a number of questions so I give the floor now to any of you who have any questions or comments than in case you’re um um in case you’d like to speak Serbian I could translate so I think we could also work that way in case members of the audience
Are shy to speak English okay Mr Mo my name is Branco I’m from Serbia I have few questions you said in the beginning that masoner is local and international but if uh if masoner has a nice object objectives and something good but if it uh if uh if those things
Get lost in translation like we so in the in the Lulu Temple how do people could believe in those things like uh in those pictures they were laughing to masonery cuz some people are doing those things like we saw in that picture if you could make an answer of
That I’m sorry I didn’t I didn’t hear that somebody use a microphone to make it more here more accessible to me um we have been using a microphone but perhaps I could ask you to come up here to uh the the question is quite elaborate actually and it has a point it’s not
Only a question but there’s a point that you want to make so I think that you could um here okay Mr M do do you hear me now can you hear Professor no no can you hear me when I speak I can hear you yes
I can hear you okay so I’m going to give my microphone to Our Guest see okay Mr do you hear me now yes okay uh on the beginning of the lecture you said that uh uh masonery is local and internationally based like on the beginning but if uh those things get
Lost in translation like we saw in that Lulu Temple how do people will believe in those things that it has good intentions and everything cuz uh in those picture the people are laughing to it cuz uh those things are looking silly in those things like uh the dancers and everything else right so
Yes the the the the Shriners um are what we would now call you know Politically Incorrect you know they it in that time period you know the Americans did not understand the um the the basis or did not have good understanding of Muslim culture you
There were not a lot of Muslims in the United States in that time period so um so I kind of say that um for Americans at that time dressing up as as people from the Middle East might as well have been dressing up as martians they never thought that they would actually meet
Them right and so um so this is a a real problem that they’re that they’re building these temples that are representing mosqu and yet they’re using them for very different purposes I mean and you know the the the where this kind of centers is alcohol right that the
Shriners are drinking all the time in these buildings at the same time that you know that alcohol is not part of Muslim culture so there is that problem right and but it also follows that you know from the very beginning when they’re dressing up and pretending to be
The the men that are building Solomon’s Temple they’re once again taking on a different ident identity right and when they’re dressing up to be the knight’s Templar they’re they’re once again leaving their identity as American of the industrial period And as I showed you in that slide they’re seeing
Themselves as being the Crusaders from the Middle Ages so there’s so all of this is to some extent about fantasy and dressing up and take and playing out at being other identities does that answer your question at all yeah yeah I understand I understand uh okay the the
Second question is about architecture in Belgrade have you been in Belgrade I have not in Belgrade there is a few buildings with masonery architecture like a natural museum in the center in C magdan of Fortress uh we didn’t have luck like in America so those buildings
Are now Changed by their uh usage and everything uh have you ever in your books uh study the things like uh cuz the moment when the masonary architecture is flourishing the countries in the in the same time are having economic economic B boost growth growth yeah growth have you
Ever talk study about those things well mostly my work has focused on the United States um I I know a little bit about um Masonic um activities in other parts of the world and you know again the as I mentioned there’s that a anti-masonry period in the United States
In the 1830s when there’s forces that arrain themselves against the fraternity because um they’re afraid that it’s got too much power or that it’s organizing people um and throughout world history there are times periods in which different groups become very anti-masonic um so you for example the Nazis belied that Freemasons and and
Jews were conspiring to take over the world um so that um there was great suppression of Freemasonry by the Third Reich in the in the middle of the 20th century okay okay thanks I have just one more question uh could you give us some uh idea in which books we could find
Some direct uh answers about those knowledges and everything do you have those in your book or um uh about about freeas in Serbia no free mercenary architecture also yeah I understand that but do you have referred on the on the history buildings and everything so we could read some more
Also from your book and other things so I think my I I have to say I think my book is the place to start nice I understand that thanks thanks for your question thank you for your questions thank you for your questions and thank you for your answers I also have a
Question um having spent a lot of time in Jerusalem myself of course I’ve been to the fabled American colony hotel which used to be the American col colony in Jerusalem and do you have any um knowledge about the contact perhaps of these American Freemasons have they did
They ever go there have did they have any contact with those with those people who were there at the American colony who were there actually to evangelize to spread the word of the Gospel etc etc yes there there were a lot of Masons that did um uh you might even call them
Pilgrimages tourist traps or tourist visits to Jerusalem um and there’s lots of souvenirs that got brought back to the United States um that are carved out of uh stone that uh pretend to be from the quaries where Solomon’s Temple was um where the Stone from where Solomon’s Temple came from um
But uh but that’s something that has not been adequately studied yet um there’s a man named Paul Rich who has done some work about kind of international um uh Masonic there there are a few different books that are now about the bonds of Empire and how Freemasonry was used um to support the
British Empire so that is there is a literature about that but it doesn’t it tends to be more political it doesn’t tend to do um archit it doesn’t do architectural analysis I can imagine yes yes also um another thing that I noticed and I’m sure that
Other art historians if there are any in in the in the audience have also noticed that the um neom morish style of the uh the mosques quote unquote um it’s very curious to see that in Central Europe for example many synagogues that were built at the turn of the century the end of
The the 19th especially by Lea B and other people um famous Architects Jewish architects of of of um of synagogues in Central Europe they relied on practically the same um how shall I say the same choice of motifs of these Neo morish motifs that they combined in
Practically the same way as the Shriners did in their mosques quote unquote so it’s quite we had we had a synagogue here in Belgrade that was unfortunately destroyed uh in World War II in one of the central streets of Belgrade that practically looked very similar the
Front of the the the facade of the synagogue be Israel in in uh in ketra Street in central Belgrade is used to look very similar to the Lulu temple in Philadelphia so here’s another uh aspect of the whole thing that I think for us in Belgrade is quite interesting
So and throughout the United States you have um you have uh synagogues that are also using this architectural vocabulary to distinguish themselves well thank you fascinating are there any more questions any other questions anybody else that would like to talk with Professor Moore there is another question but
Uh he has to come up to this microphone by which I’m sitting and please Professor what is about contemporary buildings in you in USA especially maybe in New York or elsewhere Washington for example so I only heard the build I’m sorry uh we had a question here regarding contemporary Masonic
Structures at built at this moment so contemporary Masonic structures in the USA that you know of what do they look like well in in the Contemporary period in the present the socioeconomic status of Masons and the wealth that the Masons have is not near what it was was 100 years ago so
Many of these old temples are being lost they can’t afford to maintain them and they have either gone back to renting spaces in other buildings or they are building relatively modest um structures on the outskirts of cities where there’s lots of parking parking has become an important thing in American culture so
Um people want to be able to park near where they’re going so many of these buildings in the city centers don’t have adquate parking l so so more frequently in the present the buildings are um relatively modest one-story brick structures with parking around the exterior of them thank you so parking
Rules Supreme as as we are witnessing also here in Bel it’s practically taking over cars are taking over life so are there any other Questions there is another question but it’s in Serbian so I’m going to try and Translate okay we have a question from Branco this is the person who addressed you first with quite a number of questions he has another question regarding the similarities between okay we know about yahin and baz and their
Symbolic meaning but he also says that both Catholic and and Orthodox Churches often have these two pillars and often have this of course they all have the sanctuary and they all have the alar space and could there be any uh comparison drawn between a masonic um Temple or
A well that’s a yeah he’s asking about the the comparison between Solomon’s Temple and yes the answer is of course yes the church and Solomon’s Temple are in direct connection we also had but I’m sure that um also from the Masonic point of view is there any any any sort of
Specific uh stance that the Masonic architecture takes towards church architecture does it quote from church architecture is there any direct um connection well the the best answer I can give you is that um when I started doing research on this I found that there were companies in the United States in the 1880s
1890s that realized that there was a market for furniture for Masonic Lodge rooms so they started to produce Masonic furniture and they started to produce as I showed you cataloges to sell Masonic furniture and what I found is that they had parallel cataloges and um and in one
Catalog they would call it Lodge furniture and they would have their’s Lodge chair number four and in the other catalog which was aimed at churches it would say pulpit chair number four and was exactly the same chair you’re right so an excellent answer to this question yes we get the picture right
Fantastic okay any other questions so if not uh we could draw this wonderful evening to a close not an evening at your place but uh evening here um and we would like to thank you for taking part and for addressing our audience and for broadening uh the
Spectrum of our knowledge not only on these Masonic lodges and the architecture of of um Freemasonry but actually you introduced us to an aspect of both life and visual culture in the United States in um the 18th the 19th and the 20th century we thank you for that thank you thank you
Okay thank you so now because you’re the host of this meeting you can now um bring it to a close I mean Zoom wise to see you in person bye have a good day bye
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