Book excerpt: Building a temple implies the mastering of different technicalities such as the commissioning and payment of the building process, procuring and transporting building material, the organization of work and the practical execution of building and decoration projects. But building a temple is also translating a religious idea into stone. From the design to the consecration of the temple, every stage in the process answers to a set of rules that enables the building to function as a temple. The aim of the 7th Tempeltagung was to examine the relation between the technical and the theological demands of temple building. How was architecture infl uencing the ritual, how did ritual texts refl ect the act of construction? What was the relation between the mythical temple and the actual temple? Who made the decisions and who executed them? What technical and theological considerations lay at the base of the choice of material and of form? In other words, how did the technical aspects of building influence the theological ideas, how was building a temple "structuring religion"?