Submitted by antonio caperna

Sacred, profane and geometrical symbolism in architecture

Architecture News - May 03, 2010 - 10:22   11246 views

This paper start from two assumption: 1. the illuminist thought has represented a turning point in Western history, but its has “frozen” inside its “rational domain” part of our spirituality; 2. this cultural attitude is an intrinsic necessity that characterize the final time of culture, and we can read these aspect through the artistic, architectural, musical, etc. symbolism. The built environment, with its geometrical symbolism, talks about the culture that has generate it, and express the intimate values of a culture. So, if in the past the built environment was interconnected with their physical and spiritual surrounding, the contemporary has express the excessive power of mechanical culture determining the loss of human identity in favour of “artificial identity”. This artificial structure has transferred its cultural reductionism also to urbanism and architecture caused laceration of society and deformation of ethical and esthetical values. This new design represent and symbolize new values like hedonism and a devoid sense of nothing, and are sculptural expression of a society. I’ll demonstrate because this happen today, what we can learn from the past, and i propose a new approach, structured on holistic way and able to demonstrate that the science can and must married the beauty and spirituality