Comments on: Designing Sacred Architecture through the Senses

By: Nold Egenter

Nold Egenter — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:51:33 +0000

Paul Macroft (cit.).
“Any discussion about spiritual architecture needs to take account of a supernatural spirit realm, – which may or may not exist. If a supernatural spirit realm does not exist your thesis has value to the extent that you explore the question. If a supernatural spirit realm does exist your comprehension of the sacred (and therefore sacred architecture) will only be a veneer.”

Studying as ‘(topo-)semantic/ symbolic architecture’ what missionaries over hundreds of years all over the world devalued as ‘fetish’ and the like, in the framework of ‘primitive religion’ (primitive construction – which was of high value for traditional societies, because it implied ‘ancient’) [primitive materiality combined with sacrality being 'primitive' in the concept of Western absolute spirituality on the side of the missionaries!] can lead easily to a contrasting hypothesis: that neolithic ‘semantic architecture’ with an elementary aesthetics provided the catgorically polar spirituality (harmony of heaven and earth) which later became considered as theocratic constitution (early city states) and later as “religion”.
Note that religion (“supernatural spirit realm”) offers a history of 2-3000 years, whereas constructive behavior looks back on an existence of about 20 million years!

See: Egenter N. : Architectural Anthropology – Semantic and symbolic architecture – An architectural ethnological survey into hundred villages of central Japan. Structura Mundi, Lausanne 1994

See also IMPLOSION: http://home.worldcom.ch/~negenter

By: Paul Marcroft

Paul Marcroft — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:03:01 +0000

An interesting and intriguing question – What makes a place sacred. The obvious answer is that people make a place sacred, a bank, a laundry etc. People confer built structures with many ideas and attitudes and then the cockroaches crawl in to share the space.

I might be wrong but it looks as though you posit that “spiritual” is simply a result of bodily sensation/memory/collective memory and that architecture can act as a touchstone to release/extend “important moments”. In this Albert Speer was a master, but his Architecture would be considered by many to be profane.

Any discussion about spiritual architecture needs to take account of a supernatural spirit realm, – which may or may not exist. If a supernatural spirit realm does not exist your thesis has value to the extent that you explore the question. If a supernatural spirit realm does exist your comprehension of the sacred (and therefore sacred architecture) will only be a veneer.

Despite the insights of neuro-science (Ramachandran, Zeki et al) into vision and aesthetics, the perspective that such knowledge endows about the nature of our humanity, is that it is ultimately just a material existence. I personally do not think we know enough to be able to say conclusively either way just at present.

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