Paliou, E. and Knight, D.J. 2013. Mapping the Senses: Perceptual and Social Aspects of Late Antique Liturgy in San Vitale, Ravenna. (original) (raw)
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The experience of the sacred through places of ritual in architecture
ANUARI d’Arquitectura i Societat, 2021
Les estructures socials i espacials, així com els llenguatges reconeguts i creats pels mestres del passat ja no són adequats en la nostra època actual. La pertinença a aquestes estructures hui ja no s’associa a la comunitat sinó a la xarxa.
Civil Engineering and Architecture, 2024
In this research, we propose to see the incidence of sensory architecture in public spaces in the Peruvian high Andean zone of the district of Pucara, an environment where the ancestral dance known as Huaylarsh is practiced, which has a background with agriculture and pastoral love. From a diagnosis, we will detect the considerations of the relations of the sensorial characters in the urban environment, opening a set of questions in relation to the cultural development in the towns that need diffusion and support in the expression of their most representative customs. The information on local public spaces was collected by means of an observation sheet, in which several general characteristics were recorded, such as typology, state of conservation and use of equipment, in addition to focusing on sensory criteria such as accessibility, visual language, fluidity in the environment, harmony of materials and comfortable acoustics. This information is complemented by surveys of residents who use public spaces to understand and contextualize their perception of urban space. It was determined that the level of influence of sensory architecture in various public spaces of the Huaylarsh event is moderately favorable, due to multiple deficiencies in the areas analyzed that prevent the spectator and dancer from fully enjoying the event.
Interactive Bodily Experiences of architectural History and its perceptual implications
SPATIAL PHRASES, 2009
Defining historical architecture through dance, a field not normally and necessarily perceived to be related to it allows us to engage in a dialogue with architecture, which would otherwise have not been possible. Movement/dance is not a part of architectural history education, or vice versa yet both disciplines can borrow from each other, in their process of creation; ideas about experiencing space and the visualization of space are just two examples. On the whole, architectural researchers have few methodologies for assessing the impact of movement on the perception and cognition of architecture. When re-interpreting an existing building, it is important to be as creative as when designing a new building. The idea that aesthetic perception and creation of architecture cannot be achieved without the inclusion and application of digital interactive technology forms the basis of this paper. The perception of spatial volume, which is the essence of architecture, is dependent on the viewer obtaining as many different perspectives through bodily movement as possible. Architecture, unlike sculpture or painting, incorporates the possibility of action, which naturally is tied to a bodily reaction. Any architecture that aims to be evocative should go beyond being a series of retinal images. This paper, and the project it refers to are about deconstructing space such that it is experienced differently. Through the use of the graphic programming environment Isadora, the structure provides a reassessment of itself. The architectural experience of a space can thus be extended from just being a dwelling to a more aggressive, seeking approach to architectural forms with the use of new psychophysical coordinates. This can then be linked to the design problematics in architecture, or to different analyses of theories of architectural history.
Sacred Spaces: How Does Church Architecture Communicate the Sacred?
Paper: Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology, 2022
Styles of churches through the centuries reflect that particular culture’s artistic skills, available materials, and its theological expression of Christ manifesting himself in the world. Roman, Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles of architecture all express the ecclesiastical piety of Christians from that time and place. A particularly “Catholic architecture” does not exist per se since the Church as its transcendent reality is not confined to any particular time and place. Church architecture’s departure in the last several decades from providing witness to the sacred is rooted in a post-Enlightenment materialist, reductionist, socialistic anthropology. This philosophical spirit was marked by a general turn toward the subjective–toward a focus on the “inner man” and the respective interpretations of his place within the cosmic order through a hermeneutic that apodictically repudiated the Gospel’s supernatural elements. This embrace of nihilism can be overcome by an architectural return to a consciousness of what Heidegger called a sense of dwelling.
A Historical Interpretation of Religious Architecture in Baroque Valletta
The purpose of this Masters dissertation is to study the dynamics between ecclesiastical architecture, space and society in a diachronic manner, in order to understand the influences on the development of Valletta between 1566 and 1798. Chosen for their congregational powers, architectural interventions on churches located in Valletta, and carried out during this period, have been selected as the main agents of change and are focused upon in this study. These interventions are divided into phases detailing the building, rebuilding and further embellishment all of the city’s churches at the time. This research makes use of interdisciplinary methods of data processing and analysis. An extensive literature review of secondary sources was carried out, culminating in an analysis of this data against cartographic records. While processing the data, the ‘timeline interview’ method used in the field of anthropology was adapted to this study. This facilitated the identification of cultural trends developing over time and established a quantitative, comparable set of data. Original cartographic sources were used to produce a series of plans representing the development of the architectural interventions; which served as the second data-set for the interpretation of development within the city. Cross-referencing of the data-sets allowed a narrative to emerge, giving an insight into the policy of investment in church development by the governing entities. It is shown that in the first years of Valletta’s establishment, churches were not fortuitously placed in the landscape, but reflected the prestige afforded by their particular location, chronology of development and amelioration over time. In this manner, the study also provides a previously unexplored socio-spatial perspective of Valletta, giving rise to various suggestions for further research on other aspects of the city.
This article brings together two fields of recent research: sacred space and its adaptations to religious change during the early modern period on the one hand, and the role of sensory perception in late medieval and Reformation piety on the other. At the example of Ulm Minster, the largest parish church of the Holy Roman Empire, it traces the manifold transformations of the sensory regime within a sacred space as well as how parishioners perceived the latter with their senses. Completely unsuitable for sermon services, the case of the Minster demonstrates how an existing building not only set clear limits to the adaptability of sacred space to new sensory requirements, but also how the experience with this sacred space provoked thinking and writing about sensory perception in a religious context. Following the evidence and in line with the recent concept of intersensoriality, all five senses are considered. *** Dieser Aufsatz führt zwei aktuelle Forschungsfelder zusammen: Sakralräume und ihre Veränderungen im Zuge des religiösen Wandels in der Frühen Neuzeit einerseits sowie andererseits das Verhältnis von sinnlicher Wahrnehmung und Frömmigkeit in Spätmittelalter, Reformation und konfessionellem Zeitalter. Anhand des Ulmer Münsters, der größten Pfarrkirche im Heiligen Römischen Reich, wird untersucht, welchen Veränderungen das sensorielle Regime im Sakralraum während dieses Zeitraums unterworfen war, und wie dieser von zeitgenössischen Gemeindegliedern sinnlich wahrgenommen wurde. Völlig ungeeignet für den lutherischen Predigtgottesdienst, veranschaulicht der Fall des Münsters, wie ein gegebener Sakralraum seiner Anpassung an neue sensorielle Anforderungen klare Grenzen setzt. Darüber hinaus lässt sich in Ulm nachvollziehen, wie die Erfahrung mit diesem Sakralraum Anstöße zur Reflexion und zum Schreiben über sinnliche Wahrnehmung im religiösen Kontext gab. Dabei werden, entsprechend der Quellenlage und dem von der sensory history entwickelten Konzept der Intersensorialität, alle fünf Sinne berücksichtigt.