Changes of Compositional Features of Church Villages in Rural Landscape

Abstract

The villages with churches form the significant part in the urban framework of Lithuania and the inseparable component of cultural landscape. Beginning with the end of the 18th century the villages with churches had fully functioned together with country’s cities, towns, and village settlements. Their functional development and the formation of the urban structure are closely related with the expansion of the Christianity in Lithuania. The formation of the compositional links between the villages with churches and the rural landscape was mainly influenced by their urban structure determined by the canons of the Catholic Church. The network of the villages with churches had determined the cultural distinctiveness of Lithuanian rural landscape till the middle of the 20th century. Considering that, the preservation of the identity and distinctiveness of Lithuanian countryside requires the analysis of the villages with churches and their role in country’s landscape. The article is devoted to the analysis of the changes of the compositional features of the villages with churches in the spatial structure of the rural landscapes and the factors determining these changes. In order to understand better the compositional features of the spatial structure of the villages with churches in the ethnocultural landscape, the assessment of the aesthetic potential of the layout and spatial structure of the villages with churches is also presented in the article.