The impact of local environment aspects on Coptic architecture in Egypt

Abstract

To understand the forces that formed the architecture in Coptic Egypt, a whole set of environmental, economical, cultural, and political forces are examined in order to differentiate these forces from those that brought the religious buildings in the Western World to where they are. These forces continued to form the style of the Coptic buildings away from the simultaneous development of the coincident styles. This research is an attempt to monitor how the different elements of Egyptian environment had forced the Coptic architects into certain directions in forms, structural systems, building materials, etc.The study approach is formulated a process in which these buildings are interacting with and between people, place and epoch. Its main idea is to address the question about the way Coptic architects tried to deal with both natural and artificial environment to utilize their obtainable resources as far as possible.The study will be accomplished within analytical framework with some forms of quantitative data to validate the qualitative analysis.