Architectural Symbolism Research Articles

Architectural Model of Universal Structure: Light, Material and Natural Elements in Architectural Symbol and Aesthetics

This paper discusses abstract and empathy roles of physical elements in architecture. The earliest palace was constructed as representation of "universal structure", and architecture was the first model of universe. Therefore, light, material and natural elements in architecture have fundamental significance and aesthetic importance as symbol of universal structure. This paper discusses the thought of natural elements in both eastern and western culture, and summarized basic metaphorical meanings of light, material and natural elements as architectural symbols and aesthetic images. The conclusion is that architectural thinking about the material is values reason and ontology which is different from that of engineering mechanics concerning tool reason. The light, material and natural elements in architecture have archetype significance beyond cultural differences.

The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered (review)

Reviewed by: The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered Joachim Whaley The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered. Edited by Jason Philip Coy, Benjamin Marschke, and David Warren Sabean. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010. Pp. xviii + 328. Cloth $120.00. ISBN 978-1845457594. Since the nineteenth century, most historians of the Holy Roman Empire have been preoccupied with the question of its statehood (Staatlichkeit). Before 1945 the focus was generally on the inadequacy of the Reich and its failure to develop into a German nation-state. Since the 1960s there has been a tendency to view the Reich more positively and to discover in its early modern history the origins of democratic, liberal, or parliamentary traditions, or to see it as an early model of European integration or, as Georg Schmidt does, as a distinctive early modern German polity. More recently, however, some scholars have challenged what they see as an anachronistic preoccupation with questions of statehood and nationality, and have argued instead for a new cultural approach that claims to understand early modern society on its own terms. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger (Münster) and Rudolf Schlögl (Konstanz) explore the Reich as a communicative system with its own symbolic, procedural, and ceremonial language. The editors of this lively collection of new essays nail their colors firmly to the mast of the Münster and Konstanz schools. The old political-constitutional history is finished, Jason Coy’s historiographical introduction suggests; the way for future research lies in exploring the meaning of the symbols and rituals of the Reich. The essays are grouped under four headings, starting with “presence, performance, and text.” Philipp Hoffmann-Rebnitz illuminates the role played by urban chronicles in providing narratives of continuity and stability through the dramatic political and social transformation experienced by Hanseatic cities between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Alexander Schlaak highlights the significance of petitions in the imperial cities, identifying them as vehicles of communication between burghers and magistrates, and as evidence for the vitality of the political life of urban communes into the nineteenth century. Benjamin Marschke presents the unconventional, erratic, [End Page 389] and often frankly boorish behavior of Frederick William I as an example of political performance: a ruler flouting convention and transgressing the bounds of appropriate behavior to make political points in his dealings with the emperor and fellow rulers such as the Elector of Saxony. The second theme is the “symbolic construction of meaning, identity, and memory.” Len Scales shows not only how, in the absence of a fixed capital, late medieval emperors used architectural symbols of an imperial past and their own physical presence to establish their authority, but also how princes and urban magistrates used imperial symbols themselves for their own dynastic and local purposes. Ralf-Peter Fuchs analyses the testimony collected by commissions charged with restoring order after 1648, which focused on memories of the confessional status quo in the early 1620s in order to establish a clear boundary between confessional communities under the Peace of Westphalia. Elizabeth Harding elucidates the significance of symbolic action and representation in constructing and articulating corporate identity among the lower nobility in eighteenth-century Westphalia. Other aspects of this issue feature in Tim Neu’s analysis of the conflict over noble opposition to the demand of urban magistrates for the right to remain seated during deliberations of the Hessen-Kassel territorial diet after 1700. David Luebke opens the third part, devoted to “ceremony, procedure, and legitimation,” with a detailed account of a procedural dispute at the Münster territorial diet of 1608, which revolved around the nobility’s fear that an episcopal decree on communion and burial threatened their rights to maintain chaplains or domestic ministers who were exempt from territorial legislation on these matters. Patrick Oleze’s account of jurisdictional disputes between Schwäbisch Hall and Brandenburg-Ansbach demonstrates how even the custody of the corpses of individuals drowned in rivers could trigger bitter wrangling over territorial boundaries and competing jurisdictions. Michael Sikora explains how the morganatic marriage of a prince could occasion fierce family disputes and appeals to the emperor via the Vienna Reichshofrat. The emperors’ occasional attempts to solve these...

THE LONGEST WAY AROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME

This article traces the roundabout journey of an architectural historian from Cambridge to the Warburg Institute Library, via Cracow, Princeton, and Manchester. The author's early research, into German and Central European architecture, had little to do with Warburgian interests, but in his studies in Cracow he became aware of the importance of architectural symbolism, via the friendship of his Cracow tutor, Lech Kalinowski, with Erwin Panofsky. As a corrective to Panofsky's idealist notion of the architectural symbol, the author was introduced to Richard Krautheimer's theory of the “copy,” first published in the Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes for 1942. It was this Warburgian model that launched the author's publications on the architectural symbolism of the Middle Ages. He writes that ending his journey as one of the editors of the Warburg and Courtauld Journal left him feeling that he had (in some sense) come home.

The Application of Traditional Symbols in Modern Architecture

Chinese traditional culture has a distinct nationality and regionality, and serves as the source of valuable creative element in architecture, at the same time it functions as the powerful weapon resisting “internationalization” and “standardization”. This paper questions the lack of nationality and regionality in current architecture industry, hopes to find the correct expression of Chinese traditional cultures in contemporary architectural design through case study, and aims to find the general application approach of traditional culture symbols in architecture.

Initial Analysis on the Chinese Traditional Symbol and the Contemporary Regional Architecture

The Chinese traditional architectural symbols are on behalf of Chinese outstanding traditional culture and inheritance of value.Chinese traditional architectural symbol's refine and expression should be combined with some metropolitan aspects, such as landscape, environmental design, space shape design and architectural single body design.On the analysis of Chinese traditional architectural symbols and the comparison between the modern creating techniques and the characteristics of modern building material,five principles were creatived through the harmonious symbiosis view between modern architecture and Chinese traditional architecture. Meanwhile,taking the design of office area of Xi'an city administrative center as example, it was discussed how to embodying Chinese traditional cultural and regional culture connotation in a deep level in the design methods of architectural components.

Evidence for Ritual Engineering in the Late/Terminal Classic Site Plan of La Milpa, Belize

AbstractProponents of site-planning studies argue that the Ancient Maya expressed both political and cosmological symbolism in architecture and site plans, while detractors fault site-planning advocates for not being scientifically rigorous in their methods. Recently, the debate between the two sides has focused on whether or not the Maya created cosmograms in the layouts of their sites. Our recent investigations at La Milpa, Belize attempt to redirect site-planning studies back to a more encompassing approach that searches for meaning at various scales. In doing so, we propose that planning and engineering be considered together and that engineering can include ritual or symbolic components. This paper focuses on two contemporaneous caches, each of which contains incised jar lids decorated with a mat design. We argue the caches are ritually engineered deposits that integrate otherwise discrete architectural components into a coherent Late/Terminal Classic royal precinct plan. Furthermore, the mat design on the jar lids suggests royal sponsorship of the engineering and construction of the plaza. While much of the symbolism in the caches is unclear, we are able to recognize that political and/or cosmological symbolic communication has occurred as part of a ritually engineered component of Plaza B at La Milpa.

Getting symbols out of a neural architecture

Traditional connectionist networks are sharply limited as general accounts of human perception and cognition because they are unable to represent relational ideas such as loves (John, Mary) or bigger-than (Volkswagen, breadbox) in a way that allows them to be manipulated as explicitly relational structures. This paper reviews and critiques the four major responses to this problem in the modelling community: (1) reject connectionism (in any form) in favour of traditional symbolic approaches to modelling the mind; (2) reject the idea that mental representations are symbolic (i.e. reject the idea that we can represent relations); and (3) attempt to represent symbolic structures in a connectionist/neural architecture by finding a way to represent role–filler bindings. Approach (3) is further subdivided into (3a) approaches based on varieties of conjunctive coding and (3b) approaches based on dynamic role–filler binding. I will argue that (3b) is necessary to get symbolic processing out of a neural computing architecture. Specifically, I will argue that vector addition is both the best way to accomplish dynamic binding and an essential part of the proper treatment of symbols in a neural architecture.

Reading Mosques: Meaning and Architecture in Islam

The expression 'reading architecture' should not seem too odd, as one of the best known examples of architecture, the church, has often been likened to a book, and in entering, for example, the little Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, one feels as if one were leafing through the pages of a miniature novel that narrates a story one should not forget. This article applies the notion of reading architecture to mosques by offering a reading of this type of architecture that pays particular attention to the symbols and metaphors embodied in most mosques. Although users of mosques may not be conscious of these architectural symbols, I believe that the buildings they experience have significance and unique aesthetic value for them largely because of these elements. The mosque is one of the most common types of building, and its presence in the diversity of cultures that participated in the complex historical developments of the Islamic world makes it difficult to produce a general account. Nevertheless, this article will try to analyze certain symbolic features that have beenand still continue to becommon in most

The Importance of Islamic Art in Mosque Interior

Mosques, as symbol of Islamic architecture must play an important role in reflecting the superiority of Allah the Almighty. There are many ways in making it successful and one of them is through the high quality of aesthetic value. Aesthetic value in Islamic art and architecture is normally portrayed by the highest degree of motifs and ornamentation. Contemporary mosque designers normally focused on the majestic looks of the exterior part of the mosques and leave the manipulation of the interior space to the users. There are scholars who said that mosques should act as community development centre, some decided on the uniqueness of traditional Malaysian architecture and some believed that mosques must have domes and minarets as symbols of Islamic architecture. This paper realized on the aesthetics and beauty of mosque interior that fulfils the psychological needs of human beings: that is to be inside a beautiful ambience. Ornamentation should be taken as part of mosque components and not as mere decorations done after-thought or filling in the gap. The main objective of the paper is why is it important to focus the ornamentation towards mosque interior so that ornamenting the mosque will not be done uncontrollably and unnecessarily.

ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM AND CHEROKEE TOWNHOUSES

Public structures known as townhouses were hubs of public life within Cherokee communities in the southern Appalachians before and after European contact. Townhouses themselves were architectural manifestations of Cherokee towns. The architectural symbolism of townhouses was related to the symbolism of late precontact Mississippian platform mounds, mythical connections between earthen mounds and Cherokee townhouses, and color symbolism that was widespread in the Southeast during the eighteenth century. These points are evident from documentary sources, oral tradition, and the sequence of protohistoric Cherokee townhouses at the Coweeta Creek site in southwestern North Carolina.

“A little bit more mysterious…”: Ambience and Art in the Dark

“A little bit more mysterious…”: Ambience and Art in the Dark

Symbolism and memory in architecture: Algerian anti-colonial resistance and the Algiers Casbah

The original medina of Algiers – currently called the Algiers Casbah – constituted an integral part of the indigenous struggle for national independence. Constantly subject to French colonialist propaganda, it suffered throughout the colonial era (1830–1962) brutal destruction, negative representation, and ideological marginalisation. Yet it emerged after Algerian revolutionary war against French occupation (1954–1962) as an icon of people's solidarity, a physical landmark of Algerian identity, and an emblem of national memory. This paper investigates the historical formation of these symbolic values, and examines how the built environment gains its cultural meaning from political struggles. It also highlights the way that such meaning becomes an immaterial tool for the instrumentalisation of the medina area in the affirmation of national identity in the post-independence era. Using a historical approach, which discusses the emergence of Algerian nationalism and the later famous battle of Algiers in the 1950s, this paper argues that the psychological and cultural implications of Algerian anti-colonial resistance contributed heavily to the way that people today perceive the emblematic importance of the Ottoman medina of Algiers.

A Model of Pulpit Conservation and Revitalization Using Community Participation of Phu-Thai People in Northeast Thailand

Problem statement: This thesis aimed to examine the following issues of the pulpits: (1) background of the model and structure, (2) current conditions and problems of pulpit construction using participation of Phu-thai people in northeast Thailand and (3) model of conservation of revitalization of pulpits by participation of Phu-thai people. Approach: Data were collected from documents and field study in the provinces of Sakon Nakhon, Nakhon Phanom, Mukdahan, Kalasin and Amnat Charoen by survey, observation, interview, focused group discussion and workshop. Results: The results of thesis were presented by means of Phu-thai people in northeast Thailand, their ancestors moved from the left bank of the Mekhong River. Most of them came from Mueang Bok and Mueang Wang towns. The model and structure of the pulpits are from beliefs in village pillar spirits in harmony with faith in Buddhism. The pulpits were constructed for use in performing religious affairs as the architectural symbol. They are single-pillar pulpits to be used in conventional and traditional festivals in each of the twelve lunar months. The current conditions and problems of single-pillar pulpit construction include must of the raw materials for pulpit construction are wood which is damage, lack of taking care of, wood diseases from mold and breaking, expansion, bending, lack of pulpit repairers and builders lacking transferring knowledge to next generation. The preaching hall shape has changed from wood to be high-shaped wood. For models of conservation and revitalization, all sectors must participate in conserving and revitalizing pulpits. These sectors are community leaders, informants, state sector, constructors, provincial sector and the community for pulpit conservation and revitalization according to the elements. The model of single-pillar pulpit structure has these structures: base or pillar is 140 cm from the floor. There are base to support or 4 nagas to support. Each naga is 140 cm long. The pulpit shape is in the shape of multisided lotus with 4 holes on the walls. There must be conservation of traditions and culture according to the traditions in each of the twelve lunar months of the year from all sectors in a concrete form. Conclusion: The results of this study can be used for pulpit conservation and revitalization to be in existence. To solve problems of decay and loss, there must be a committee for pulpit conservation and revitalization. All sectors must participate in utilization of pulpits which have cultural values of Phu-thai people in the future.

Jung, mandala e arquitetura Islâmica

Este artigo se propõe a refletir sobre as origens do conceito junguiano de mandala. Utiliza-se o relato autobiográfico de Jung, Memórias, Sonhos e Reflexões, e sua obra Psicologia e Alquimia para traçar essa origem. Segundo Barbara Hannah, biógrafa de Jung, uma mesquita no Cairo (Egito) foi de importância capital para a formulação desse conceito. Provavelmente esse templo é a Mesquita Ahmad Ibn Tulun. É analisada a relação entre a simbologia arquitetônica islâmica inspirada pelo sufismo e as concepções psicológicas de Jung.

Identification of the Malay Vernacular Spatial Features within Malay Vernacular Houses

Contemporarily, the quality of residential functional spaces has been mostly based on style and modernity rather than the tradition of that particular regional context. With the rapid modernization of Malaysia, the kampong house (Malay vernacular houses) and other pre-existing vernaculars have been replaced by modern architecture. Moreover, the consideration of vernacular architectural factors during the modern design process has been decreased. Accordingly, various aspects of kampong, which identified it as a major vernacular value, have been lost inside contemporary functional spaces. Therefore, the neglected fundamental features of functional spaces during the design process are thought to be these vernacular functional spatial features. In this research, a qualitative case study research method will be utilized to study those vernacular architectural features of Malaysian vernacular houses. The study is limited to studying the spatial characteristics of functions and spaces based on local needs, which will influence the quality of functional spaces. The Salinger house which is a unique symbol of Malaysian vernacular architecture has been selected as a single case study for this research. The data which will be collected from direct observation will be analyzed through pattern matching to corroborate with literature findings. The study is limited to vernacular architectural features of Malaysia which can be utilized for contemporary residential functional spaces during the design process. This research contributes toward the identification of vernacular architectural features that could be integrated successfully in the design process. Hence, the integration of these vernacular architectural aspects during the design process will influence the quality of functional spaces. Correspondingly, functional spaces will be intertwined with vernacular functional spatial features that will address the local needs in terms of their vernacular features.

Architecture as a mode of self-representation at the Olympic Games in Rome (1960) and Munich (1972)**

The Olympic Games are a major media event that draws attention all over the world. This tremendous media coverage gives the host country in particular the opportunity to introduce itself to a global audience and at the same time to transport a national identity as well as a political statement. This article shows, by analysing the architecture of the Olympic Games in Rome (1960) and Munich (1972), how a political statement can be transported by sports facilities. This kind of view assumes an understanding of politics, which not only includes political action in general. Item cultural events can be used as an object of investigation for analysing a political self-conception. In this way the article points out the function of sports facilities besides the capacity as a place for competition. The ‘new political history’, which develops in combination with the ‘cultural history’, argues that symbolism is a mode of communication that gives access to the sociopolitics of the past. The article elaborates the different factors which impact on the meaning of a symbol and points out the different opportunities for interpretation. According to Umberto Eco, the article understands the stadium as a sign that is turned, primarily by media and social interpreting, into an architectural symbol. In a last step it takes this interpretation in a broader context to define a political statement of Italy and Germany at the respective time.

الاغتراب في البيئة العمرانية

The Concept of Alienation has succeeded in being the main and most dealt phenomena and estate in the modern era , thus it was issued in different fields of knowledge such as Language , philosophy , Social and Psychological Sciences alongside the field of Architecture , and that caused the special pivot of the research and that was represented with ( Alienation in the Built Environment) . The Concept of Alienation consists of three main forms ( Physical/Spatial , Social and Psychological Alienation) ; The first can be defined as the rapture in the relationship between man and his surrounded built environment caused by the urban tissue disintegration, the latter effected on the built environment physical consistencies like the architectural symbols, beside it created some contradicted areas where chaotic and anonymat urban spaces were the main reasons for the lack of the social interaction and the spread of socially alienated people. The previous forms of alienation caused psychological disorder and conflict to men living within such fragmented built environment. Consequently these items were chosen for the purpose of application in the main pilot study alongside with two specified projects. The first is Hay Al-Siha in Dora area and the second is 9 Nissan in Al-Salhiya area both projects are residential areas which built in contemporary period. The main conclusion came out that the contemporary local built environment suffers from alienation crisis that appears with its three forms alternatively , depending on some secondary factors like social , economical , cultural and time factors, which is caused by innovation and renewal processes attached with rapid and sudden changes. These processes consist of discontinuity and rapture in the relationships that links its main elements like man-built environment and man-man relationship.

Virtual Trauma: The Idiom of 9/11

Virtual TraumaThe Idiom of 9/11 Marc Redfield (bio) There can still be a silent extinction beyond the zero. . . . —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow . . . unterm Datum des Nimmermenschtags im September . . . —Paul Celan, “Huhediblu” Although no event releases its full historical dimensions to those who endure it, the fact that the terrorist attacks of September 11 left a mark on ordinary language offers a hint of their historical force. A society keyed to spectacle is necessarily an intensely if narrowly verbal society, and it is above all as a name that September 11 has become part of everyday American cultural life. The array of images—photographs and video recordings—remain on call in the archive, forever ready to reappear in the media or to be accessed via the Internet; but far more available, endlessly and unavoidably available, whether for purposes of quotidian communication or political manipulation, are the keywords themselves: the name-date, “September 11” or “9/11,” and, shadowing it, an atomic-era military idiom, “ground zero,” turned toponym. Speakers of American English can no more evade these newly minted proper names than they can the metaphysically and historically overburdened phrase “war on terror,” which, in the name of “September 11,” has provided the official gloss for so many acts of US state violence since the fall of 2001.1 More localized linguistic fallout from the attacks also exists, and may or may not turn out to hold interest for cultural analysts or historians.2 But no cultural study of the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, whatever the methodology or emphasis, can afford to ignore the rhetorical and political work performed by this event’s loomingly proper names—particularly [End Page 55] the name-date itself, for which no synonyms exist and which anchors all talk and all analysis of “September 11” to a powerful, haunting catachresis. These names reiterate the trauma to which they point, and a close reading of them will help us approach the difficult question of how and why September 11 registers as a cultural trauma. That the attacks inflicted a shock of historical scale seems clear, but the shape and scope of this wound is not. The pain and damage suffered by survivors, victims, and the relatives and friends of victims of this atrocity is of course unquestionable: such suffering demands infinite respect and not, except in the privacy of the clinic, analysis. But if we try to conceive of trauma on a cultural level things become more ambiguous, above all in the case of the 9/11 attacks. They were not of a society-threatening scale (as warfare, genocide, famine, or natural cataclysm have been for so many human societies), and the literal damage they did to the military and commercial orders symbolized by the Pentagon and the World Trade Center was miniscule; it is of course as symbolic acts of violence that they claim culturally traumatic status. But even here the symptoms are complex. In targeting and in one case destroying two prominent architectural symbols of a superpower, the terrorists seem to have managed to do some local damage to the process of symbolization itself. Their violence would thus have produced a “silence that is not mere mutism but intricately related to representation,” to recall one of Dominick LaCapra’s reflections on historical trauma (in this case, the Shoah) [LaCapra 220].3 Trauma involves blockage: an inability to mourn, to move from repetition to working-through. It is certainly plausible that hyperbolic commemorative efforts such as those on display in “9/11 discourse” (as I shall call it) are in fact testimonials to blockage; for that matter it is plausible that a public sphere as saturated by consumerist and military interests as that of the present-day United States has no viable mechanisms for effective public grieving. Yet to say this is also to say that in such a context the very notion of cultural trauma becomes somewhat spectral and uncertain. Wherever one looks in 9/11 discourse, trauma and the warding-off of trauma blur into each other, as the event disappears into its own mediation. All traumatic events arguably do this; but as many have commented, there is something...

Geometric architectural pattern and constructive energy analysis at Los Millares Copper Age Settlement (Santa Fé de Mondújar, Almería, Andalusia)

Enclosure walls from late IV to II millennium are an important archeological feature in southeast Iberia and south Portugal. These enclosures were considered to be fortified settlements but have more recently been interpreted as the result of general processes of social complexity, symbolism, monumentality, interaction, and space demarcation, among others. Metric and geometric studies associated with architectural concepts are very important tools to analyze prehistoric communities and bring their own perspective to bear. The planning of monuments or even whole settlements includes a more general perception of space, determined by mythology, topography, taking of place, and social hierarchy, among others. This paper analyzes metric and geometric features of the construction of the Los Millares prehistoric settlement (Santa Fe de Mondújar, Almería, Andalusia), finding that it followed a pre-established geometric and metric design with high accuracy (maximum differences of 10 cm). In addition, Los Millares has a very sophisticated monumental barbican entrance that makes an eye-catching statement encapsulating a more general perception of power and space. The labor involved in its construction, the large volume of stones used, its geometric characteristics, metric parameters, and sophisticated design all indicate multiple functionality, including defense, power status, control of resources, and identity. Regular geometric regular shapes, such as circles and ellipses, and concepts of axis symmetry were applied to the design and building of defensive structures with great precision. Furthermore, these findings support the argument that geometry was independently discovered by a wide range of ancient cultures and constitutes one of the most important multicultural symbols in architecture.

Placing In-between: Thinking through Architecture in the Construction of Colonial-Modern Identities

This article addresses the topical notions of hybridity and ‘in-between-ness’ as salient points of intersection between critical architectural inquiry and postcolonial studies. Focusing on domestic architecture in colonial-modern India, it examines the problematical role of the built environment in the construction and re-production of identities in nation-building processes. In the light of the equally problematical engagement of architectural form and symbolism in the increasingly reductive and reactionary identity politics of postcolonial India, the article discerns an alternative function that architecture may perform as an ‘in-between’ space enabling cultural intersection and innovation. Through a comparative interpretation of architectural references to the conundrums of hybridity in two historically and stylistically distinct novels about the awakening of colonial-modern India into postcolonial consciousness—John Masters’ Bhowani Junction (1954), and Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh (1996)—literary fiction is engaged as an apposite representation of the ‘place’ of the built environment in the emerging conceptual and cultural landscapes of a new nation. Buildings are not merely ‘backdrops’ to the historical dramas enacted within and between them, the author argues, but cognitive constructions in which identities (national, communal and individual) can be negotiated creatively across cultural boundaries. In addition to aesthetic form and operative function, Architecture, like Literature, also has an ethical function as a heuristic framework for thinking.