Water and Sacred Architecture

Water and Sacred Architecture PDF Author: Anat Geva
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000863719
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
This edited book examines architectural representations that tie water, as a physical and symbolic property, with the sacred. The discussion centers on two levels of this relationship: how water influenced the sacredness of buildings across history and different religions; and how sacred architecture expressed the spiritual meaning of water. The volume deliberately offers original material on various unique contextual and design aspects of water and sacred architecture, rather than an attempt to produce a historic chronological analysis on the topic or focusing on a specific geographical region. As such, this unique volume adds a new dimension to the study of sacred architecture. The book’s chapters are compiled by a stellar group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It addresses major aspects of water in religious buildings, such as, rituals, pilgrimage, water as a cultural material and place-making, hydro systems, modern practices, environmental considerations, the contribution of water to transforming secular into sacred, and future digital/cyber context of water and sacredness. All chapters are based on original archival studies, historical documents, and field visits to the sites and buildings. These examinations show water as an expression of architectural design, its materiality, and its spiritual values. The book will be of interest to architects, historians, environmentalists, archaeologists, religious scholars, and preservationists.

Water and Sacred Architecture

Water and Sacred Architecture PDF Author: Anat Geva
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000863719
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 438

Get Book Here

Book Description
This edited book examines architectural representations that tie water, as a physical and symbolic property, with the sacred. The discussion centers on two levels of this relationship: how water influenced the sacredness of buildings across history and different religions; and how sacred architecture expressed the spiritual meaning of water. The volume deliberately offers original material on various unique contextual and design aspects of water and sacred architecture, rather than an attempt to produce a historic chronological analysis on the topic or focusing on a specific geographical region. As such, this unique volume adds a new dimension to the study of sacred architecture. The book’s chapters are compiled by a stellar group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Africa. It addresses major aspects of water in religious buildings, such as, rituals, pilgrimage, water as a cultural material and place-making, hydro systems, modern practices, environmental considerations, the contribution of water to transforming secular into sacred, and future digital/cyber context of water and sacredness. All chapters are based on original archival studies, historical documents, and field visits to the sites and buildings. These examinations show water as an expression of architectural design, its materiality, and its spiritual values. The book will be of interest to architects, historians, environmentalists, archaeologists, religious scholars, and preservationists.

Water Architecture in South Asia

Water Architecture in South Asia PDF Author: Julia Hegewald
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004502661
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Water architecture in South Asia represents some of the most beautiful and spectacular building achievements of the region. This study provides a holistic approach to the subject, suggesting common links and regional contrasts between types of water structures and their contexts, with a comprehensive interpretation of the history and meaning of water architecture in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Five types of water structures are identified. Their development is traced from simple to more complex forms, considering how these accommodate secular and religious functions, and present expressions of sacred and royal authority. This publication is the first reference work on the subject. Many of the structures discussed and illustrated here have never been published before. Its comprehensive approach will have a wide relevance for other South Asian disciplines.

Steps to Water

Steps to Water PDF Author: Morna Livingston
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN: 9781568983240
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
From the fifth to the nineteenth centuries, the people of western India built stone cisterns to collect the water of the monsoon rains and keep it accessible for the remaining dry months of the year. These magnificent structures-known as stepwells or stepped ponds-are much more than utilitarian reservoirs. Their lattice-like walls, carved columns, decorated towers, and intricate sculpture make them exceptional architecture., while their very presence tells much about the region's ecology and history. For these past 500 years, stepwells have been an integral part of western Indian communities as sites for drinking, washing, and bathing, as well as for colorful festivals and sacred rituals. Steps to Water traces the fascinating history of stepwells, from their Hindu origins, to their zenith during Muslim rule, and eventual decline under British occupation. It also reflects on their current use, preservation, and place in Indian communities. In stunning color and quadtone photographs and drawings, Steps to Water reveals the depth of the stepwells' beauty and their intricate details, and serves as a lens on these fascinating cultural and architectural monuments.

Sacred Spaces

Sacred Spaces PDF Author: James Pallister
Publisher: Phaidon Press
ISBN: 9780714868950
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A ground‐breaking and enlightening exploration of the structures which elevate architecture to spirituality. Sacred Spaces showcases 30 of the most breath‐taking, innovative, iconic and undiscovered examples of contemporary religious architecture, including work by well‐known architects alongside emerging designers. Spanning all major religions and places of worship from intimate, reflective chapels and cemeteries to dramatic cathedrals and memorials, Sacred Spaces documents each project with lavish‐in‐depth photography and drawings and texts by James Pallister that provide a modern historical context. An inspiring collection and thorough survey, the buildings in Sacred Spaces will appeal to architects and designers as well as the general public intrigued by creative culture, religion and spirituality.

Modernism and American Mid-20th Century Sacred Architecture

Modernism and American Mid-20th Century Sacred Architecture PDF Author: Anat Geva
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351665332
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 667

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Book Description
Mid-20th century sacred architecture in America sought to bridge modernism with religion by abstracting cultural and faith traditions and pushing the envelope in the design of houses of worship. Modern architects embraced the challenges of creating sacred spaces that incorporated liturgical changes, evolving congregations, modern architecture, and innovations in building technology. The book describes the unique context and design aspects of the departure from historicism, and the renewal of heritage and traditions with ground-breaking structural features, deliberate optical effects and modern aesthetics. The contributions, from a pre-eminent group of scholars and practitioners from the US, Australia, and Europe are based on original archival research, historical documents, and field visits to the buildings discussed. Investigating how the authority of the divine was communicated through new forms of architectural design, these examinations map the materiality of liturgical change and communal worship during the mid-20th century.

The Return of Sacred Architecture

The Return of Sacred Architecture PDF Author: Herbert Bangs
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620550512
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
An inspirational call for a return to the tenets of traditional architecture as a remedy for the dehumanizing standards of modern architecture • Explains how modern architecture is emblematic of our current estrangement from the spiritual principles that shaped humanity’s greatest civilizations • Reveals how the ancient laws of sacred proportion and harmony can be restored The ugly buildings that characterize the modern landscape are inferior not only to the great cathedrals of medieval Europe and the temples of ancient Egypt and Greece, but even to lesser buildings of the more recent past. The great masterworks of our ancestors spoke to humanity’s higher nature. Architect Herbert Bangs reveals how today’s dysfunctional buildings bring out the worst in humanity, reinforcing that which is most base within us. He shows how, through the ancient laws of proportion and number, architecture once expressed the harmonious relationship between man and the cosmos. In early times, the architect worked within a sacred and esoteric tradition of creating structures through which human beings could gain insight into the nature of the divine reality. Today, that tradition has been abandoned in favor of narrowly defined utilitarian principles of efficiency and economy. In The Return of Sacred Architecture, Bangs provides the key to freeing architecture from the crude functionality of the twentieth century: the architects of the modern human landscape must find the deep-felt connection to the cosmos that guided the inner lives of those who built the temples of the past. The form of their buildings will then reflect the sacred patterns of geometry and proportion and bring forth greater harmony in the world.

Church On the Water, Church of the Light

Church On the Water, Church of the Light PDF Author: Philip Drew
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
These two small and exquisite churches by Tadao Ando - one rural and 'open', the other urban and 'enclosed' - complement each other perfectly and together provide an insight into Ando's creation of sacred space. The Church on the Water occupies an idyllic pastoral site and consists of two squares, one large, one small, that overlap and are arranged facing a man-made pool. The Church of the Light is built in a quiet residential area of Osaka. Here Ando explores the spiritual force of the effects of sunlight on raw concrete. Slits cut in the form of a cross perforate the chapel's front wall; when lit up by the morning sun they create what Ando describes as a 'cross of light'. With these two churches, Ando provides a synthesis of opposites, creating spaces that attain a purity and calm through powerful architectonic forms.

Advances in Utopian Studies and Sacred Architecture

Advances in Utopian Studies and Sacred Architecture PDF Author: Claudio Gambardella
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030507653
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
At a time dominated by the disappearance of Future, as claimed by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, Utopia and Religion seem to be two different ways of giving back an inner horizon to mankind. Therefore this book, on the one hand, considers the importance of utopia as a tool and how it offers an economic and social resource to improve cities’ wealth, future and livability. On the other, it explores the impact of religious and cultural ideals on cities that have recently emerged in this context. Based on numerous observations, the book examines the intellectual legacy of utopian theory and practices across various academic disciplines. It also presents discussions, theories, and case studies addressing a range of issues and topics related to utopia.

The Architecture of Bathing

The Architecture of Bathing PDF Author: Christie Pearson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262044218
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
A celebration of communal bathing—swimming pools, saunas, beaches, ritual baths, sweat lodges, and more—viewed through the lens of architecture and landscape. We enter the public pool, the sauna, or the beach with a heightened awareness of our bodies and the bodies of others. The phenomenology of bathing opens all of our senses toward the physical world entwined with the social, while the history of bathing is one of shared space, in both natural and built environments. In The Architecture of Bathing, Christie Pearson offers a unique examination of communal bathing and its history from the perspective of architecture and landscape. Engagingly written and richly illustrated, with more than 260 illustrations, many in color, The Architecture of Bathing offers a celebration of spaces in which public and private, sacred and profane, ritual and habitual, pure and impure, nature and culture commingle. Pearson takes a wide-ranging view of her subject, drawing on architecture, art, and literary works. Each chapter is structured around an architectural typology and explores an accompanying theme—for example, tub, sensuality; river, flow; waterfall, rejuvenation; and banya, immersion. Offering examples, introducing relevant theory, and recounting personal experiences, Pearson effortlessly combines a practitioner's zest with astonishing erudition. As she examines these forms, we see that they are inextricable from landscapes, bodily practices, and cultural production. Looking more closely, we experience architecture itself as an immersive material and social space, embedded inthe interdependent environmental and cultural fabric of our world.

Water Design

Water Design PDF Author: Jutta Jain-Neubauer
Publisher: Marg Publications
ISBN: 9789383243143
Category : Water and architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
- This book will explore the aesthetic, historical, social, and economic settings of India's waterscapes A lesser known and researched form of Indian architecture is that of its water monuments - a term that covers sacred temple tanks, stepwells, artificially built ponds, lakes and reservoirs, residential pools and rock-cut cisterns, canals and sluices, and ritual platforms on rivers or lakes (ghats). These magnificent, ingeniously conceived structures are an integral part of mainstream Indian architecture and have complex architectural and spatial figuration and extensive sculptural or relief ornamentation. Their deep art-historical significance, the development and diversity of their architecture and hydrological engineering, their canonical authorization, their specific iconographic, aesthetic and ritual characteristics, as well as their location in the socio-religious, economic and agrarian order of the region, make them important cultural constituents of their times. Water Design will explore in an interdisciplinary way the architectural plan and structural framework and its variants determined by local traditions and spatial considerations; their artistic and ornamental characteristics; the topography of waterscapes and how these determine or are determined by the urban setting; as well as their location along the trade routes which might have facilitated the cross-influencing of architectural form across regions and cultures. Jutta Jain-Neubauer studied Indology and Indian Art History at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg, Germany (MA 1976), and University of Bonn, Germany, where she obtained her PhD degree with a thesis on 'Stepwells of Gujarat in art-historical Perspective' in 1978. With a fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation she studied the ancient canonical texts on art and architecture of India (shilpa shastras). She worked for various institutions in India, such as the National Museum Institute for Art History, Museology and Conservation; the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), for whom she has done the first ever full-fledged documentation of Rani ni Vav, the famed Stepwell of the Queen in Patan, recently declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. She is currently Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow, affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.