English Summaries
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ZfR 2020; 28(1): 195–206 English Summaries https://doi.org/10.1515/zfr-2020-2008 The Study of Religious Architecture: An Introduction apl. Prof. Dr. Peter J. Bräunlein: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Institut für Ethnologie, ˗ Herzberger Landstr. 2, 37085 Göttingen, E Mail: [email protected] Dr. Sabrina Weiß: Universität Leipzig, Religionswissenschaftliches Institut, Schillerstr. 6, ˗ 04109 Leipzig, E Mail: [email protected] The introduction of this special issue deals with the topics of religion and archi- tecture in the field of religious studies over the past decades. The point of depar- ture is the observation that architecture has repeatedly been the subject of theo- retical approaches and methodological considerations in the history of religious studies, but that no comprehensive methodology of religious studies has been developed on this subject so far, and that architecture is still a desideratum as a source and object of religious studies. Instead, religious architecture acted as a blueprint in recent debates on spatial and migration-related issues. Although re- ligious architecture is often considered an important research topic—for example, as a contact zone, or in its space forming and structuring function—, how it pro- duces meaning is still a central question that has not been adequately investi- gated. At the interface between material turn and spatial turn, religious architec- ture is now increasingly becoming the focus of numerous projects in the huma- nities—particularly in the disciplines of religious studies, sociology, art history, and architectural theory. By way of example, the introduction highlights selected disciplines (art history, architectural history and theory, and architectural sociol- ogy) that offer suggestions for dealing with religious architecture, and sees itself as an impetus for stimulating the debate on this topic. The first section is dedicated to art history, as it has the longest tradition of exploring sacred architecture. A change in the 20th century is proving to be cen- tral, in which art historians (such as Sedlmayr, von Simson, Panofsky, Warnke) examine medieval sacred architecture with the help of hermeneutics, and seek to understand church buildings not only as expressions of architectural style and form but also as carriers of meaning. The consideration of geometry as well as principles of construction and the search for symbolic analogies in theological source texts are characteristics of this time. Art-historical research on sacred ar- chitecture shows ways in which spiritual visions and the spirit of the times have 196 English Summaries merged into architectural design. Art history also offers methods and analytical instruments for analysing sacred architecture. On the one hand, the study of reli- gion is dependent on art-historical concepts and analytical instruments, but on the other, this poses a challenge to comparative research in the study of religion and offers the opportunity to broaden art-historical perspectives. It is further sta- ted that there is an urgent need to develop and reflect one’s own value orientation in the study of sacred architecture, to become aware of, e. g., an ideological atti- tude. This is particularly necessary against the background of a culturally and religiously pluralizing society and in a social climate of increasing ideological polarization. In the second section, the question is asked how European—especially Ger- man speaking—architectural history and theory deal with religious architecture. It turns out that the distinction between sacral and profane architecture still dom- inates research in this discipline on religion and architecture, and that the archi- tectural-historical view is often Eurocentric. In addition, an example of the tradi- tional science of architecture and housebuilding shows that the establishment of an architectural theory has the potential to become an instrument for the revitali- zation of ideological concepts. It concludes that an analysis based on religious history can help to reveal such processes. The third section introduces architectural sociology, the latest discipline, which also deals with religious architecture. Since the 1970 s, architectural sociol- ogy has been devoted to exploring the importance of architecture as a constitutive and transformative medium, as an assemblage, a cultural technique or as materi- al and symbolic mode, which are related to societies and individuals. Architectur- al sociology thus examines socio-architectural constellations, and sacred archi- tecture is seen as a symbolic expression of religion. Examples show how religious studies take up this impulse. The special issue thus brings together religious-historical and systematic con- tributions that approach this broad subject on various occasions. Train Station and Cathedral in Cologne: Arrival and Advent, Technical Feasibility and Unfulfilled Eschatology Dr. Christoph Auffarth: Universität Bremen, Wellerscheid 102, 53804 Much, ˗ E Mail: [email protected] In the 19th century, the Gothic cathedral of Cologne—up to then a ruin for 400 years, except for the chancel—was completed by building the nave and the massive twin towers. Side by side with the medieval sacral architecture, the most English Summaries 197 modern secular technical buildings were constructed: the bridge over the Rhine River and the main station for the railway. At first sight, this seems to be a clash in the city’s space in the vicinity of the same square: the utmost opposite between secular and sacral, medieval and modern, technology and piety, functionality of arrival just in time, and eschatology, materiality, and religion. The vicinity, how- ever, was intended by the town planners. The filigree Gothic constructions were seen as the ability to build halls of light and paramount altitude that architects were not able to build again prior to the Crystal Palace, which housed the World Expo in 1850, made from steel and glass; and towers that scraped the sky, like the Eiffel Tower, or even reached heaven. Completing the cathedral, the architects used the same constructive elements as the planners of the bridge and the railway station: steel for the roof framework, an Eiffel Tower as ridge turret, glass in the nave. Vice versa, the bridge made from steel was disguised as a Gothic stone bridge. The article discusses the material religion of cathedral and railway bridge/ train station with the methods of the aesthetics of religion as a connective concept (A. Grieser). This is necessary to connect (1) the notions of contemporary actors, both the Prussian colonial rulers as Protestants, who accomplished the Catholic cathedral as a monument to German national unity / the Reich, and the Rhenish Catholic subalterns, who gathered in a society that collected money for the con- struction of the cathedral (Domverein) as a monument to Catholic resistance against the Prussian monarchy. Scientific research has to consider the different, even contradicting notions given by the actors in historical place and time. (2) It discusses the issue whether Kunstreligion (religion of fine arts aesthetics) is in- tended to replace traditional religions. This question is seen as part of a more comprehensive discussion about desacralisation and, in the long run, the discus- sion of so-called secularization. The rationalization of the Enlightenment and the French revolution elicited a new definition of what sacrality and religion mean. Fine arts as religion, nation-religion in states that are not homogeneous in terms of confessional and ethnic identity anymore. Technical progress and revolution in some cases served as contradiction to traditional religions, in most cases, how- ever, both of them could be integrated into one another. (3) A fundamental change in the aisthesis (perception) of material religion is a further issue of the research: the ‘point of view’ is no more static, but moving, by travelling in railway trains. The moving pictures seen through the windows of the train lead the viewer to the monumental building on the horizontal level, and also let them raise the view to the towers in a vertical direction. (4) Travelling by train, the most modern form in the 19th century of moving from home to business, visiting relatives, and city tours, the railway station next to the cathedral provides yet another form of religion. Religion in the cathedral is not restricted to the performance of the ser- 198 English Summaries vice orchestrated by the clergy anymore, but provides the opportunity for a short pilgrimage between two connecting trains. The cathedral becomes a road shrine for individual prayer and lighting a candle for beloved relatives: an individua- lized form of religion followed by many people. Concerning the thematic focus of this issue of the journal, sacral architecture, the case under scrutiny shows two fundamental methodological rules: (1) The choice of ‘sacral’ buildings must not single out other functions and meanings of the building. The cathedral is serving not only to attend church, but it is an em- ployer for stonemasons, roofers, guards, and clerics as well. It also attracts tour- ists who need a bed for the night and a restaurant for lunch, etc. The cathedral of Cologne becomes the idea of a monument of building and accomplishing the Ger- man nation in 1871; it is a monument of resistance against Prussian protestant supremacy (‘Einheitskultur’) as well. (2) Sacrality is not an essential attribute (‘phenomenon’) to be evaluated