Abstract
The public realm of Sylhet, Bangladesh, and the spatiality of sacred sites and everyday practices in certain built forms have framed religious rituals. They gave birth to unique practices of their own and have a vast impact even on contemporary spatial practices. Most western researchers are not hopeful about the future of religion. However, despite extensive research on urban morphology and religion separately, there is limited literature on the relationship between these two topics to capture religious perceptions and experiences in urban spaces. This research fills the existing gap, which also comprises its novelty, and utilizes western sociological and philosophical tools implemented in oriental contexts, never before highlighted. This perspective puts forth the argument that urban morphology influences sacred experiences and how consecrated entities and religious activities shape the city’s structure in return. The methodology of the research maps key morphological and religious variables. This mapping includes festival trajectories, street life observations, pedestrian densities, religious activities, public and private interface types with religious commodification, and the identification of blurred boundaries between sacred and profane on smaller to broader urban scales. To relate the derived cartography, illustrative interviews about religious signs and symbols are conducted and compared accordingly. We reintroduce the diversity of religious practices in urban places and develop a concept of how sacred and urban morphology are mutually reinforcing the city as vital nutrient for their survival. This is an idea ‘outside’ to those that exist in the West.
Presenters
Ahmed SayedAssistant Professor, Architecture, Leading University, Sylhet zila, Bangladesh
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
SYLHET, RELIGION, URBAN MORPHOLOGY, SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE, BAUDRILLARD
