Architecture and Cultural Heritage

Cultural Heritage encompasses a broad range of architecture, space, and community in a wider sense, with the expressions of their relationships in art, science, and the built space. Space is more than what we see, and architecture is more than physically built space. When we look at the relations between space and architecture, every intentionally planned order can be conceived as architecture; e.g. the architecture of an institution, as such invisible (but active), and expressed in its visible, symbolic form as an organigram.

Taking the original notion of a symbol as representing something else it stands for, architecture is inherently symbolic, necessitating both scientific and artistic ways of interpretation, interaction and interpretation. This is particularly pertinent as architectural forms and spaces embody specific ideologies and presuppositions about human nature — what architectural styles suit which types of individuals — regardless of whether these notions are explicitly stated or operate implicitly as unacknowledged certainties. Architecture and space, therefore, resonate with the human condition or ‘conditio humana’, where underlying assumptions about this condition shape architectural creation, and in turn, the resulting structures impact human experiences, behaviors, perceptions, and overall worldview, both consciously and subconsciously. Consequently, architecture significantly influences individuals’ quality of life and inherently possesses sociological and political dimensions.

As regards both these dimensions, cultural heritage is relevant, as well as the nexus between community, space, and place. Communities need individual, recognizable places to unfold and to prosper, not just space to exist in. Looking at the basic human condition to be a zoon politikon, an animal living in the community of the polis, the relations between concepts of the city, free citizenship, and democracy are of particular importance.