Religious architecture has a long history of serving as a physical space for believers to connect with their faith and spirituality. These buildings, including temples, cathedrals, synagogues, and mosques, often incorporate various design elements and techniques to facilitate this sense of spiritual connection. One key aspect of sacred architecture is the use of symbolism, which can include the use of specific colours, shapes, and patterns that hold meaning within a particular religion. For example, the use of circular shapes or the colour gold may symbolize divine or spiritual power, while the use of triangles or the colour blue may represent the divine trinity or the sky (Khan, 2015). The incorporation of such symbols within the architecture of a religious building helps to create a sense of connection to the spiritual beliefs and values of the community.

In addition to the use of symbolism, the layout and design of a religious building can also play a role in fostering spiritual connections. The use of specific architectural elements, such as altars, arches, and stained glass windows, can serve as physical representations of spiritual concepts, helping to create a sense of connection to the divine (Eliade, 1959). The overall layout and design of the building may also be intended to inspire a sense of awe and wonder, fostering a sense of spiritual connection in those who experience it (Juniper, 2003). In this way, the language and design of sacred architecture can serve as tools to connect believers to their faith tradition and to a higher power.

The concept of the archetype has also been proposed as a way to further enhance the spiritual connections created through language and design in sacred architecture. The use of geometric universals or geometric forms that are universal in their symbolism, as a way to represent archetypes in architecture is intended to create a sense of transcendence and connection to something higher (Jung, 1953). These archetypes, or fundamental models or patterns, can be represented through geometric forms and symbols and can help restore a sense of sacredness and reflection in architectural spaces (Hans-Georg, 1981). It is important to note that these archetypal images should not be solely linked to human experience, but rather to principles or universal truths (von Franz, 1980).

In conclusion, sacred architecture serves as a physical manifestation of spiritual beliefs and values, and plays a vital role in fostering connections among believers. Through the use of symbolism, language, and design, these buildings create a sense of connection to the divine and provide a space for the community to come together and connect with their spirituality. The use of archetypes in sacred architecture can also deepen these connections by representing universal themes and ideas through the use of geometric forms. Overall, sacred architecture serves as a powerful tool for creating spiritual connections and fostering a sense of community among believers.

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Audio Essay: J Bridge

This is a philosophical-ontological game. This heuristic game will bring our attention back to the basic stories. The stories we articulate with the bridges of language.

Phantasmagoric syntax

The bridge is a sculptural manifestation of an archetypal sentence, a sentence that can be imagined to be the basis of all others. Given the full content of the conceptual background, the architectural structure had to be executed in a polysemantic manner, forming lines of meaning in relation to the four (2 x 2) perspective axes:

a) with regard to the normative position of observers (on or outside the bridge, that is, with or towards the bridge), two dimensions of depth are revealed, the macro and micro world of symbols.

b) with regard to the position of the examining subject (recipient, spectator), the distinction is established at the end of the centuries-old division of theoretical and practical life:

a) Theoreticos (with original meaning: top view) is defined in the bird’s eye view diagram.

b) Praxis (since it is set in the idea of ​​activity, movement, and process) is noted in the matrix of development of the idea visible on side elevation.

In order to unite the intuitively accessible visual elements (pre-discursive form) in the aesthetic vision, thus making it a kind of super-structural unity (architecture in its original and pure meaning), the central part of the theoretical exposition will be defined as eidetic vocabulary.

The end of the text will explain the idea of ​​hyper-textual reading of the bridge as a dynamic macro-symbol with the possibility of creating an infinite number of internal lines/units of meaning and significance.

Eidetic Dictionary

Symbol 1 – Genesis

The first symbol is given in the perspective of the side section where it is outlined in the dominant constructive lines. Looking from top to bottom, the symbol represents the ontological matrix of the development of almost all phenomena: singularity, duality, multiplicity. The matrix in question contains a whole range of conceptual levels and nuances. Singularity: the first and highest principle, always essentially thought of as one thing. Captured in the historical sequence through various archetypal performances. One planet, one sky, one sun, one moon. Duality: Duality is the first step of progress, the first separation. It represents the relaxation of the previous tension created by the cohesive forces of self-direction. In Borges’s lucid cosmogony, the demiurge and creator shape the world with the first doubling. Doubling is also a creation. To be real means to be special, different from others. Here one thing stands against the other. Multiplicity: The accompanying multiplicity is the complete realization of the previous duality. It is multiplicity as a way and moment of existence: the multiplicity of existence. It is by its nature usually first in knowledge (Aristotle), in the way in which a child’s consciousness first touches many different external objects. In this, the world of exterior-multiplicity is seen on the line of one’s own logical development. This time it is a matter, not of the distant, but of the logical past.

Symbol 2 – Duality

Double Tetractys. The symbol stands in relation to the ideal and real side of the sentence structure. A look into oneself reveals thought as the source of a sentence. In its essence, the thought is affected by this symbol. (one: thought before thought, two: defined thought, thought in relation to its opposite, three: thought in the context of thought, four: articulated thought). As for the sake of communication – one’s own realization – the thought from ideality must be reported to reality, the symbol is given as a pleonastic ideal, doubled and conditioned, as the reality of an ideal. The previous ideality has been preserved as something obsolete.

Symbol 3 – Constituent

Like any dialogue, we start from a point that is formed under the influence of principles (circles). Places where the thought is put before action. Where a solution (overcoming) of the situation is needed. From that starting point, the point from which the context (problem) is visible, and the visible goal (from the other “desired” side), the (archetypal) sentence begins to be built. The sentence is constituted of three ideal terms. Three, as the basic number of the first geometric image (triangle), implies the first solid construction, ergo the first resolution. The term decreases, “specifies”, by its surface of functioning following the Pareto distribution.

– A Pareto distribution pattern is a universal matrix that shows the numerical use of words (terms) in a language. It applies to all existing languages. In addition to the presence of this pattern in language, it is also visible in other phenomena of nature, and the general principle of natural distribution.

In addition to the assumed ideal concepts, which are connected, rounded off, and grouped, this bridge-dialogue also implies contextual influences. Influences from the outside. Influences are all invisible factors that suggest the formation of a newly formed sentence. These influences are also represented by the ideal form of the circle, however, unlike the concepts, their basic ontological continuum is not the form per se, but its lack – emptiness. Circle void – an allegory of circular suggestion.

Symbol 4 – Binegation

Bridge dialogue is a formal representative of one of the most famous mathematical theories. Bertrand Russell’s theories of binegation. Binegation in distilled simplification represents the basic truth of mathematics in one simple idea. We will paraphrase the idea for better understanding.

– When two sets, on the polarities of the relation, are annulled, the relation that remains between is the only truth of existence. That is, the relation is true, free from the restriction of semantics.

This universal pattern of binegation can be seen in various natural phenomena and dynamic events, which within their existence contain sets and groupings.

A tree has a root (first set), a crown (second set), and a tree as a relative relation that holds two sets.

Man possesses external infinity (the first set), inner infinity (the second set), and consciousness as the relative relation that connects the two sets.

There are groups (sets) that stand in apparent polarities and surround us in the form of contrasting motifs. Very often they appear as logical systems made up of only two constituents because the third constituent (relative relation) is often of an intellectual (non-physical) nature.

Examples:

Emotion – Logic

Female – Male

Spirit – Body

Magnet poles

Symbol 5 – Story

It’s all a story. If we agree that the definition of a story is everything that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, every space-time phenomenon is a story. The symbol of the story is visible in our design through two perspectives. And as such, this symbol is doubled. It is doubled in structure and stylistics.

Symbol 6 – Rising Sun

The silhouette of the basic constructive and basic pragmatic part of the bridge draws one of the most famous primordial images. An archetypal picture of the Sun rising behind the Temple-City. We find this image (and its analogues) throughout the history of almost all civilizations and cultures as a well-known symbol of God’s action above human creation.

Fractal dimension

The sculpture is, as can be seen from the above, not only polysemantic but in the same aspect fractal. Forms of the fractal structure represent a systematic ontological and cognitive meta-function visible in the whole plane of existence. It is a moment of transformation of quantity into quality. A repetition matrix in which macro and micro constituents stand on the same conceptual principle. The big is reflected in the small, and vice versa. Basically, it is the genetic principle of creation. Each cell contains information about the whole in which it is located. The conceptual generative unit of the bridge-dialogue is derived in the form of an eidetic morpheme: the bridge as a relative relation in the indifference of its own signification. Bridges are woven into the Bridge, concepts into the Concept, and between the concepts are placed bridges and concepts into those bridges. Their communication is complete. The entire sculptural creation in terms of multiple and multi-dimensional symbolism can be interpreted as the key of the hyper-textual work.

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