Materials through symbolic lens: The meaning of glass in Western Architecture

• Autor(a) principal: Alcindor, Mónica
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/11328/3765
• topic: Ontology; Glass; Intangible characteristics; Symbolic meaning; Architectural meaning

Buildings, techniques and materials with which spaces and volumes have been created and defined are part of the architectural heritage, considered as material heritage. However, a more careful analysis allows us to grasp that it is much more than material heritage since it is actually the petrification of a cultural moment. One of the keys to fundamental understanding is the meaning of material heritage as a result of a social structure that organizes and guides the modes of production, daily practices, lifestyles, and their meanings. But the existing separation between different types of heritage resulting from the Western mental structures marked by a strong dichotomy that governs the analysis of any matter can force a classification that avoids polyhedral analysis that the material heritage could offer. The dualism of "object" and "subject" requires re-consideration, in order to visualize the deep interrelationship between these two concepts. The material heritage is inscribed in a specific space-time framework materialized in a certain place and situation. That is, the subset of differences was selected that more strongly reflect the borders of the difference of one culture over another in its multiple dimensions. Therefore, in the analysis of material heritage, socially structured and specific historical contexts and processes must be taken into account as they affect the production and transmission of symbolic forms. The aim of this paper is to concentrate particularly on attributing meanings to materials. It is crucial to realize that several aspects (function, use, context, user, etc.) can be effective in attributing meanings to materials and they should be taken into consideration for understanding the selection process since it is paramount to focus towards the intangible aspects in materials selection activity as well. So, materials’ uses demand a holistic analyze from multiple dimensions to be understood in deep. One of them is symbolic analyze. This article aims to address the study of the symbolic meaning of glass throughout time in architectures through the revision of literature. Delving beyond the visual level, we are able to discern the "embedding "of constructive action in networks of interpersonal connections and particularly, cultural conditions. Through the analysis of a material, it is possible is to analyze society itself with changing roles in its reciprocal relationship with the environment in a face-to-face community and with a complex social organization, a long past, an uncertain future and a cultural heritage that unfolds (Alcindor, Lima & Alcindor-Huelva). The symbolic perspective in analysis offers a way of understanding materials and their life stories; economies and their networks of trust and obligation; the co-production of people with their environments. The intention of opening the lens through which all these material issues are seeking to incorporate a holistic point of view, namely, the way of thinking that reconstructs a totality of relationships between people and their products since any designer creates and constructs his objects imbued by the forms of social actions existing in daily practices that are always located in a space and time and therefore within a framework of political, social and economic conditions. Therefore, they do not act “freely” since the structures of action enter within the individual through rules and principles that guide us in our practices in an unconscious way.