Abstract
Religious rituals in Sylhet gave birth to unique practices of their own and have a vast impact even on contemporary spatial practices, while most of the 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 explains the sacred within the range of western sociological and philosophical tools implemented in third-world contexts, which was never highlighted before. This perspective of research 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 (not representative) interviews about religious signs and symbols are conducted and compared accordingly. The possible findings might reintroduce the diversity of religious practices in urban places and develop a decent concept of how sacred and urban morphology are mutually reinforcing the city, which has remained a vital nutrient for the survival of its inhabitants.
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
