Symbolic Architecture

When considering that if early man, we consisted of a hunter gatherer species that needed a place to escape to when in danger. As humanity developed and as civilisation became democracy, religion and culture, the Architecture changed and evolved just as we did, with structures being built not just to hide from danger, but built for a variety of purposes. This is an extremely important scheme as without somewhere to apply a certain activity, it would never be done and that's why Architecture is so important to our development as a species.

However, when looking at Architecture too often we forget about the past and focus too much on what the next design will be without remembering what came before. As well as this it is easy to look at what has been built in Architecture rather s to why it was been built and what it symbolises. A perfect example of this is shown by The Acropolis in Athens which is literally translated as to Highest City, which was dedicated to the Goddess Athena. Overtime it was used as a Christian Church, an Islamic Mosque and was even partially destroyed, despite this in modern day it is regarded as a symbol of iconic Greek Architecture. This is also shown by the Grand Mosque in Casablanca originally being the site of an early Christian Church, in 1236 it was made into a Catholic Cathedral by King Ferdinand, this shows that this piece of Architecture is symbolic to both religions, not just whether it looks like a Cathedral or Mosque.

Also when analysing these early pieces of Architecture it is clear that they were designed to represent authority, order, sophistication and civic power through grand flamboyant aesthetic pieces, and this has been continued through History. Albert Speer was known as 'Hitler's Architect' and when analysing the work he designed it is much more of a neo-classical design, which is described as the revival of the Classical Greek and Roman architecture. The main objective of Nazi Architecture was to symbolise power, and with great these immense neo-classical structures it created the same powerful presence of that of the Romans and Greeks. This once more shows how symbolic Architecture is, that it is used to create a sense of power, not just to look nice or for its functionality, but to show who is in charge. This isn't the only example of symbolic architecture however, particularly when analysing God's Architecture they tend to be grand designs to please God not to show how powerful the church is, but to bring those inside closer to their God.