A ARQUITETURA DO SAGRADO – O SAGRADO DA ARQUITETURA

Abstract

The very mention to the architecture of the sacred induces one to imagine the artistic conception of a temple-building. This attitude stems from the fact that the analysis of such architecture is usually focused on its styles, techniques and applied materials, as well as on the acclaiming of its authors that is, on aesthetic and economic values. There is no literature devoted to examining the constructive and ornamental elements of such architecture as transmitters of religious meaning, their true and important reason for existence. On the other hand, the proposal of this study is to unveil the constructive or ornamental symbolic elements existing in external or internal, natural or constructed architectonic spaces, which are able to interfere in the way individuals undergo religious experience. It aims at analysing how form in sacred art and architecture potentiates the function of propitiating the meeting with the Sacred. The apprehension of the object of study has been carried out through field research, photograph records, in loco observation and field notes. Brazil has been defined as the universe of research, and the focus of analysis comprised Brazilian Colonial and Imperial periods, particularly from the XVIth to the XIXth Centuries, and the architectural and art styles which have then taken place, that is, Plain, Baroque and Rococo. This work is organised in five chapters. The first one examines social life, symbology and sacred architecture. In the section entitled Social and Mystic-Religious Life , a brief incursion into Brazilian prehistory and into Portugal and Brazil during Portuguese colonisation is made. Then, a general analysis of symbols takes place, and the recurring ones are particularised. A brief summary of sacred architecture in general, as well as Plain, Baroque and Rococo architectural styles and their respective peculiarities in the States of Minas Gerais and Pernambuco concludes the chapter. In the second chapter, the architecture and symbology of three pernambucano Plain-style churches are analysed. The third, fourth and fifth chapters are respectively dedicated to first and second-stage Baroque and Rococo. In each of them, the architecture and symbology of one mineiro and one pernambucano church are examined. In conclusion, this study intended to evidence that knowing the symbols present in churches enables us to understand what makes the architecture of the sacred bear the sacred in architecture.