Human beings have always prayed looking to the East, the place where the light comes from, the place where the sun rises. This is an attitude common to almost all religions.
The rising sun has given name to very ancient civilizations, which if in a not too distant time were classified as exotic, today they make up the new vital center of the planet, both by population and by global influence. A wide region that would cover from India to Taiwan, from Mongolia to Indonesia. Very different countries where the relations between society, religion and the state are oscillating between radicalisms and fundamentalisms and situations of tolerance or frank miscegenation.
At the beginning of modernity, architects like Frank Lloyd Wright or Antonin Raymond saw in the Far East an opportunity to escape from the dominant Beauxartian schemes, and reach a new architecture.
If then the modulation of the Japanese house and its exquisite harmony with nature were taken as the basis for a new way of building, perhaps today the architecture of the Far East can inspire us again.
We must also consider the influence that eastern civilizations have on religious architecture in other areas of the world. The great migratory phenomena of the late nineteenth century filled large areas of the West with communities of Asian origin, taking with them their conception of the world and their constructive and religious traditions—a way of life that jumped into the popular imagination with the counterculture of the seventies.
We may think that we know the architecture of countries as different as Japan or China, but there are many others of which we hardly know. During the colonial era, for example, numerous European architects worked actively in the then called ‘overseas provinces’.
On the other hand, in 2021 it will be 500 years since the arrival of the Spaniards in the Philippines and the beginning of the spread of Christianity in the Far East. The confluence of religions originated a hybridization of architectures destined for worship, which after numerous vicissitudes crystallized in the religious architecture that we contemplate today.
These architectures constitute an important tourist attraction and, in parallel, a cause of concern for the official organisms in charge of the patrimonial protection of each country.
The enormous construction and urban development activity that has taken place in this part of the world in recent decades forces us to turn our gaze to the Far East.
What christian architecture has been made there in the last hundred years? What ideas, what concepts are reflected and reflected in it? What can we learn from these buildings?
7 CIARC will be an excellent occasion to share points of view and discuss these arguments.
(Event announcement by 7 CIARC)