This book investigates the art and architecture of Papua New Guinean spirit structures with a multi-perspectival approach that combines cultural and social sciences with building, architectural, and spatial research. It offers the first comprehensive study of the spirit houses of New Guinea that exists to date.
The book's aim is twofold: First, it aims to investigate the spirit structures and their associated cultural cosmos in detail. For this purpose, a representative selection of traditional buildings and artworks from different regions of Papua New Guinea is documented and analyzed, and theories for their understanding are formulated. In this course, the author develops a spatial theory of anthropological concepts - such as myths, signs, persons, and rituals. Secondly, this analysis is then situated in the broader context of the Anthropocene/Kaiaimunucene. Transforming the historical spirit structures into models for future-oriented cultural imagination, the consequences for contemporary productions of space and ways of worldmaking in light of existential challenges are traced.
The book thus offers more-than-human and more-than-secular concepts for building, art, and worldmaking that are of critical importance in the ongoing Anthropocene/Kaiaimunucene. It will be of interest to researchers and students of architecture, anthropology, cultural studies, environmental humanities, and adjacent disciplines.
Part I of the book was translated from German by Melanie Janet Sindelar.
| ISBN: | 9781032412443 |
| Publication date: | 21st June 2024 |
| Author: | Michael Hirschbichler |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Series: | Routledge Research in Architecture |
| Genres: |
The environment Housing and homelessness Social and cultural anthropology Indigenous, ethnic and folk religions and spiritual beliefs Theory of architecture Religion: general Regional and area planning |