| Popis: |
The Athenian Acropolis is the single most influential architectural grouping of the Western world. Its ubiquitous history as remarkable historical event has a foothold worldwide, even in the East. Children in the Western world begin to learn about the twenty-five hundred year-old achievements of Classical Greece in elementary school; later as adults they find those idealistic lessons are integral to their contemporary lifeworld. This thesis seeks to look behind the "perfection" presented by the traditional story-the canonization of the Acropolis monuments, which the Greeks themselves began a century after the Parthenon was built-to see what insights into creativity might be gained from its contexts. The investigation intermingles resources from architectural history, archaeology, anthropology, phenomenology, literature, and philosophy, to look into the site's historic world where, within a mere half century, a confluence of political, literary, philosophical, and architectural genius emerged in common birth. An experiential walk-thru of the site, articulated through open-ended storytelling, situates the reader within its topoi of landscape and memory. As theoroi, we follow theory's lighted thread: this gossamer filament enhances a fabric woven of both modern and historic perceptions, glimpsing views into the Archaic, Classical, and Modern Acropolis. As hermeneutic inquirers, we ground our dialogue in the literary analogy: architecture is a text to be translated and "read aloud" in the enunciated gesticulation of life, for us anew, as it was for the ancients. Two theoretical concepts particularly illuminate the creative and historic inceptions of the architecture: transition and theater, or, passage and spectacle. Song of Athens recognizes the continual becoming, and the ever-present existence, of the Acropolis site as a textile woven of historic events and life experiences. At the Acropolis, architecture is revealed as a story, an epic poem, and ultimately a song, bearing many meanings and offering multiple layers of interpretation across time. We catch a glimpse into the creative lifeworld behind the beautifully imaged (and well trodden) scrim called "The Acropolis." |
