Religious Context into the Built Form with a ...

Religious Context into the Built Form with a Case Study from Rural Bengal

Author Name : Ar. Tania Bera

ABSTRACT

Reflection of religious beliefs or practices are clearly visible in the architecture and planning principle of any residential building throughout the world. This paper aims at finding out the religious contexts into the built form as a vernacular tradition with the case study from a rural settlement of Bengal. The objectives are to study the influences of religious practices in domestic architecture and simultaneously the architectural interpretation of a social custom too. In Methodology, the dwellings are selected from a rural settlement of West Bengal for documentation and analysis considering the parameters of architectural elements and spatial planning based on their religious traditions. The result shows the reflection of religious practices into the built form while following a particular architectural style within the whole community. This rural settlement is developing a typical architectural element and following spatial patterns according to the requirements of the religious tradition with a vital socio-cultural impact. It reveals an innovative and creative formation of vernacular concepts based on the religious requirements. The paper concludes with the identification and documentation of the built form associated with religious practices and finally leading towards the further search for relevance of religious context into domestic architecture in other regions of the country too.

Key words– religious practices, domestic architecture, planning principle, rural settlement, West Bengal.