A CASE STUDY OF RELIGIOS BUILDINGS AROUND DURBAN
64 INTRODUCTION
The following chapter looks at the case of religious buildings in and around Durban. Four particular buildings have been selected, a Catholic Church, Mosque, Hindu Temple and Progressive Jewish Synagogue. These have been combined into a single ‘case’ and will be looked at as a comparative study, determining similarities and differences between the various religions. There are many different types of religious buildings and many different denominations, so this study is not definitive but rather aims to gain a broad understanding and overview of the elements that go into religious architecture and how they compare between different religious groups. There is a danger of generalization, however, this will be avoided and where necessary, other religious building examples will be pointed out to clarify a point. The priority is to determine whether some elements could be combined in an inter-religious facility and how these would be best combined.
Included in this chapter is an overview of a questionnaire that was conducted on people in and around Durban. The questionnaire focuses on unearthing the elements that religious lay people feel go into making a spiritual space feel sacred. The questionnaire results in conjunction with the case study results are analyzed and discussed in the next chapter.
QUESTIONNAIRE Introduction
The questionnaire has been designed to capture the feelings and opinions of a pool of people towards spiritual or sacred architecture and how it affects their experience. For a full set of questions, refer to appendix A, and for a full set of results, refer to the excel document on the attached CD-ROM. A number of questions were asked, however the ones that yielded interesting results and trends and have a definite relationship to the overall topic will be looked at in the following chapter.
Justification of Study
Since the majority of people who use sacred places of worship are not specifically trained in religious practice, it only made sense to get an overview of their feelings towards architecture and their spiritual experience, as they are the ones who ‘fill the pews.’
65 Chadwick (1995) states that in some forms of Christianity, the people are what make up the church, and not just the buildings. In a way, this concept applies to all religions, as they would not exist without the people who follow them.
Limitations
While these results provide a good overview of people’s opinions with regards to the topic, a possible discrepancy is that the majority of those that answered were Christian, and the majority of Christians were Catholic. With this in mind however, good conclusions and analysis can still be drawn out of these results. For example, people’s feelings towards what makes a place feel sacred to them won’t necessarily be different according to their religion but rather their own personal feelings. Another limitation is that the results would be more definitive if the survey could be done over an extended period of time with a much larger population, however for this study the population group is sufficient.
Overview of Results
For a full overview of results, refer to Appendix A
CASE STUDY
Justification of Study
Sacred space and architecture is a phenomenon that belongs to every religious and spiritual group and it has been this way since the inception of human kind’s history. The four religions that have been chosen are main stream religions, and some of the oldest.
Many other denominations are derivatives of these four with the exception of some eastern religions such as Buddhism. The case study aims to provide examples that support the initial topic; that is unpicking the elements that mediate the spiritual experience of the people within them, compare them and determine their similarities and differences and come to a conclusion about if and how these elements could be best combined into an inter-religious facility.
Location
The case study itself is conducted in and around Durban CBD, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The building closest to the city centre is the Umgeni Road Hindu Complex.
Temple David, a Reformed Jewish Synagogue is located along Ridge road which sits on
66 the Berea of Durban. The Mosque at 45th Cutting serves the Sherwood community, and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is in the heart of Westville, just 15 minutes drive from Durban CBD. All these building are on sites that are located in busy commercial areas, and it’s interesting to note that each one has used a barrier of landscaping or offsetting the building on the site to give a removed feeling from the hustle and bustle outside. The map in Appendix D illustrates the proximity of these places of worship to each other. As was stated before, Durban is an interesting case in that religious groups and communities lives so closely and tolerate one another. Even these four buildings are further apart than would be the average distance between places of worship in Durban.
Places of worship found in cities can often be seen as city ‘sanctuaries’ where people can go and escape the business and noise of the city without having to travel far.
Limitations
As has already been stated, the case study will be of four religious buildings in and around Durban. Although this will not give a very in-depth view of the particular elements that go into each and every religious building, some of the results from this study can be generalized as being typical of all religious buildings for a specific religion.
This will give a broad overview and understanding of essential elements, rather than a detailed analysis of elements that may be site specific, denomination specific, culturally specific or architecturally specific. As an example, roof designs of religious buildings of the same religion may be vastly different; however, these do not affect the essential qualities that belong in the architecture of that specific religion. The interview answers in table 9.2 (Appendix A) are limited in the sense that the interviews weren’t conducted formally, but rather as conversations, so the answers are subject to interpretation. Also, as was the case with the Hindu Temple Complex, the priest’s English was not very good, so the answers were not as detailed as the others.
Empirical Data
The data was collected by visiting each building and making observations on prescribed criteria, see appendix A. It has been tabled in Appendix A, table 9.1 so that comparative analysis is simple and effective. Photos were taken where necessary and possible and will be shown to illustrate a certain point. Photos of the Hindu complex were prohibited so making a definitive comparative analysis of photos is not possible. A basic sketch
67 diagram of the planning arrangement of each building can be seen in appendix D. Table 9.2 (Appendix A) details the responses from interview with the religious leader from each case in point.
CONCLUSION
By comparing these four religious building types in the format above, it’s been possible to easily see the similarities and differences between them. These similarities and differences will be discussed in the next chapter in conjunction with the results from the questionnaire. An overview of the results show:
All these religions have rituals and customs that have a direct impact on the requirements for sacred space.
There is a definite similarity in terms of the logic behind the inclusion of certain elements in these buildings; however it’s just been expressed in different ways.
It could be said from the questionnaire findings that religion is still relevant in today’s society, given the 73% who said they still practice. On a deeper inspection into the results, it’s also interesting to find the other 23% who said they do not believe in a particular religion or faith were in most cases still interested in learning about different religions and belief systems. A few of the questions were open ended so that people could express in their own words their feelings towards a particular question. Open ended questions were also used where a justification for a previous response would prove interesting. A basic overview of the results shows that people feel that:
Architecture has an effect on their spiritual experience
People are interested in learning about each other’s beliefs
Religion is still relevant and very much a part of today’s issues in society.
In chapter six and seven, the results tabled in Appendix A in conjunction with the secondary literature are analyzed and discussed, with full recommendations and conclusion given in chapter seven.
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