THE ROLE OF SYMBOLIC ARCHITECTURE ON AESTHETIC JUDGMENT: A CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATION ON THE PERCEPTION OF AFRICAN “CALABASH” FIGURE

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to examine the viewer’s opinion about aesthetic judgment related to the individual feeling that is transferred through the designed object to the viewer and that shows the effects of cultural differences on aesthetic judgment by comparing the liking rates of African and Turkish participants on various symbolic structures. Two groups of participants were selected for this study: African professionals (architects, planners and urban designers) and laypersons who had information about African culture and its effect on design elements. Another group was Turkish architects and laypersons who did not have any information about African culture and its effect on design elements. As a very important cultural value in Africa, the “Calabash” was used as the reference. Three architectural structures were used that have been designed with reference to the “Calabash”. According to the results, there were differences between the liking rates of African and Turkish participants: African laypersons as well as architects were impressed by symbolic structures and their cultural effects and they evaluated these three structures to be more impressive than the Turkish participants. After giving information about the deep meaning of these structures and the place occupied by the calabash in the African culture, the Turkish participants were also impressed and contrary to their previous evaluation, their aesthetic liking rates increased and approached the judgment levels of the Africans. 

Keywords

• Symbolic Architecture
• Aesthetic Judgment
• Calabash
• African
• Turkish

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