Christian City as a Work of Art

Abstract

This article is an attempt to present a historical Christian city as a work of art. This approach may change our attitude to the city in general and lead us to stop treating it as a museum exhibit or a collection of static artifacts and move on to perceiving it as a complex work of art. The city, like any other work of art, is characterized by the presence of three dimensions: physical,
aesthetic, and semiotic. These aspects are not only analytically different, but mutually complementary. The traditional Christian city can be viewed as an integral material, aesthetic, and visual-semiotic construct. It is distinguished by an internally consistent structure, many artistic layers, and a performative character. The dynamics realized in the co-creation of the author and the recipient is a necessary property of such a cultural work. The religious meanings contained in a Christian city make it possible to qualify such a city as a “spatial icon” that combines several semantic (symbolic or narrative) layers. The attitude to a Christian city as a work of religious art allows not only to better understand its design, form, and composition, but also to organize a practically interested participation in its preservation and development.