Study of spatial organization of the contemporary churches in Bangladesh

Abstract

A church is a space for the congregation of the Christian community for worship and prayer and also known to be the most sacred place. This is a place for the followers of Jesus Christ where one can surrender oneself to the Creator and acknowledge His superiority. Christianity in this sub-continent was introduced as a foreign religion by the European tradesmen and the colonists who came from different countries of Europe and among them Portuguese missionaries were the pioneers in this evangelical and religious activities. In an earlier study by Gomes (2003), it was seen that, the architectural characteristics of the traditional churches in Bangladesh have resemblances with the Early European churches along with some local influences, as they were built by foreign traders and missionaries. The contemporary churches of Bangladesh started to be built after 1947 when the British left this sub-continent. The basic components of churches, such as, narthex, nave, altar, aisles, etc. are present in contemporary churches but in different forms from the traditional ones. There are three types of spaces present in the contemporary local churches, and they are: congregational spaces, sacred space, and service spaces. Organization, hierarchy, and sequence of these spaces bring out the spiritual quality of a church. This study focuses on the spatial organization of the 30 selected contemporary local churches both Catholic and Protestant with the help of ‘Space Syntax’ methodology accompanied with JASS software of the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The importance of spaces can be defined by proper depth, integration, and configurational quality. Altar is the most sacred space of a church, so the depth and integration value of this space provide segregation quality from the congregational spaces, such as, narthex or nave. These churches have quite a numbers of spaces with so much interconnection which gradually put an effect on the quality of the spaces.