Vesper No. 9 | The Adversary | Fall-Winter 2023
Marcos Amado Petroli
The Mechanization of the Sacred Grotto
Keywords
Grotto, architectural theory, primitive
architecture, ancestral architecture, myth
The notion of ‘grotto’, one of the
most ancient and mythical architectural templates, is currently in tension with
the mechanised ethos of the time. Its cave-like aspect and uterine space
historically gave rise to extraordinary and fundamental allegorical and
metaphysical meanings. Yet, it recently came to be at odds with the
quantifiable social reality of technological societies. Grotto, therefore, is
revisited through theoretical discourses that highlight its transfiguration
throughout time; and through comparative research, exposing how the
well-established ‘primitive hut’ challenged its autonomy as a
primary system of territorialisation of human culture.
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