Abstract

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Symmetry: Culture and Science
Volume 32, Number 3, pages 421-430 (2021)
https://doi.org/10.26830/symmetry_2021_3_421

SYMMETRY AS THE SYMBOL OF POWER IN ARCHITECTURE: THE BAROQUE AND ITS HERITAGE

Borbála Jász^*

^* Institute of Philosophy, Research Centre for the Humanities, 4 Tóth Kálmán Str., Budapest H-1136, Hungary.
Research Centre for Art and Creative Industries, Kodolányi János University, 50-56 Frangepán Str., Budapest H-1139, Hungary.
E-mail: jasz.borbala@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0001-5303-8991

Abstract: Elements of Baroque architecture have appeared in Europe several times since the original version appeared at the turn of the 16th and 17th century. The renewal of the Baroque style is always tied to the architecture of power. The main question is how the same form language can be used in the architecture of a kingdom, democracy, or dictatorship as a representation of very different social classes. Symmetry has a central role in this transformation of the Baroque. In the original 17th century version, symmetry appears as a design principle, which was then reduced to a form language in historicism, and later, in the case of Stalin's Baroque (nickname of socialist realism), it was degraded to mere facadism. This study uses a theoretical architectural approach, illustrated by examples from East-Central and Eastern Europe as a case study.

Keywords: baroque, neo-baroque, Stalin’s baroque, socialist realism, architecture of power.

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