Tord Larsen: The Anthropology of the Built Environment

摘要

A man once said: my house is not simply the place where I live, it is a whole metaphysic, it embodies a world view. He meant to say, no doubt, that constructed space is the externalization of our image of the world; it is philosophy made visible. In modern terms, he described a notion of space which is particularly present in non-modern, small-scale societies: the cosmos, the built environment, the social organization and the stirrings of the heart are versions of each other - the same message in different media, as it were. To the Australian aborigine, his settlement is cosmos writ small, and cosmos is the settlement writ large. At the same time, physical markers and spatial arrangements identify the inhabitants as people of a certain kind and indicate their relationship to others. In other words: the built, or spatially arranged environment is the visible manifestation of the cognitive maps that organize our existence.