Project Details
Projekt
Transformation of Sacred Space in a Secular Context: The Example of Hybrid Spaces. Field Mapping, Determining Logics, and Criteria in Leipzig
Applicant
Professor Dr. Alexander Deeg
Subject Area
Protestant Theology
Term
since 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 387623040
Project 2 investigates the reuse and extended use of church buildings in the Leipzig region, expanding the research on transformations of sacred space that has so far concentrated primarily on West German regions and, in comparison with the research region of Aachen, enables the FOR to give a description of the situation that undermines hasty and dichotomous categorizations (East-West; Protestant-Catholic). The mapping of reuse cases was realized over an expanded geographical area compared to the initial proposal. The area of research includes now the cities of Leipzig, Halle, and Merseburg as well as various rural areas, connecting two regional churches and two dioceses. Around 140 cases were recorded: conversion, re-use/new use (often by cultural or church building associations), extended use, specialization as well as new buildings. In the first project phase, the research hypothesis of prevalent hybrid use was developed further in interdisciplinary discussions and a functional-descriptive concept of hybridity was elaborated, which enables the categorization of different spatial concepts (simultaneity, separation, annexation, replacement). The in-depth case studies are based on insights from spatial and architectural sociology on the interrelationship of space and actors/use and combine surveys, participant observations, artefact and spatial analyses as well as a review of media sources. On the basis of the research conducted so far, the proposed second project phase will focus on (1) further explicating the typology of hybridity with regard to guiding spatial logics, (2) observing and describing negotiation processes among different actors, (3) further including the user-perspective and (4) transdisciplinary exchange. In conjunction with the work of the FOR, the tasks of the second project phase lie predominantly in (1) 'complicating' the East-West differences and the confessional distinctions, (2) connecting sacred space discourses with considerations of church-theory, (3) developing a 'criteriology' for successful processes of transformation and (4) describing ‘practices of the sacred’. In the second project phase, project 2 will continue with the case studies (which could not yet be completed in the first project phase, among other things because of the limited field access due to Corona), evaluate a symposium on the University Church St. Pauli Leipzig (6./7. February 2023), substantiate a typology of sacred space transformations in the inter- and intradisciplinary dialogue of the FOR, develop the aforementioned 'criteriology' and test it in transdisciplinary contexts.
DFG Programme
Research Units
