Korea and Maori Architectural Decorations

3768 Words16 Pages
This essay is about the extent to which architecture can reflect cultural identity and beliefs by comparing two different cultures on opposite sides of the world. Korean and Maori’s traditional architectural decorations are beautifully designed and are so pleasurable to look at. They express each country’s strong cultural morals and beliefs. I decided to further investigate the traditional architectural decorations of Korea and Maori because Korea and New Zealand are the two most significant places where I have spent most of my life in. Even though these two countries are very different, the cultural properties and the use of traditional patterns in these countries were both incorporating similar cultural values extensively in art, religions, myths and rituals. As the buildings represent each country’s cultural morals, I believe traditional architecture is often an important indication of identity as are language and ethnicity. Symbols relate to our inner psychological and spiritual world and within inner world, a symbol can represent some deep intuitive wisdom that eludes direct expression. Therefore not only investigating the visual beauty of the two different countries’ heritage and patterns, I focused inquiring into traditional rituals of the two different countries. HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE Only when the idea of beauty is added to that of use does a structure take its place among works of architecture. We can then define architecture as the art which seeks to harmonise in a building the requirements of utility and of beauty. It touches the life of man at every point. It is concerned not only in sheltering his person and ministering to his comfort, but also in providing him with places for worship, amusement, and business; with tombs, memorials, embellishments for his cities, and other structures for the varied needs of a complex civilization. Korean
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