Sacred house: existential house

Abstract

By understanding a courtyard house as a residence organically linked to one or more courtyards, this study aims to compile significant concepts that surround this primordial housing typology and relate it to aspects of sacredness that are inherent to human existence. The house roots man in the world, becoming a fixed point of reference, which seems to be an essential human condition. By miniaturizing and enclosing nature, man seems to intend to build himself a private paradise with his own means of access to the cosmos, ascending to the cosmos. By relating the inner courtyard to Heidegger’s Clearing (die Lichtung), the house becomes a womb, sheltering and protecting the family and their descendants under the guardianship of the Lares gods, consecrated at the hearth. Materializing a house in the world, man preserves a peaceful existence in this world, and in the inner courtyard, he evokes physis.