Architecture in Fictional Literature: Essays on Selected Works

By Nevnihal Erdoğan and Hikmet Temel Akarsu

The art of architecture is an important aesthetic element that can leave a lasting impression in one's mind about the values of a society. Today's architectural art, education, and culture have gradually turned into engineering practices and more technical pursuits. Architecture in Fictional Literature is a book written with the aim of understanding the concept of living spaces as portrayed in works of fiction and to open the doors to a new perspective for readers on the art of architecture.

It is a collection of essays written by educators and literary critics about how architecture is presented in 28 selected literary works of fiction. These selected works, which include well-known works such as Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kafka’s The Castle, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, among many others, collectively attempt to illustrate facets of human life in a lucidly expressive way while also having an architectural background added in the narrative. Each essay is unique and brings a diverse range of perspectives on the main theme, while also touching on some niche topics in this area, (such as spatial analysis, urban transformation and time-period settings), all of which have exploratory potential.

With this collection, the contributors aspire to initiate the transformation of architectural education by including a blend of literary criticism. By building a foundation of architectural aesthetics, they hope to bridge the gap between the artist and the architect, while also inspiring a new generation of urban planners, landscape artists, and interior designers to consider past works when designing living spaces. Architecture in Fictional Literature is also essential to any enthusiast of fictional works who wants to understand the fictional portrayal of living spaces and architecture in literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
• Release date: Dec 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9789815036008

Book preview

Notre-Dame de Paris Church as a Novel Protagonist The Hunchback of Notre Dame Victor Hugo

Esra Baran¹, *

¹ Faculty of Architecture and Design, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey

Abstract

Penned by Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is built upon a love story evolving between a Gypsy girl, Esmeralda, and a hunchbacked church bell-ringer, Quasimodo. Nonetheless, the novel moves beyond a love story, and by sharing analyses on the political and social matters of 15th century Paris and medieval Europe, it holds a mirror to that period. In the novel, both Paris city and Notre Dame de Paris church play a more important role than solely forming the background of the plot. Rather, these elements take place in the novel as the building blocks of the story and direct its flow. The plot of the novel was established by positioning the cathedral into its centre. As the novel is analysed on the basis of space-human interaction, the characters are integrated with the church and exist in accordance with an attachment to place.

A major representative of the Romantic movement, Victor Hugo adopted the classical art approach, and in an age where imitating Roman and Greek art forms was popular, Hugo, with his work in Gothic architecture, drew public attention. This work managed to stop the destruction of a great number of Gothic architecture symbols, the Notre Dame de Paris Church in particular, by capturing the attention of society. On that account, this work plays quite an important role in protecting an architectural work via literature.

Keywords: Art and architecture, Architecture and literature relationship, Architectural identity, Architecture and representation, Architectural building, Conservative theory, Fictitious characters, Gothic architecture, Human, Literature for society, Medieval Ages, Notre Dame de Paris Church , Neoclassic architecture, Place, Paris City, Renaissance architecture, Romantic movement in literature, Social and olitical changes, The city in medieval ages, The Hunchback of Notre Dame , Urban memory.

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* Corresponding author Esra Baran: Faculty of Architecture and Design, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkey;

E-mail: [e-mail]

INTRODUCTION

Even though The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, one of the most important representatives of the Romance movement and published in 1831, seems to be telling a love story that takes place between the novel characters, in essence, the novel mirrors the political and communal issues of 15th century France and medieval Europe by going beyond that. In the novel taking place during the period of Louis XI, political and communal issues such as the dominant power of feudalism and the clergy class on society, the economic weakness of the king over the overlords and hence the political power and its reflections on society, the popular uprisings, poverty, class differences, the exclusion of Gypsies and individuals with disabilities have been evaluated masterfully by