3-1. Religious buildings in Asia and Europe

3. Research Methodology

3-1. Religious buildings in Asia and Europe

The type of building has always been a crucial key to preservation, whether it is the methodology, materials, or the direction of the preserve. Religious buildings are a special category in architectural preservation with each culture having different standards and concepts for religious sites that all affect the method and form of preservation. Preservation of churches and temples could be difficult to deal with it. Two main reasons are involved, first, the building itself may be a monument with important cultural connotations. Second, due to religious beliefs, the perception of believers is also vital to the result. Summarizing the above reasons, the difference between cultures and methodology is what this research wishes to discuss.

When people gradually lose the habit of going to church to worship, many churches decay as time pass. Take the Netherlands as an example, according to the research by Trouw, "one in five churches in the Netherlands is no longer in use as a church. Of the nearly 6,900 churches, around 1,400 have been given a new destination."19 By the church loses its function, the preservation of the building becomes an issue.

The preservation and reprogramming of churches in Europe are relatively open, and the concept of preservation is more common. Most Catholic countries in Europe generally accept church reconstruction. "Vice versa, Catholic countries often consider the insertion of new uses into the churches from a point of view of cultural opportunity, looking at ‘extreme’ modifications that are generally not significant from an architectural point of view." 20 Take Italy and Spain as examples. St Giuseppe Della Pace in Milan, a 20th-century church reprogramming into a nightclub. S. Barbara a Llanera in Spain, an early 20th-century building that became a covered skate park. In the 1980s, the Netherlands also began to experiment with unuse churches. 21

On the other hand, Asia is more conservative in the preservation of religious sites. The idea of preservation and conservation in Asia is not familiar to the public, which led to the result of people's ignorance of it. In terms of preservation, owner of the heritage tend to preserve their original appearance, and that can also apply to religious heritages. Taking the abandoned temple as an example, the people are more inclined to rebuild or keep it as it is, just because it involves religious factors. In Buddhism, Taoism, and Shintoism, believers generally believe that temples are sacred and inviolable places, even if the temple loses its functionality, people still believe in its sacred nature. However, in Japan, Taiwan, and China most of the temples are made of wood. Therefore the temple is constantly needed to be restored. "Conservation architects in Japan, though, believe that to preserve wood buildings, they must be periodically dismantled and reassembled or the wood will rot and the structure will collapse." 22 In Taiwan and Japan, the temple could be reconstructed for architectural preservation purposes. Architects are aware, however, that this reconstruction approach may violate the Venice Charter.