Publication details
Nad syntézami Jiřího Langra
| Title in English | Thoughts aubout Jiří Langer´s Synthetic Works |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Jiří Langer, the man celebrating his jubilee, dedicated one of the periods of his scientific career to synthetic work with a theme based on village house and wooden churches located in the Carpathians and Europe. By adopting this theme, he made good use of his many years' research and travel across Europe, reviewing activities of European significance and liaising with specialists from academic facilities and museums across the regions of Central, Eastern, Northern and Western Europe. Beetwen 2005–2010, he published four comprehensive synthetic works in Czech which included extensive original sketches and photographic docementation. In the context of European research, these syntheses represent an outstanding geographical picture and innovative interpretation. Langer prefers a historical approach, emphasising understanding of the time-spatial development (progression, regression, retardation) as well as a complex view of building traditions and their elements as genetic entities. Influences from the external environment are counsidered as specific historically variable connections, where expressions - according to Langer - may vary across different European regions and countries. The author's view of culture as an expression of creative human activity is explained within a theory encompassing a number of different ideas. Within his concept, such ideas are applied to cultural traditions and innovations. Langer's major themes embrace their forming, functioning, interactions and transformations. Instead of the previous area division by the region and the nation, he offers a macro-regional area division of Europe through categories af main features: from the view of the claim to a residence, three European traditions are defined (western, eastern and southern), while from the perspective of the formation of construction materials there are four traditions (Atlantic, Western European - continental, Northern European and Southern European - Mediterranean). Langer rejects the Carpathian type of house as declared by previous researchers, which, according to his opinion, had existed as an elementary residence only in a certain part of the Carpathians. Langer's interpretation contributions include the discovery of an Eastern route around the Mediterranean innovations of the Central European and Eastern European residential and sacral architecture. Many new scientific truths are still waiting to be discovered, accepted and disseminated from Langer's works. It would be useful for the European ethnology to publish his synthetic works in the English language. |