Thoughts on the Sybolism of Auroville
Author: Joseba
Cities are mankind’s greatest creations. The establishment of every beautiful city
of the world has always implied the concurrence of multiple disciplines integrated
in a harmonious approach. A powerful vision and careful planning as a starting
point, the inclusion of innovative architecture, art, engineering, landscaping, and
an unending flow of financial resources...these are only some of the most
necessary components; to enumerate all would be a tedious exercise. Only when
the conjunction of all these ingredients has been successfully achieved can we
recognize great cities that awaken our admiration. When we look to the external
appearance of a city we enter into contact with the first and most external layer
of information. But, beyond this first layer there are other layers of information
and perception with subtle and deeper meanings. The morphology, the structure,
the arrangement of a city’s most representative buildings, its residences and life
activities, consciously or unconsciously are going to reveal to us the values and
ideals, the socio-political order and the image that its citizens have of the cosmos
and themselves. It is particularly interesting to notice also that every great
culture of the world has attempted to create an Ideal City that could give a
material form, a definitive shape to the most relevant aspects of its particular
world-view. This was considered extremely important and meaningful for internal
and external purposes in many cultures throughout history. From this viewpoint,
the external shape of every city of the world is a permanent invitation for us to
think and speculate from a philosophical perspective about its society and its
underlying anthropological and transcendental principles. I believe that the study
of the principles and designs used in various moments of history and its
comparison with Auroville can be an interesting subject because it can help us to
better understand the fundamental aspects of the experiment that we are trying
to develop here and possibly to shine some light on the uniqueness of Auroville’s
features in relation with other cities of the world and other experiments of the
past. I would like to present these reflections just as a first initial contribution to
an area which until now has not aroused much interest and discussions – a very
surprising fact for me in the context of Auroville.
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