Symbolism in Coptic Architecture: The Power of ‘Meaning’ in Architectural Expression

Abstract

New trends in architecture tend to pursue to duplicate the positive, pleasant effects of historical buildings, away from direct copying from their form or their style. By addressing human cognition to try to decode their meanings, symbols, which were traditionally seen as a sacred language, were used in religious buildings to establish a visual discourse with the worshipers. This paper aims at analyzing the patterns symbolic language in Coptic architecture, where symbols acted as the vocabulary underpinning a certain visual/spiritual discourse. In this, it explores the hypothesis that Coptic churches' design, with their modest, yet impressive structures, depended on a specific symbolic system that addresses humans' spiritual cognition through its related metaphysics to create spiritual, agreeable effect. It reaches a conclusion that the symbolic concept in these churches was not about randomly scattered symbols here or there, but rather worked according to a carefully designed system, in which each part of the building had its own message. Keywords: Coptic architecture, Coptic symbols, symbolism, sacred language, architectural language