Design Art Papers 2025 | No. 13

Liliana POPA Ways of „Building” as an Integral Part of Nature / 1 / CircularWorlds andWorldMaking in Art This research is positioned in an anthropological, ontological, andanthropicframework,wherecreativityandarthavebeen vital modes of expression for humans, in accordance with their own perception of their body and the world around, and while having the ability to transform the surrounding materiality, as a form of habitation, since ancient times. The first forms of housing meant a sheltering of one’s own physicality from the spirits that unleashed the forces of nature, whichproducedmagical imagery—thefirst drawings on rocks or on the walls of caves arose as a form of relation with these powers. For a very long time in the history of humanity, art did not distinguish itself from the construction of houses, temples, and objects, and this continuity affirms the enormous creativity of human beings, making art a natural way of being in theworld—a formof existence [3] . For example, in the case of the Bororo tribe of Mato Grasso from Brazil, analyzed by Claude Levi-Straus in Tristes Tropiques , thevillagewas structured inakindof circlearound the dance floor, divided by two median axes that depended on the cardinal points, forming a spatial settlement that governed their entire social life. Their removal from this cosmogonic and organizational framework by the first missionaries, who reconfigured their huts according to an orthogonal logic, completely destabilized the complex social system. The inhabitants couldnot survive the transplantation Keywords / Art; Heritage; Circular Worlds; Anthropocene; Museum; Summary / This research is positioned in an anthropological, ontological, and anthropic framework, where creativity and art have been vital modes of expression for humans, in accordance with their own perception of their body and the world around, and while having the ability to transform the surrounding materiality, as a form of habitation, since ancient times. If, in the distant past of human existence, "building" settlements was an integral part of inhabiting nature, today we are concerned with ways of reconnecting these natural bonds, focusing on environmental protection and sustainability. By examining certain historical approaches to art and architecture—two fields that were indistinguishable until relatively recently in human history—we can consider art as a mediating force between human modes of expression. Over time, art has established connections across nearly all domains of knowledge, and it can continue to function as a trans(-)medial bridge, mediating the reconnection of humanity's way of "building" together with the environment. This is probably the reason why art is called to share its expertise, characteristics, and mode of operation with other fields, as it has a unique way of connecting to different areas of knowledge. In relation to the architectural heritage, it can operate either as a simple insertion/action in the urban space, making a different kind of contribution to the act of landscaping, or as a reconversion of derelict areas. These are just parts of art’s multiple contributions and functions. In the last decades, the art implications for imagining new ways of perceiving the world, in which the privileged human point of view began to fade, leaving room/right to equal existence to other forms of life or even to matter itself, and encouraging a shift beyond immediate consumptive needs toward a clearer awareness of environmental consequences, have also emerged from the modes of expression and the reactions of certain artists. To work “like nature [1] ” means integrating ourselves into the larger organism of the living world, where the spider's web is one of the most intricate constructions [2] , where tricopters assign equal value to construction materials, whether they are gems or simple pebbles at Hubert Duprat, and where scaffold structures organically reshape themselves in the case of Tadashi Kawamata, suggesting the eventual natural reintegration of all human constructions back into nature. into a different physical framework [4] . At the same time, with such improperly-called primitive tribes, we can talk about a totemic self-perception of man, as an osmotic part of the world, through the conviction of kinshipwithplants, animals, andevenobjects,bysubstituting one's own body and spirit with them. The designation of a fixed point —the center— was equivalent in many ancient cultures to the creation of the world, each city representing a new beginning of the world. It is not by chance that many other settlements, even in the ancient world, are related to such a spatial configuration. Fromthe legendof RomulusandRemus we learnthat thecity walls were limited by a circular furrow, which also explains thederivationof theword urbs (city) from urvum , the curved part of the coulter, or urvo —a circle-shaped plough. This wordwas alsoderived fromorbis, a curvedobject, the globe, or theworld. [5] The intervention of the image of the human body in relation to the city and architecture shows us how the relationship between man and the inhabited world changes over time, and synchronously builds. Vitruvius, whose contribution is based on the recovery of the architectural tradition from the Greeks, takes the human body as a starting point for the proportioning of temples, which is not without deeper implications. An element of utmost importance is the inscription of the human body in 325