Adaptation of Historic Sacred Buildings for Secular Purposes keeping the Sacred Function as a Link Between Past and Future

Abstract

Sacred objects are an important part of Europe’s religious heritage. Due to the current laicisation of Europe, the adaptation of sacred buildings for secular functions has become a necessity for economic reasons. Their owners, architects, conservators and historians are faced with a dilemma: how to preserve an object or transform it for another function? Places of worship cannot be treated in solely economic terms due to the identity of the place, its current function and symbolism. Narrative research on semantic architecture, as one of the measures of researching sacred architecture, may be one of the directions of analysis and the designing process to decorously allocate them for secular functions. The adaptation of historic sacred buildings for secular purposes, keeping the sacred function, with its strong symbolic value, can be a possible answer to the troubled future of religious heritage.