The lia
prelude and aftermath, from the garden to city without streets
pp. 141-154
in: , Phenomenology of the Winter-city, Berlin, Springer, 2016Abstract
Environmental parables of the Bible are the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. The myth of the Garden is primordial, possibly emerging at the onset of the Agricultural Revolution, its origins perhaps tracing to the Paleolithic Venus figurines, the Earthmother symbols. The Garden's consort had been the Tower, or the Citadel, a variant myth of Axis mundi, which along with the Sky Father, was the complement myth of the Earthmother represented by the Venus figurines. Throughout the history of North-Hemispheric built environments, the masculine Citadel has gradually attained primacy and superiority, whereas the myth of the Garden has progressively, from antiquity and the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and modernity, become subdued in city-form.