American Artifact: Saint Luke’s Church
Cultures are an integral part of every society since they indicate how people function, perceive their environments, and apply their creativity to express themselves. Although it sounds simplistic, cultures are complex organisms that influence belief, knowledge, art, morals, customs, and laws that influence habits and capabilities acquired by specific members of the society. America has not been left in terms of cultural expressions through elements such as structures, arts, and other vital aspects that make the society unique from its global counterparts. In fact, most of American artifacts reflect American cultural perspectives hence the need for evaluating some of them to derive drivers of their design, creation, and maintenance up to date.
The culture of the United States is majorly Western; however, it has been influenced by African, Native American, lain Americans, and Asian cultures as indicated in some artifacts throughout the country. Formation of this culture began its formation more than 10,000 years when Paleo-Indians started their migration into the nation. Since then, the country has developed its own unique cultural and social characteristics including but not limited to music, arts, dialects, cuisines, and construction techniques. In this case, the paper focuses on the application of creativity, innovation, and varied forms of societal development in creating structures.
The artifact in focus is Saint Luke’s Church that is located in Smithfield Virginia. Originally, it was known as the Old Brick House. Since its construction, the Saint Luke’s Church has become a historic site, church building, and museum due to its illustration of cultural, innovative, and creative aspects of Americans. Over the years, the building has been branded as the oldest church since it was built in the 16th century and has been in use since then but with different roles. Its construction and combination of architectural aspects have made Saint Luke’s Church of interest as it exhibits high levels of artisan mannerisms, styles, and typified societal concepts at the time of construction.
From the theory of functionalism, culturist, and cultural power of change, the building is illustrative of their influence in developing this artifact. Functional theories focus on the development of societal structures of specified utilities. In this case, all the theories have been combined in order to fully understand the nature of applied construction techniques. The style of the structure blends many cultural influences of the time rather than reflecting architect focused design concepts. In fact, the artisan mannerism styles in the building combine several diverse architectural concepts without attributing to specific stylistic movement.
The blending of different elements is indicative of the levels of creativity to accommodate diverse cultural processes equally without majoring on one to cause some form of rivalry for domination. The architecture is, therefore, a combination of prior century room embellishments with gothic features, room layouts, the formation of exterior aesthetics, and brickwork. Unlike other similar structures, the building is unique since it reflects different cultural aspects with profound implications in terms of social cohesion, religious progression, respect for diversity, and development of societal structures that are acting as essential historical lessons to current generations in America.
These are the elements that have made Saint Luke’s church to be designated as a national historic landmark due to its role in illustrating theories such as functionalism, creativity and innovation, and the power of cultural percepts to initiate societal changes. The artifact has indicated the role of creatively combining different architectural concepts to not only reflect prevalent dynamics but also shape social interactions, coexistence, and appreciation for diversified population perceptions. This is the underlying rationale for choosing this artifact since it covers all the theories discussed above with the additional role of teaching current generations about their historical development, as well as their role in shaping their current settings.
