02/07/2026 09:00 - 10:00

HALL: Pola - A204

Contact: Fabretti V.

Chair: Giorda M.C., Omenetto S.

The session aims to explore how inequalities are inscribed in European urban spaces through architectural forms and religious practices. On the one hand, architectures dedicated to worship can make established hierarchies visible or, conversely, become instruments of inclusion and of redistributing access to urban space. On the other hand, inequalities themselves produce specific material configurations: monumental and officially recognized buildings stand alongside adaptive, temporary, or marginal spaces, revealing different levels of legitimation and possibilities of settlement for religious groups.
From this perspective, the processes of defining and safeguarding religious heritage also contribute to structuring inequalities: while some buildings are enhanced as cultural assets and benefit from public resources, many minority places of worship struggle to obtain recognition and visibility, remaining excluded from conservation circuits and facing forms of material and symbolic marginalization.
Alongside these material dynamics, new digital spatialities are emerging. Three-dimensional virtual environments - from replicas of iconic places to immersive platforms used for ritual practices - potentially expand religious participation, but they can also reproduce barriers to access and asymmetries from the offline world. Hybrid practices that combine physical and virtual presence open up further perspectives, showing how communities creatively negotiate the limits imposed by infrastructures, urban regulations, and available resources.
The session invites contributions that critically analyze these intersections between the material and the immaterial, highlighting how inequalities take shape, are reproduced, or are transformed through contemporary religious architectures, spaces, and practices