Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
GAZI UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, cilt.29, sa.3, ss.525-536, 2016 (ESCI)
The main purpose of this study was to examine the viewer's opinion about aesthetic judgment related to the individual feeling that is transferred through the designed object to the viewer and that shows the effects of cultural differences on aesthetic judgment by comparing the liking rates of African and Turkish participants on various symbolic structures. Two groups of participants were selected for this study: African professionals (architects, planners and urban designers) and laypersons who had information about African culture and its effect on design elements. The other group was Turkish architects and laypersons who did not have any information about African culture and its effect on design elements. This study was carried out on a sample of 150 subjects (25 African professionals, 50 African laypersons, 25 Turkish professionals and 50 Turkish laypersons). As a very important cultural value in Africa, the "Calabash" was used as the reference. Three architectural structures that have been designed with reference to the "Calabash" were used. According to the results, there were differences between the liking rates of African and Turkish participants: African laypersons as well as architects were impressed by symbolic structures and their cultural effects and they evaluated these three structures to be more impressive than the Turkish participants. After giving information about the deep meaning of these structures and the place occupied by the Calabash in the African culture, the Turkish participants were also impressed and they disagreed with their previous evaluation, their aesthetic liking rates increased and they approached the judgment levels of the Africans. According to these results, it has been shown that the understanding of desired meaning given with reference to cultural differences and cultural symbols in structures affects aesthetic judgment.