ABSTRACT
The study of ritual in architecture has recently attracted renewed interest by anthropologists and architectural historians. The case of Qal'at Sem'an reminds us of how the participatory dimension of the classical city, which faced a crisis at the end of the Roman Empire, was revitalized by a new redemptive perspective of topography driven largely by the transmission of biblical narratives to actual geographical locations. The idea of the participatory dimension of urban life, as a concretization of exemplary 'mytho-historic' models, arguably still pervades the city today, albeit latently in the often unremarkable. Ritual gives both continuity of beliefs or values and ensures a degree of cohesion of a particular social or religious order, and constitutes in some form a re-enactment of a primordial event or significant act. The special importance of the New Art Gallery in the rehabilitation of Walsall was considered not just as a cultural facility but also as a catalyst for redefining the city's self-image.
