ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how subsequent developments in therapeutic knowledge led to architectural and spatial innovations in the design of asklepieia in order to accommodate and facilitate new movement and bodily curation. To examine the Pergamene Asklepieion through the lens of movement therapy, the chapter introduces the term locotherapy (locomotion therapy), a neologism that encompasses a variety of movements from ritual to profane, and ranges in scale from the minutest gesticulation to the grandest procession. Building on the archeological data from Deutsches Archaologisches Institut excavation reports, this new kinetic reading of curative architecture provides an alternative interpretation to the established literature not only on the Pergamon Asklepieion but on architecture, the body, science and culture. In so doing, the Asklepieion emerges as the most vivid spatio-architectural manifestation of second century approaches to healing and its undisputable dependence on scientific progress. The chapter proposes a different hypothesis for building on the premise of controlling and ordering of bodies in motion.
