Guild Wars 2

which architecture inspired the orrian architecture?

the giant rings that are it symbol looked very interesting.

Agree! I would love to see Orr before Cataclysm. But I dont know where its inspired though. :p

Yeah Orr looks interesting, but not really practicable.
Even if we ook into consideration that these are all places to worship the gods, the whole big round donut design of the places is either some kind of architectual style for them, or actually has some deeper meaning.

I mean, why are the pyramids like.. well pyramids… we can aproach it wih mathematical reasoning, but there is no real reason why they could not be normal tombs.
In terms of the pyramids scientists are pretty sure that it just to show off the power of the ones who are buried there.

However we have the creation of “strange” architecture almost everywhere in human history.
Just take the easter islands, where the inhabitatants created these giant heads to show off their power to each other (resulting in a complete destruction of their enviroment in the process, but we wont go into enviromentalism here… ).
They do not really have a meaning, but i guess they thought it looked cool

I’d bet when it was intact it looked a bit different. (As in, cataclysm, underwater time, and rising jumbled some of the structures a bit)

I was curious about the giant arcs you can see in Arah and Cursed shore really.

Well circles, and rings hold significance in many religions, often as a symbol for eternity, unity, etc. It would make sense for Orr, paticularly Arah, being a highly relgious nation, to fashion everything to reflect that Orr was the place of the gods and use religious symbology in that endeavor.

Religions around the world regularly used circular arcitechure in the places of worship and other holy sites. It would seem that Orr was inspired by that style, and modeled after it. I don’t think it’s modeled after any one region, people, or reglion, but a combination of many and the circular style found in many cutures associated with various religions.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3424500596/circle.html

I know the rings all used tot be erected ( and tot show off power, not sure about the latter ) The orrian culture in general was Arabic inspired

It’s not meant to be practical, it’s meant to show off the Orrians’ close association with magic. Their whole society took what we would consider amazing and wonderous things as commonplace and part of everyday life. There are some scrolls in-game where a historian talks about his observations of pre-Cataclysm Orr.

Regarding the giant rings everywhere, I believe they used to form domes. A few of the smaller ones that are still more or less intact have glass domes around them, with the rings forming a framework for the glass. So I think it’s reasonable to assume that the larger ones used to have glass as well.

But I hope we someday get a Fractal or something that takes place in pre-Cataclysmic Orr. Or a Guild Wars 0.

It wouldn’t surprise me if the gods themselves had a hand in it, especially those ruined rings that seem to span the whole island. We already know that Orr was far ahead of Ascalon in magic, from those scrolls in Malchor’s Leap. As for why the gods did it for, I guess with that kind of power it’s not such a difficult thing to do just for aesthetics.

The original concepts of the great city of Atlantis were very circle/ring themed as well, like so:
http://higherdensity.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/atlantida3-g.jpg

Having Orr as the entire peninsula sink into the ocean, thats a second link to the possible source of inspiration.

Toastehh.5832:

It wouldn’t surprise me if the gods themselves had a hand in it, especially those ruined rings that seem to span the whole island. We already know that Orr was far ahead of Ascalon in magic, from those scrolls in Malchor’s Leap. As for why the gods did it for, I guess with that kind of power it’s not such a difficult thing to do just for aesthetics.

Well as the gods use to call Orr home I’d say pretty good change they had a helping hand.