1. Phenomenology in Architecture
(From Jonathan A. Hale, An Introduction to Architectural
Theory, chapter 3)
‘Phenomenology is a philosophy that
considers the individual’s experience –
although with the ultimate aim of producing a
solid basis for knowledge – and as such has
proved particularly influential in architecture,
due in large part to its emphasis on
perception and cognition.’
-the study of how phenomena appear to the
consciousness
2. Stephen Holl, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art,
Finland 1992-98
Stephen Holl, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art,
Finland 1992-98
3. Architectural historian Alberto Perez-Gomez:
Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science,
1983
The problem that determines most explicitly
our crisis…is that the conceptual framework
of the sciences is not compatible with
reality. The atomic theory of the universe may
be true but it hardly explains the real issues of
human behaviour. The fundamental axiom of
the sciences since 1800 has been ‘invariance’,
which rejects, or at least is unable to cope
with, the richness and ambiguity of
symbolic thought.
4. The French phenomenologist, Gaston
Bachelard, provides a stepping stone between
the realms of philosophy and architecture.
Bachelard set out to answer questions of
Perez-Gomez that while science provides a
precise definition of things…..but these no
longer seemed to mean anything in terms
of everyday experience.
He explores the notion that we understand
things in terms of images, or by ‘telling
stories’ about the world.
5. The Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard -
1958
Here Bachelard provided substantial evidence
of the kind of knowledge that he felt science
was leading us away from – the kind of
knowledge still expressed in art, with its direct
appeal to the imagination – the depth of
meaning in the poetic image held the key to
Bachelard’s interest.
7. -he develops a range of ideas based on the
poetic qualities of intimate spaces,
beginning with the house and its associated
imagery as described in literary sources
-the implication is that a meaningful
environment is one that will itself inspire
a kind of poetic reverie
8. This reintroduction of a phenomenological
dimension into our interpretation of the built
environment became significant in the
reassessment of modernism that took place
in the following decades.
9. 1960 – manifesto written by two German
architects, Reinhard Gieselmann and Oswald
Mathias Ungers,
-published in the Berlin journal ‘Der Monat’
They warned against the limits of
functionalism in architecture
10. ‘Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of
Architecture’ Christian Norberg-Schulz, 1980
Genius loci – spirit of place
Latin.
1.guardian of a place.
2.the distinctive character or atmosphere of a
place with reference to the impression that it
makes on the mind.
11. ‘First of all I owe to Heidegger the concept of
dwelling. ‘Existential foothold’ and ‘dwelling’
are synonyms, and dwelling, in an existential
sense, is the purpose of architecture. Man
dwells when he can orientate himself within
and identify with, an environment, or, in short,
when he experiences the environment as
meaningful. Dwelling implies therefore
something more than ‘shelter.’ It implies that
the spaces where life occurs are places, in the
true sense of the word.’ Norberg-Schulz
12. What gives a location its character, and
transforms an abstract space into a concrete
place, is the way in which a work of architecture
provides a visualisation of the genius loci.
This can happen in various ways according to
different cultures and historical traditions. (Hale)
13. ‘Meaning in Western Architecture’ an earlier
book by Norberg-Schultz
-set out to show how this occurred in the
past
-by analysing buildings of different periods in
terms of their common symbolic
characteristics, he tried to demonstrate how
every culture has expressed its belief
systems through its architecture
14. -Norberg-Schulz also applies this method to
more recent buildings
(e.g. in an essay on Jorn Utzon on the theme of
earth and sky in Utzon’s work)
-Sydney opera House
-Bagsvaerd Church in Copenhagen
15. Utzon’s own essay – ‘Platforms and Plateaus’
-looked at the landscape forms of sacred sites
-described the importance of the sculpted
ground-plane, in the definition of a significant
place
-Heiddigerian preoccupation with the building as
interface between earth and sky
-for example, Egyptian pyramids and
Mesopotamian Ziggurats
18. Norberg-Schulz also wrote about Louis Kahn’s
distinctive design approach.
When beginning a project for a school, Kahn tried
to abandon his preconceptions and to rethink the
nature of the institution in terms of its essential
characteristics:
19. ‘Schools began with a man under a tree who did
not know he was a teacher, discussing his
realisation with a few who did not know they were
students. The student reflected on what was
exchanged and how good it was to be in the
presence of this man. They aspired that their sons
also listened to such a man. Soon spaces were
erected and the first schools became.’
21. -For Kahn, such institutions were the basic
structures of society and it was the task of
meaningful architecture to make them visible to
humanity.
The building should also make visible the
essential structures of the natural environment,
particularly the local landscape and the changing
conditions of natural light.
22. Another approach to addressing the idea of
‘place’ within a global context is that taken up by
Kenneth Frampton in what he calls ‘critical
regionalism’
This would take place through a ‘critical’
reinterpretation of vernacular building types and
the use of local materials and craft skills.
25. Frampton’s interest in tectonic culture is also
seen as reflective of phenomenological thinking
‘the expressive potential of a building’s
materiality is seen as enriching the experience of
form and space.’ (Hale)
Marco Frascari
‘In architecture, feeling a handrail, walking up
steps or between walls, turning a corner and
noting the siting of a beam in a wall, are
coordinated elements of visual and tactile
sensations. The location of those details gives
birth to the conventions that tie a meaning to a
perception.’
28. An interest in the perceiving body in relation
to space is not necessarily tied into
Frampton’s ideas about ‘critical regionalism’
which might be seen as restrictive.
Tadao Ando
Herzog and de Meuron
Steven Holl
architects who demonstrate ‘a desire to
articulate material qualities, in order to
heighten our perceptual awareness of the
encounter between the body and the world
of things.’ (Hale)
29. Phenomenology has been used in projects of
‘resistance’ showing how an ‘emphasis on
bodily experience can expose the limits of
functional principles.’ (Hale)
(Phenomenology is one of the philosophies,
together with structuralism, that has
influenced deconstruction)
33. Bernard Tschumi is an architect who, in his
early writings, used phenomenological ideas
to critique functionalist dogma, focussing on
‘The Pleasure of Architecture’
He proposed the idea of a less dogmatic
notion about the use of space – which
evolved into the concept of the architecture of
the ‘event.’
37. Phenomenology looked at the issue of what
buildings mean, in terms of the existential
predicament of humanity and the search for a
sense of belonging.
The philosophy often leads to a focus on the
individual’s subjective experience and the
influence that the body has on our
understanding of the world around us.
Phenomenology has been charged, thus, with
being too restricted in its interest, subjective
and cut off from the social context of reality.
(This criticism is somewhat redressed in
structuralism – to be considered later).
38. Background to Phenomenology:
Our current understanding of phenomenology
–stems from German philosopher, Edmund
Husserl, who wrote in the early part of the 20th
century
-he was concerned with the search for
certainty in our knowledge of the world
-he was unhappy with the inheritance from
Kant that the mind produces its own version
of reality – so that we see the world through a
veil, a distorting mirror
39. Martin Heidegger – developed Husserl’s ideas
towards ‘lived’ experiences and away from
abstract ‘essences.’
Heidegger’s intention was to study the nature
of being rather than simply the nature of
knowing.
40. Theme of embodiment was taken up by French
philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who
collaborated closely with Jean-Paul Sartre
Merleau-Ponty’s major work:
The Phenomenology of Perception
(Published 1945)
-set out the effect the body has on our
perception, through a series of detailed
analyses based on case-studies from clinical
research
41. -He considered the way the senses work
together in the process of synaesthesia
-how perception provides the raw data that the
mind arranges into clear concepts
-thus he tried to show that language itself is
merely derived from our lived experience
42. To return to the things themselves is to
return to that world which precedes
knowledge, of which knowledge always
speaks, and in relation to which every
scientific schematization is an abstract and
derivative sign-language, as in geography in
relation to the countryside in which we have
learnt beforehand what a forest, a prairie or
a river is.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
The Phenomenology of Perception
43. -he is describing a kind of pre-linguistic
understanding
-the notion that the world is already
meaningful for us before it is ‘parcelled up’
into language
-this research led him away from the history
of philosophy, as such, to consider the role
‘action’ plays in our perception of the
outside world
44. -in his early work he had looked at spoken
language in terms of its origins in the ‘language’
of gesture
-later he looked at other means of expression
such as how an artist might use his body to
communicate ideas in physical form
-in his essay ‘eye and mind’ 1961, he described
the body as an interface between the perceiving
mind and the physical world
(‘perspective’ is only one means of viewing the
world)
45. -the work of art expresses this interaction,
such as where the brush strokes in a
painting reveal the movements of the artist’s
hand
-this ‘encounter’ between the artist’s body
and the natural resistance of the medium
being used, provides a powerful image of the
everyday process of interaction between the
body and the outside world
47. John Dewey, the American philosopher, in the
book ‘Art as Experience’ wrote:
The epidermis is only in the most superficial
way an indication of where an organism ends
and its environment begins. There are things
inside the body that are foreign to it, and there
are things outside that belong to it…
48. -biology requires the taking in of air and
foodstuffs
-the use of tools is a kind of ‘incorporation’
of objects into the body
(reminiscent of Heidegger’s ‘ready-to-hand’)
-the tool as an extension of body is also a
major theme in Merleau-Ponty’s work
(e.g. becoming accustomed to a new car)
49. -a blind person experiencing the world
through the tip of a cane
-the cane becomes an extension of their
body and ceases to be an object of
perception – it becomes invisible to the user
50. Merleau-Ponty’s essay ‘The Intertwining-
The Chiasm’ 1964
-developed the concept of the ‘flesh of the
world’
-the intertwining is that of the individual with
the outside world
-instead of a barrier between the mind and
the world, he saw the body as our means of
contact – the only means we have available
for reaching out to understand the world
51. Stephen Holl, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art,
Finland 1992-98
Stephen Holl, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art,
Finland 1992-98
52. ‘It is that the thickness of flesh between
the seer and the thing is (as) constitutive
for the thing of its visibility as (it is) for the
seer of his corporeity; it is not an
obstacle between them, it is their
means of communication…The
thickness of the body, far from rivalling
that of the world, is on the contrary the
sole means I have to go unto the heart of
the things, by making myself a world and
by making them flesh.’
53. • ‘Dance’, says Arnold Berleant, ‘clarifies and
intensifies the organic experience of vital
movement that is true of all experience’ (2003).
The immediacy and sense of freedom in dance,
as Merce Cunningham observes, “is so intense,
that for the brief moment involved, the mind and
body are one’ (quoted in Berleant, 2003).
• ‘In embodiment meanings are experienced rather
than cognized. That is to say, we grasp them with
our bodies, literally incorporating them so they
become part of our flesh’ Berleant (2003).
