‘The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses’ by Juhani Pallasmaa

Friday 22 January 2016

‘The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses’ by Juhani Pallasmaa

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Juhani Pallasmaa is a Finnish architect and former professor of architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. He is one of Finland’s most distinguished architects and architectural theorist. He has written numerous articles on cultural philosophy, environmental psychology and theories of architecture and the arts (Australian Institute of Architects).

I found this book as most interesting reading as my manifesto as an architect is to create feelings and emotions about buildings. This topic will be further discussed and analysed in the second assignment of this module which is a visual essay. I want to discover how buildings make individuals feel and propose some ideas regarding how architects evoke feelings in the users of the buildings they design.

Pallasmaa (2012) discusses the feelings that buildings and design generates:

“Architecture should make us see the majesty of the mountain, the patience and persistence of the tree, and the passing smile on a stranger’s face. In today’s world of growing alienation and detachment, we need an architecture that can re-mythologize, re-sensualize and re-eroticize the world and fuse us with our very lived reality,”

His book Eyes of the skin: architectures and the senses 2012 expresses the significance of the tactile sense for our experience and understanding of the world. It is also intended, however, to ‘create a conceptual short circuit between the dominant sense of vision and the suppressed sense modality of touch’ (Pallasmaa 2012).

Pallasmaa’s assumption of the role of the body as the locus of perception, thought and consciousness, as well as the significance of the senses in articulating storing and processing sensory responses and thoughts, has been proven right through philosophical investigations on human embodiment and recent neurological research.

"As architect we do not primarily design buildings as physical objects, but the images and feelings of the people who live in them.". Pallasmaa statement is also supported by his statement that ‘a wise architect works with his/hers self image’. It is very true that first we need to know who we are, what is unique about us and identifies us an architect. These elements are also be part of the design as a signature and identification.

The key points of the book discuss identity, sensorial experience and tactility.  

             

It is also worth reading Pallasmaa essay The Geometry of Feeling: A look at the phenomenology of architecture.  

Emotional architecture is a topic in architecture that I was always interested me. When I think of a new design idea for a project I think of the different feelings I want to create and the reason behind them. Pallasmaa describe how the mind encourage through feelings and how is related to the building experience.

Reference:

Australian Institute of Architects, Juhani Pallasmma [online] Google Available at: http://wp.architecture.com.au/emagn/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/02/Juhanii-Palassmaa.pdf [Accessed 14.1.16]

Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes Of The Skin. Chichester: Wiley:Academy, 2005

Figure:

Fig.1 http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41iUBRQBapL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg