I think the best place to start understanding phenomenology in architecture is to read a short book called "The Eyes of the Skin." Its written by Juhani Palisma. Also read anything by Christian Norberg-Schulz or if you really want to get into it, Martin Heidegger.
As for architecture that relates to this, Stephen Holl is either hit or miss, but the Chapel of Saint Ignatius at Seattle University is pretty good. Also, I think a lot of Rem's buildings are influenced by phenomenology. I'd say that its not exactly a type of architecture, but rather a more refinement that incorporates experiential spaces within the design.
If you get bored with Shulz or can't comprehend Heidegger....There are a number of intriguing papers you can google....that compare Heidegger with Modern Day Systems and Information Theory, in which architecture tends to get brought up often. I think in short, it seems,....Phenomology cannot be applied so much as filter to look at Architetcure if the Architecture isn't tinkering with "context". That is about all I can figure out myself...
frascari's a great prof.
paslasma's boring as fuck.
norberg-schulz's dead.
and zumthor likes to throw fits and fire his entire office...
also, i think steven holl's chapel here in seattle, while beautiful, is an orgiastic schmorgasbord of phenomenae.
it's just too much, it's always reaching too far, and it's too difficult to sit during a wedding, architect or not.
however, were architects in the u.s. able to do 1/10 of what any of those guys could/can... we'd be in a much better state than we currently are.
Here's part of the introduction to the section on phenomonolgy from Leach:
"Phenomenology may be defined as the study of how phenomena appear. However, this is not limited to the visual domain. Phenomenology demands a receptivity to the full ontological potential of human experience. It therefore calls for a heightened receptivity of all the senses. Nor should this be perceived as some shallow, superficial level of reception. Phenomenology, as it was developed by Heidegger and Gadamer, necessarily entails deeper, interpretive dimension in the form of hermeneutics. To engage with architecture involves an openness not only to the realm of the sensory, but also to the potential revelation of some truth. Hermeneutics allows for the reception and understanding of that truth. The nature of this revelation varies from thinker to thinker. For Heidegger and Gadamer the work of art 'represents' some form of symbolic truth, while for Lefebvre the process takes on a overtly political twist. Within the lived experience Lefebvre claims that there are 'moments' which reveal the emancipatory capacity of potential situations.
The writers within this section have been concerned broadly with exploring the ontlogical significance of architecture. Space for them is to be perceived not as abstract, neutral space, but as the space of lived experience. Their project has been to reclaim an ontological dimension to the built environment, a dimension that has been eroded progressively, according to Lefebvre, since the invention of linear perspective. There has been a tendency to perceive space as increasingly abstract and remote from the ody and sensations. In priveleging the visual, perspective has impoverished our understanding of space. The other senses need to be addressed, and space needs to be perceived with all its phenomenological associations. Space should be experienced as much through the echoes of singing in the cathedral evoked by Lefebvre or the odour of dryin raisins in Bachelard's oneiric house, as it is through visual means of representation.
Phenomenology offers a depth model for understanding human existience, no less than structuralism or psychoanalysis. Yet the difference with strcturalism is revealed throughout the texts included here. Structuralism, in the form of semiology, operates merely at the level of signs. Phenomenology, meanwhile, claims to have recourse to a deeper symbolic level; it seeks to go beyond the codifying capacity of semiology to reveal a richer understanding of the world.There's a tendency to associate architects whose work engages the senses (vision, touch, sound, smell) with phenomonology, but I think one of the key things to phenomenology is that: basically, space is physically experienced, but is *not just physical space*, it's mental too. In other words, our experience of a space happens in our imaginations as much as in physical reality. It's that, there is a very real meaning to space, that because we are basically animals that are spatial, space as it is conceived and interpreted and understood through the experience of the occupant is as real as the physical built "bricks and mortar". Physical space is linked to a mental space through human experience. Alot of the time, people will talk about the experience of the space. So how it is used matters as much as what it is made of.
And I think, phenomenology is always about people. There's also always necessarily a social dimension to it, for Heidegger, for Lefebvre... Because space is never just some purely abstract meaningless thing... It takes on meaning because of *people* basically. We are basically social beings so our meaning relates not just to ourselves, but our connection to others through our physical, mental, and lived experiences...
Basically, as an architect, I think you're part phenomenologist if you are interested in the sensory / imaginary /experienced aspect of the space you are designing... If what is *real* to you is something more than physical material or things codified as signs.
One line from the Leach blurb there should be "There has been a tendency to perceive space as increasingly abstract and remote from the *body* and sensations."
There's definitely a correlation between phenomenology and the development of the senses (there's also a focus on the kinesthetic). But, yes, moving beyond the senses towards methods that trigger and/or create emotions and memories is probably one of the biggest and most difficult aspects of phenomenology in architecture.
Husserl started it all.....expanded by Merleau-Ponty.....architecturalized by Heidegger....poeticized by Bachelard...senualized by Pallasmaa....starchitected by Aalto, Holl, Zumthor, and (although not openly) SANAA
start studying in that order and you'll be an expert in no time...
if phenomonology is about the intentional ie derived from the idea that conciousness is intentional and the every desire, belief, etc is related to an object and that therefore, the mental phenomonology is separated from the physical, then the building(if one considers it a physical phenomenon) does not fall under the heading of phenomology. The individual perceiving it would have the phenomological experience relating his/her consciousness on the object. Therefore, depending on the individual the experience changes and the same phenomological experience that you have at a steven holl building, my brother can have at a las vegas casino.
I think for phenomenologists, physical and mental spaces are always necessarily intertwined, and that link is lived experience (which embodies both the physical and mental together). Lefebvre for example describes how the physical, the mental, and the lived are all interconnected. The physical surface and material of space impacts the space in our imagination, physical matter shapes our mental space, and our mental space (including our collective memories, our political and cultural imagination, etc.) influence how we read space...
But you bring up a good point regarding the subjectivity of the experience of space. If, for example, we all bring different cultural and other mental baggage with us to a space, isn't each person's emotional experience or understanding of that physical space (sensory experiences) different from one person to the next?
I think Lefebvre might agree with that somewhat, but not fully, there are still essential truths and those relate to the fact that we are human beings. Edward Soja, the postmodern urban geographer, likes to use Lefebvre in this way alot, he talks about these ideas of perceived or physical space (which Soja calls "firstspace", Lefebvre's "spatial practice"), conceived or mental space (which Soja calls "secondspace", Lefebvre's "representations of space"), and lived or social space (Soja's "thirdspace", or Lefebvre's "spaces of representation"). For Soja, the idea of "lived space" is that bridge between perceived and conceived spaces. That's his "thirdspace", which is really just an application of the same things that Lefebvre says... Soja uses Lefebvre to critique what he sees as our current limited conception of space as either A/ physical material or B/ mental construct. I think both Lefebvre and Soja use these ideas about space to articulate that space has a political dimension to it, in part to show that mental and physical spaces can be sites of power or resistance...
But I think that Lefebvre and Soja wouldn't argue that every person experiences space differently either. People are all tied together through social interaction, through history, and through their physical environment... the lived experience that connects us... and we cannot escape this. Therefore, as spatial beings, our reading of space is always related to other people. In other words, we are all culturally loaded somehow...
Ive read schulz and heidegger's text and I think I can start to comprehend it now.
Pardon me if im wrong, but I see this phenomenology as a perfection in a specific context, which if added or subtracted will lose its intensity.
Like a total understanding of a requirements, in a given environment. And then we take a step back and frame the whole picture, and we say ... thats phenomenal.
I think what bRink is talking about make sense when a phenomena is subjective to every person cultural background, but is this kind of phenomena the same from the kind of experience you get from visiting, for example: traditional chinese market, or standing under cherry blossom tree during spring in japan?
Im talking about the spirit of a place which captivated anybody whether they're from different cultural background.
check out Herbert Spiegelberg's "The Phenomenological Movement" for the best review of it all. HS was one of the American experts on the Phenomenological Movement, and (I think) studied with Husserl and Heidegger in Europe. The book (and all of his) is a great resource.
and yes, Merleau-Ponty is brilliant on this. There is the M-P Aesthetics Reader which is a great one-volume collection with commentary and supplemental articles. Pretty much all you need from him on the subject unless you get WAY into it/him.
Broadly speaking, classical philosophy tries to talk about 'things'. It asks which are the 'real', most 'basic' things and then describes their properties. For example, here we have a table. It is a table first and foremost. Only after recognising its 'tableness' do we say that it is brown, smooth, heavy.
Phenomenology starts from experiences. It says, 'I am experiencing shades of brownness with my eyes, smoothness and weightiness with my hands.' Then, after having recognised these experiences, the term 'table' may become of use.
Phenomenology
Can someone bring the light to me and help me understand phenomenology in architecture >.
What class is this for?
I think the best place to start understanding phenomenology in architecture is to read a short book called "The Eyes of the Skin." Its written by Juhani Palisma. Also read anything by Christian Norberg-Schulz or if you really want to get into it, Martin Heidegger.
As for architecture that relates to this, Stephen Holl is either hit or miss, but the Chapel of Saint Ignatius at Seattle University is pretty good. Also, I think a lot of Rem's buildings are influenced by phenomenology. I'd say that its not exactly a type of architecture, but rather a more refinement that incorporates experiential spaces within the design.
to the things themselves.
look up writing by Marco Frascari...that guy is downright Phenomenological.
i also second funmash..."The Eyes of the Skin" is a great book.
I would start......... with a dictionary.
Zumthor, both buildings and writings are relevant to this thread.
If you get bored with Shulz or can't comprehend Heidegger....There are a number of intriguing papers you can google....that compare Heidegger with Modern Day Systems and Information Theory, in which architecture tends to get brought up often. I think in short, it seems,....Phenomology cannot be applied so much as filter to look at Architetcure if the Architecture isn't tinkering with "context". That is about all I can figure out myself...
Gravitas, you must have some dictionary.
frascari's a great prof.
paslasma's boring as fuck.
norberg-schulz's dead.
and zumthor likes to throw fits and fire his entire office...
also, i think steven holl's chapel here in seattle, while beautiful, is an orgiastic schmorgasbord of phenomenae.
it's just too much, it's always reaching too far, and it's too difficult to sit during a wedding, architect or not.
however, were architects in the u.s. able to do 1/10 of what any of those guys could/can... we'd be in a much better state than we currently are.
*pallasmaa
There is a good introductory section on phenomenology here in this reader: neil leach. rethinkin architecture: a reader in cultural theory
"Phenomenology may be defined as the study of how phenomena appear. However, this is not limited to the visual domain. Phenomenology demands a receptivity to the full ontological potential of human experience. It therefore calls for a heightened receptivity of all the senses. Nor should this be perceived as some shallow, superficial level of reception. Phenomenology, as it was developed by Heidegger and Gadamer, necessarily entails deeper, interpretive dimension in the form of hermeneutics. To engage with architecture involves an openness not only to the realm of the sensory, but also to the potential revelation of some truth. Hermeneutics allows for the reception and understanding of that truth. The nature of this revelation varies from thinker to thinker. For Heidegger and Gadamer the work of art 'represents' some form of symbolic truth, while for Lefebvre the process takes on a overtly political twist. Within the lived experience Lefebvre claims that there are 'moments' which reveal the emancipatory capacity of potential situations.Here's part of the introduction to the section on phenomonolgy from Leach:
The writers within this section have been concerned broadly with exploring the ontlogical significance of architecture. Space for them is to be perceived not as abstract, neutral space, but as the space of lived experience. Their project has been to reclaim an ontological dimension to the built environment, a dimension that has been eroded progressively, according to Lefebvre, since the invention of linear perspective. There has been a tendency to perceive space as increasingly abstract and remote from the ody and sensations. In priveleging the visual, perspective has impoverished our understanding of space. The other senses need to be addressed, and space needs to be perceived with all its phenomenological associations. Space should be experienced as much through the echoes of singing in the cathedral evoked by Lefebvre or the odour of dryin raisins in Bachelard's oneiric house, as it is through visual means of representation.
Phenomenology offers a depth model for understanding human existience, no less than structuralism or psychoanalysis. Yet the difference with strcturalism is revealed throughout the texts included here. Structuralism, in the form of semiology, operates merely at the level of signs. Phenomenology, meanwhile, claims to have recourse to a deeper symbolic level; it seeks to go beyond the codifying capacity of semiology to reveal a richer understanding of the world.There's a tendency to associate architects whose work engages the senses (vision, touch, sound, smell) with phenomonology, but I think one of the key things to phenomenology is that: basically, space is physically experienced, but is *not just physical space*, it's mental too. In other words, our experience of a space happens in our imaginations as much as in physical reality. It's that, there is a very real meaning to space, that because we are basically animals that are spatial, space as it is conceived and interpreted and understood through the experience of the occupant is as real as the physical built "bricks and mortar". Physical space is linked to a mental space through human experience. Alot of the time, people will talk about the experience of the space. So how it is used matters as much as what it is made of.
And I think, phenomenology is always about people. There's also always necessarily a social dimension to it, for Heidegger, for Lefebvre... Because space is never just some purely abstract meaningless thing... It takes on meaning because of *people* basically. We are basically social beings so our meaning relates not just to ourselves, but our connection to others through our physical, mental, and lived experiences...
Basically, as an architect, I think you're part phenomenologist if you are interested in the sensory / imaginary /experienced aspect of the space you are designing... If what is *real* to you is something more than physical material or things codified as signs.
Rereading that, there are so many typos there...
One line from the Leach blurb there should be "There has been a tendency to perceive space as increasingly abstract and remote from the *body* and sensations."
I started with Merleau-Ponty and hes still one of the tops,
A+ for bRink
There's definitely a correlation between phenomenology and the development of the senses (there's also a focus on the kinesthetic). But, yes, moving beyond the senses towards methods that trigger and/or create emotions and memories is probably one of the biggest and most difficult aspects of phenomenology in architecture.
Husserl started it all.....expanded by Merleau-Ponty.....architecturalized by Heidegger....poeticized by Bachelard...senualized by Pallasmaa....starchitected by Aalto, Holl, Zumthor, and (although not openly) SANAA
start studying in that order and you'll be an expert in no time...
if phenomonology is about the intentional ie derived from the idea that conciousness is intentional and the every desire, belief, etc is related to an object and that therefore, the mental phenomonology is separated from the physical, then the building(if one considers it a physical phenomenon) does not fall under the heading of phenomology. The individual perceiving it would have the phenomological experience relating his/her consciousness on the object. Therefore, depending on the individual the experience changes and the same phenomological experience that you have at a steven holl building, my brother can have at a las vegas casino.
Questions of Perception by Pallasmaa/Holl/Perez-Gomez has just been rereleased and right on target here.
although already been iterated, i place my vote with Merleau-Ponty as a good starter. I thought his book was fairly clear on the topic.
vado,
I think for phenomenologists, physical and mental spaces are always necessarily intertwined, and that link is lived experience (which embodies both the physical and mental together). Lefebvre for example describes how the physical, the mental, and the lived are all interconnected. The physical surface and material of space impacts the space in our imagination, physical matter shapes our mental space, and our mental space (including our collective memories, our political and cultural imagination, etc.) influence how we read space...
But you bring up a good point regarding the subjectivity of the experience of space. If, for example, we all bring different cultural and other mental baggage with us to a space, isn't each person's emotional experience or understanding of that physical space (sensory experiences) different from one person to the next?
I think Lefebvre might agree with that somewhat, but not fully, there are still essential truths and those relate to the fact that we are human beings. Edward Soja, the postmodern urban geographer, likes to use Lefebvre in this way alot, he talks about these ideas of perceived or physical space (which Soja calls "firstspace", Lefebvre's "spatial practice"), conceived or mental space (which Soja calls "secondspace", Lefebvre's "representations of space"), and lived or social space (Soja's "thirdspace", or Lefebvre's "spaces of representation"). For Soja, the idea of "lived space" is that bridge between perceived and conceived spaces. That's his "thirdspace", which is really just an application of the same things that Lefebvre says... Soja uses Lefebvre to critique what he sees as our current limited conception of space as either A/ physical material or B/ mental construct. I think both Lefebvre and Soja use these ideas about space to articulate that space has a political dimension to it, in part to show that mental and physical spaces can be sites of power or resistance...
But I think that Lefebvre and Soja wouldn't argue that every person experiences space differently either. People are all tied together through social interaction, through history, and through their physical environment... the lived experience that connects us... and we cannot escape this. Therefore, as spatial beings, our reading of space is always related to other people. In other words, we are all culturally loaded somehow...
i wonder if the shared lived experience is doing more to disconnect us?
Husserl's Cartesian Meditations isn't that difficult of a read if you go at it slowly.
Ive read schulz and heidegger's text and I think I can start to comprehend it now.
Pardon me if im wrong, but I see this phenomenology as a perfection in a specific context, which if added or subtracted will lose its intensity.
Like a total understanding of a requirements, in a given environment. And then we take a step back and frame the whole picture, and we say ... thats phenomenal.
Am I making sense?
Sorry for my bad english
Thanks for all the input guys..
I think what bRink is talking about make sense when a phenomena is subjective to every person cultural background, but is this kind of phenomena the same from the kind of experience you get from visiting, for example: traditional chinese market, or standing under cherry blossom tree during spring in japan?
Im talking about the spirit of a place which captivated anybody whether they're from different cultural background.
SANAA vs Steven Holl vs Alvara Siza phenomenological death match
check out Herbert Spiegelberg's "The Phenomenological Movement" for the best review of it all. HS was one of the American experts on the Phenomenological Movement, and (I think) studied with Husserl and Heidegger in Europe. The book (and all of his) is a great resource.
and yes, Merleau-Ponty is brilliant on this. There is the M-P Aesthetics Reader which is a great one-volume collection with commentary and supplemental articles. Pretty much all you need from him on the subject unless you get WAY into it/him.
when I said 'review' I meant 'overview'
Broadly speaking, classical philosophy tries to talk about 'things'. It asks which are the 'real', most 'basic' things and then describes their properties. For example, here we have a table. It is a table first and foremost. Only after recognising its 'tableness' do we say that it is brown, smooth, heavy.
Phenomenology starts from experiences. It says, 'I am experiencing shades of brownness with my eyes, smoothness and weightiness with my hands.' Then, after having recognised these experiences, the term 'table' may become of use.
But IANAP.
wuts IANAP?
IANAP = I Am Not A Professional.
Thanks, agfa, for that description. Very apt, IMO (psst, that's In My Opinion).
siza is a functionalist.
what's the function of that slumped concrete canopy he did?
well he said it not me. im just a vehicle.
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