Finding Merleau-Ponty in Architecture and in Place (October 2016)

In this chapter, I draw on Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy to explore environmental embodiment—the various lived ways, sensorily and motility-wise, that the body in its pre-reflective perceptual presence engages and synchronizes with the world at hand, especially its architectural and environmental aspects. First, I consider Merleau-Ponty’s interpretation of perception, giving particular attention to his claim that perception involves a lived dynamic between perceptual body and world such that aspects of the world—for example, the heavy hardness of a granite block or the cool smoothness of a chrome railing—are known because they immediately evoke in the lived body their experienced qualities. Second, I consider the architectural and environmental significance of what Merleau-Ponty calls body-subject—pre-reflective corporeal awareness expressed through action and typically in sync with and enmeshed in the physical world in which the action unfolds. I focus on the taken-for-granted sensibility of body-subject to manifest in extended ways over time and space. I ask how routine actions and behaviors of individuals coming together regularly in an environment can transform that environment into a place with a unique dynamic and character—a lived situation I term place ballet. For both perception and body-subject, I consider how qualities of the physical and designable world—for example, materiality, form, and spatiality—contribute to the lived body’s engagement with and actions in the world. Note: This chapter was written in 2014 for a proposed edited collection on Merleau-Ponty and architecture. Unfortunately, the editors did not find a publisher(though I was never officially informed of this fact). The chapter has been rewritten, revised, and updated; see the above entry: "Merleau-Ponty, Environmental Embodiment, and Place" (2022) "

2008

PhænEx, 2016

2020

Space, being omnipresent, is as much taken for granted as it is formative for the experience of everyday life. Acknowledging the experiential dimension of space, architecture has seen an increased interest in its lived quality, as opposed to pure formalism or functionalism. The phenomenological critique of architecture in particular, with its beginnings in the 1950s, has called for a commitment to the aspect of human experience, emphasising the role of the body. In this view, the question of the role of the body in how we experience architectural space arises. Any thinking about the experience of space is necessarily informed by how space itself is understood. Indeed, the conception of space has seen a significant shift within both culture and science since around the middle of the last century, and with it the way in which architects and artists deal with spatial relations. Based on the research combining a theoretical investigation with interviews and a central case study, it will...

" A building is the concretization of an intention, which is always – although usually unconsciously – based on a particular world-view. In fact, everything that we do is done according to the way we understand our being-in-the-world. Therefore, all our experiences and actions take place “inside” an ontological framework. Today, it seems incredibly difficult to identify a “common world-view” (at least in most Western countries). Thus, we tend to believe that human experiences are entirely personal, and therefore completely subjective and unpredictable. But is it still possible to find a common-ground among different architectural experiences? In “The Transcendent Unity of Religions”, Frithjof Schuon states that all religions share a common “esoteric” essence, while differing “exoterically” in form. In this paper, we propose transferring this notion to the realm of spatial experience, searching for an architectural theory based on concrete human experiences, but at the same time acknowledging the ontological framework of human life. Individual experiences are exoteric, and therefore specific, but they share a common esoteric essence. If we confront our experiences with those of others, we will be able to identify “coincidences” that point to the general structure of our being-in-the-world. This is the theoretical approach we wish to present in this paper. The best testimonies of specific experiences can be found in art, especially in the discursive descriptions of literature and poetry, which describe numerous “hows”. On the esoteric level, we find the “whys”, the existential roots of all individual experiences, as identified by the major metaphysical traditions. These exoteric and esoteric “testimonies” must be confronted with our own experiences, in an ongoing philosophical investigation. To study architecture is to study the spatial dimension of human existence. Architecture deals, literally, with our “place in the world”. “Place” cannot, however, be understood in mere physical terms; “place” is actually “existential space”, humanized space created by man, for man. Thus, it is impossible to address the meaning of architecture without addressing the meaning of being, since the former is part of the latter. On “Being and Time”, first published in 1927, Martin Heidegger states that the question of the meaning of being “has today been forgotten”[1]. His work was the main inspiration for Christian Norberg-Schulz’s “Architectural Phenomenology”, which opposed the mainly intellectual approach of modernism, turning, instead, to the reality of concrete experiences. Norberg-Schulz has “recovered” the notion that architecture is a prerequisite for human existence, but the question of the meaning of architecture remains unanswered, since the question of the meaning of being remains forgotten. Most architects maintain a purely “exoteric approach” to architecture and human existence as a whole, creating a superficial architecture which deals only with the “hows”, avoiding a deeper investigation towards the “whys”. This paper aims at introducing the metaphysical aspects of human existence in the architectural debate, in order to search for a deeper understanding of our spatial experience. Therefore, we propose an architectural theory which is neither a “system” nor a “methodology”, but, instead, a constant search for the meaning of our being-in-the-world. ISPA Conference - Ethics and Aesthetics of Architecture and The Environment - Newcastle, UK - July 2012; 07/2012"

From the Things Themselves: Architecture and Phenomenology, 2012

This book, made in Kyoto, includes 21 papers relating architecture to phenomenology, and vice-versa. The philosophies of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are revisited and experienced through a large array of architectural realizations: from the virtual world of Second Life, the poetical and spiritual worlds of Greek or Zen temples, Cistercian or Baroque churches, Chinese and Japanese gardens, to the work of contemporary architects. To the philosopher, it provides a precise analysis of concrete cases, thus permitting a testing of the relevance and effectiveness of salient concepts, both aesthetical and ethical. The architect, on the other hand, is presented with a reflexive gaze on everyday work, as well as the tools with which to rethink the reality of architectural practice. Texts by: Ross ANDERSON, Karan AUGUST, Jason CROW, Sylvain DE BLEECKERE, Hubert L. DREYFUS, FUJIMORI Terunobu , Phoebe GIANNISI, Vincent GIRAUD, Karsten HARRIES, Lena HOPSCH, Benoit JACQUET, KAKUNI Takashi , Rachel MCCANN, Santiago de ORDUNA, Alberto PEREZ-GOMEZ, Fernando QUESADA, Gilad RONNEN, Adam SHARR, TAKEYAMA Kiyoshi Sey , Dermott WALSH, Joanna WLASZYN, ZHUANG Yue.

International Journal of Architectural Engineering Technology, 2019

Until recently, architecture has been mostly evaluated over its stylistic and visual characteristics. Whereas, the architectural space is primarily vital and therefore, it should not be evaluated independently of its environment and users. Pallasmaa emphasizes on the significance of experience and connection with the environment in architecture. Phenomenology, which aims to create sensory perception, is about creating an abstract experience beyond tangibility. Sensing beyond physical entities in spatial experience deepens meaning. Buildings and cities, essentially provide the necessary view to understand and confront the human existence. It is, therefore, important for architecture to be seen as the subject of phenomenology. This paper explores the relationship between phenomenology and architectural space through experience, sensation, and meaning. It argues that the relationship between human and built environment will be strengthened to the extent that the mentioned features coul...

pp. 103–129, in: Architectures of Life and Death, edited by Andrej Radman and Stavros Kousoulas. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.., 2021

The built environment exerts an essential effect on life. Over the past decades, it has been greatly reconceptualised through various posthuman, ecosystemic, new materialist, material-discursive approaches, which explored the socio-spatial, technological, cognitive, relational, and affective relations that material arrangements, such as architectural ones, shape. As technē, architecture is intricately intertwined not only with processes of easing and facilitating (human) life, but also the management of dynamic processes involving both living and non-living matters. In view of the latter, architecture is ‘life by means other than life’ (Stiegler), shaping living matters by means of non-living matters. The chapter respectively surveys several streams of recent theoretical discourse that developed from Deleuze and Guattari’s as well as Foucault’s thoroughgoing reframing of the agency of matter on life-constituting processes. In the aim of reconsidering and repositioning architecture as a posthuman technique of existence, this cartography charts – with the help of a central navigational diagram – these co-evolving discursive streams in their differing topical-conceptual starting points, and their various converging and bifurcating lines of thinking, in the aim to elaborate on the novel conceptions they have helped distil in the pursuit of a fuller understanding of those material-discursive practices within the relational ecologies of architecture. (First presented at "Architectures of Life and Death'-conference, May 21 2019, TU Delft)