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Senses in Architecture
Senses in Architecture
A research about the senses in relation to architecture and their status of importance in current
architecture.
„Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation takes
place through the senses”
Juhani Pallasmaa1
1
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
1
Senses in architecture_________________________________________________________1
Introduction________________________________________________________________3
The senses__________________________________________________________________3
Definition_______________________________________________________________________3
Overview_______________________________________________________________________3
Conclusion______________________________________________________________________9
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Introduction
At first, the question of senses in architecture seems to be unnecessary. Buildings are rather functional
constructs that, if possible, should include an aesthetical component. Some architects try to fulfil the
function requirements and after that focus on the shape that will give the building their individual style
and by that its acknowledgment in society.
But it is not satisfying for the users to translate the program of demands into shape and assume their
content. Besides the functional demands the question for design should be how the people feel inside
the building and how they are going to experience the space. Not only in terms of how the space looks,
but also how it touches, how it smells, sounds and maybe even tastes.
Architecture is a multi-sensory experience. 2 Architects should make use of this fact to create buildings
that are more intense, more exciting and profound than three dimensional objects that are waiting to be
photographed for the latest magazines and addressing the vision only.
In this essay an overview of the five main senses and their relation both to architecture and to each
other is given. A collection of examples will underline the difference between sensory architecture and
a visual understanding of architecture. A short excurse to interactive architecture will lead to the
conclusion of this essay.
The senses
Definition
Senses are
a : the faculty of perceiving by means of sense organs
b : a specialized function or mechanism (as sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch) by which an animal
(or human) receives and responds to external or internal stimuli 3
Overview
The five main senses are vision, taste, touch, smell, and hearing. But it is agreed that there are at least
seven senses for humans, and a minimum of two more in other species.
Further human senses or sense systems are thermoception the sense of heat which uses the skin
including internal skin passages, and nociception, the sense of pain.
2
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
3
Merriam Webster online dictionary: sense
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Or, more important for architecture, Equilibrioception, the vestibular sense, that senses the balance of
the body over liquid in the inner ear, and Proprioception, the kinesthetic sense, that gives the body the
awareness of where its parts are located. 4
Thought can also be regarded a sense. With it we understand, evaluate and process experinces. 5
Vision has a strong connection to architecture. The first impression we get from architecture relies
most of the time on the first view that we get on it. And still we perceive architecture with all our
senses. In the following paragraph examples for each sense individually explain its importance in
architecture and the possible impact on us.
Already in early times the vision was the leading sense. Plato regarded vision as humanity’s greatest
gift.6 Until today, sight prevailed on top of the hierarchy of the senses and our technological culture
has separated the senses even further. “Vision and hearing are now the privileged sociable senses,
whereas the other three are considered archaic sensory remnants with a merely private function, and
they are usually suppressed by the code of culture.” 7
With the technological development our world has become a lot faster than it used to be. Screens,
advertisements, radios. Constantly our senses are triggered and it seems like time and space are fused
by speed. The only sense that can keep the pace of this development is sight.
As a result architectural design is meant to please this sense. This should not imply that architects
focus only on the nice picture of their design but some of them are just not balanced in terms of the
sensual possibilities. Whereas other architects focused on the visual component of their design but
conscious or unconsciously built architecture that did affect several other senses. Le Corbusier with
the statement that “Architecture is the masterly, correct magnificent play of masses brought together in
light”8 is a good example. His statement is clearly leading to an architecture for the eye but with his
sculpturing talent and his sense for materiality he prevented his buildings from turning into sensory
reduction.
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense
5
Hekkert, P. (2005/2006)
6
Plato (360 BC) in Jay, M. (1994)
7
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
8
Le Corbusier (1959)
4
A new mode of vision
So there are several methods to dethrone the sense of vision. One opportunity is to combine the sight
with other senses. This is already applied in the same media that brought the vision to its current
status. Visual art, TV and even architecture try to use the fast created images to stimulate new
experiences to achieve what David Levin calls a new mode of looking. 9
It is a contextual, associative look that stimulates also our other senses over a visual component. So it
uses in fact a combination of senses that can bring back a sensory balance.
Like both Merleau-Ponty and Pallasmaa argue the importance lies in the interaction of the senses to
create sensory architecture in opposition to the prevailing visual understanding of architecture. 10 11
A special case is the lack of vision. Architecture is still perceivable for blind people. Over the other
senses. The lack of one sense stimulates the others to develop.
Still they perceive architecture in a different way. So designing a building for their use is a very
special task. In several interviews blind people describe their feelings about architecture.
“The outside can be sensed with hearing and description. We can hear the wind blow off the building
and sense the size of it that way. I tend not to like the smooth glass and steel because it sounds very
hallow and cold. I can hear it creak and moan and groan. I listen for how the wind or breeze flows
around an older structure and I can then sense the little crevices and hallows.
I am still learning about my world through lose of sight. I feel that the more questions I ask then I can
learn how different things sound.”
Here the author writes only about the exterior but the same goes for the interior, lighting and different
materials.
“Open spaces are a double edge sword for us. Open space gives us a sense of freedom and on the other
hand it can be too noisy for us. Sound is a primary source of our world.
Inside rock walls tend to muffle the sound which isn’t a help for us.
Brick seems to be a little better
High ceilings make the rooms sound huge.
Wood panelling seems to hold the noise out. If I am in the laundry room which has a wood wall
around it I have a hard time hearing what is being said to me from the other room. And this is hard to
do because my loved ones say I can hear the grass grow.
9
Levin, D.M. (1988)
10
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964)
11
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
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My preferences are rooms that aren’t too small because I feel restricted and enclosed. Feeling trapped
is the best way I can describe it.
I like walls with some texture because then I can feel it and get a sense of what it looks like through
that sense.
Lighting is very important when designing for the visually impaired. It depends on the person too
much light can hurt and not enough makes it too dark. Fluorescent lights are glaring and annoying for
us.
In a utopia each building would have a plaque describing the building for us.” 12
Some of these descriptions are too detailed for non impaired people. But some of them are sensed in
the same way. Because of the visual dominance they tend to be suppressed by the visual impression,
but still they are supporting the experience of the space.
Feeling shape
We can feel if a room is brightly lid or if it is dim. In the same way as we can feel the sunlight on our
skin. So light is a good method to address touch in architecture. But the skin can sense more things. It
can read texture, weight, density and temperature of matter. 13
By touching material we experience more than by the bare gaze at it. Structures have a visual effect
but by touching them we feel more components of their construct. Hardness, Depth, Temperature
these components can vary in materials that give the same visual impression.
Two different examples of architecture can be the holocaust memorial in Berlin from Peter Eisenman
or the interior of the iWeb by Kas Oosterhuis. Both the extremely smooth concrete and the sprayed
foam layer just invite to be touched. Though our vision leads us there only the touch is actually
satisfying our curiosity.
12
American Foundation fort he blind
13
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
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In the next step this desire can be used to give further impressions. By touch associations can be
inspired. Like a pebble polished by the sea is not only pleasurable to the hand, it expresses the process
of its formation. It is time turned into shape.
A building’s soundtrack
14
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
15
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
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Hearing nothing
One of the most exciting auditory experiences in architecture is tranquillity. In the past the tool of
silence has been used to create great atmospheres. The silence in the Pantheon combined with the
great view to the roof is indescribable. The absence of sound is actually creating the atmosphere.
To name a more current design the Jewish museum by Daniel Libeskind is playing with the same
phenomenon. In the museum complex he designed special rooms called voids in which he installed
different installations. In one copper plates in the shape of faces are laying on the ground of a very
high room. The visitor has to walk over the faces and a noise echoed by the high walls will fill up the
room. The installation is also meant as a reminder to the holocaust and the sound should make aware
of all the individuals that had to suffer. This is a very dramatic usage but in other simple installations it
can still have a nice effect also if it is a birds song recording in an interior garden or a ground covered
with sand and it is possible to hear the sound of it while walking over it.
One in a million
We need only a little amount of molecules of substance to trigger an impulse of smell in a nerve end,
and we can smell more than ten thousand different scents. If it is a new scent it is possible to
remember the scent and identify it again later.
Since it is not possible to name all the odours, spatial qualities are associated. That is why the
expression “it is a hospital smell” is familiar to most people. Also the own smell of a person is so
familiar that it is possible to recognize your shirt out of 100 identical and your flat when you come
home just by taking a deep breath.
These associations could be used in architecture. To stimulate emotions, to guide, or to distract.
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In the same way as every city has its own smell every building could have the same. It will end up as a
difficult task, since smell is so sensitive that for example a mixture of scents in one room is not
possible. But the effect could be as great as the effort.
To the subtopic of the smell I found another book in the library but couldn’t borrow it yet….
The human tongue can only distinguish among 7-8 distinct types of taste, while the nose can
distinguish among hundreds of substances, even in minute quantities. Olfaction amplifies the sense of
taste.16 This rule is also applicable to taste in architecture. It turns out clear that there is not a literal
taste of architecture since the ferry tale of Hansel and Gretel. And still architecture can stimulate the
sense of taste. In this case together with the sense of vision not with smell.
Vision becomes transferred to taste. “Certain colours and delicate details evoke oral sensation. A
delicately coloured, polished stone surface is subliminally sensed by the tongue” 17
So the taste in architecture does not literally mean to kneel down and try to eat the stone bricks, but it
means that architecture can make our mouth water just by the sight of appealing materials.
16
www.wikipeida.com:scent
17
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
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Conclusion
Using senses in architecture is not new. But the level of perfection is by far not reached. “ Architecture
reflects, materialises and eternalises ideas and images of ideal life.” 18 Today we aim at the construction
of intelligent buildings that help their users and communicate that. So the method of communicating
will always be an important issue. It is easier to communicate in the same language and with the same
method than responding only in one or two ways, where five a re possible.
The usage of some senses like smell and taste appears rather difficult, but architecture is developing
very quickly at the moment, so one can be confident that appropriate methods will develop to
incorporate also theses senses into architecture.
References
Levin, D.M. (1988), The Opening of Vision – Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation, New York and
London, Routledge
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1964), Le Visible et l’invisible; Pairs, quoted in Hubert L Dreyfus & Patricia
Allen Dreyfus, Translators’ introduction; in Merleau-Ponty, M. Sense and Non-Sense, Evanston,
Northwestern University Press
18
Pallasmaa, J. (1994)
10
Pallasmaa, J. (1994), The eyes of the skin – Architecture and the Senses; Great Britain, Academy
Editions
Plato (360 BC), Timaeus; in Jay, M. (1994), Downcast Eyes – The Denigration of Vision in
Twentieth-Century French Thought, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press
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