The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses

Book by Juhani Pallasmaa
  1. ​Thin ice​
  2. ​Extensions of the tactile sense​
  3. ​The computer creates a distance​
  4. ​The quality of an architectural reality​
  5. ​A hierarchical system of sense​
  1. ​125 Best Architecture Books​
  2. ​To see, to caress​
  3. ​His ear in his toes​
  4. ​A set of potential photographs​
  5. ​The deeper unconscious intentions​
  6. ​The body image​
  7. ​Thermal Delight in Architecture​
  8. ​They can smell the wood​
  1. Thin ice

    Today the 'depth of our being' stands on thin ice.

    From Steven Holl's foreword.

  2. Extensions of the tactile sense

    "Touch is the parent of our eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It is the sense which became differentiated into the others." — Ashley Montagu

    All the senses, including vision, are extensions of the tactile sense; the senses are specializations of skin tissue, and all sensory experiences are modes of touching, and thus related to tactility.

  3. The computer creates a distance

    Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capacities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive visual manipulation, a retinal journey. The computer creates a distance between the maker and the object, whereas drawing by hand as well as working with models put the designer in a haptic contact with the object, or space.

  4. The quality of an architectural reality

    The quality of an architectural reality seems to depend fundamentally on peripheral vision, which enfolds the subject in the space...neurological investigations suggest that our processes of perception and cognition advance from the instantaneous grasp of entities towards the identification of details, rather than the other way around.

  5. A hierarchical system of sense

    During the Renaissance, the five senses were understood to form a hierarchical system from the highest sense of vision down to touch. Vision was correlated to fire and light, hearing to air, smell to vapour, taste to water, and touch to earth.

    1. ​Avatar: The Last Airbender​
    2. ​Prometheus​
    3. ​Blessed by the four elements​

    Knowledge has become analogous with clear vision and light is regarded as the metaphor for truth.

    Vision was correlated to fire and light.

    Consider Prometheus. Fire is light is seeing is knowledge.

    But fire is also heat.

  6. The inhumanity of contemporary architecture

    The inhumanity of contemporary architecture and cities can be understood as the consequence of the neglect of the body and the senses, and an imbalance in our sensory system.

    The art of the eye has certainly produced imposing and thought-provoking structures, but it has not facilitated human rootedness in the world.

    Modernist design at large has housed the intellect and the eye, but it has left the body and the other senses, as well as our memories, imagination and dreams, homeless.

    1. ​1º2º3º4º​

    Probably the best summary of Pallasmaa's central thesis.

  7. Sonorisms IV

    'an unending rainfall of images' (Calvino)
    a cancerous growth of vision
    we are unable to see or imagine life behind these walls
    the patina of wear
    to carve a volume into the void of darkness
    time turned into shape

  8. Stage sets for the eye

    With the loss of tactility, measures and details crafted for the human body – and particularly for the hand – architectural structures become repulsively flat, sharp-edged, immaterial and unreal. The detachment of construction from the realities of matter and craft further turns architecture into stage sets for the eye, into a scenography devoid of the authenticity of matter and construction. The sense of 'aura', the authority of presence, that Walter Benjamin regards as a necessary quality for an authentic piece of art, has been lost.

  9. Deep shadows and darkness are essential

    During overpowering emotional experiences, we tend to close off the distancing sense of vision; we close the eyes when dreaming, listening to music, or caressing our beloved ones. Deep shadows and darkness are essential, because they dim the sharpness of vision, make depth and distance ambiguous, and invite unconscious peripheral vision and tactile fantasy.

    1. ​In Praise of Shadows​
  10. The street of an old town

    How much more mysterious and inviting is the street of an old town with its alternating realms of darkness and light than are the brightly and evenly lit streets of today! Homogenous bright light paralyzes the imagination in the same way that homogenization of space weakens the experience of being, and wipes away the sense of place. The human eye is most perfectly tuned for twilight rather than bright daylight.

  11. To carve a volume into the void of darkness

    The nocturnal sound is a reminder of human solitude and mortality, and it makes one conscious of the entire slumbering city. Anyone who has become entranced by the sound of dripping water in the darkness of a ruin can attest to the extraordinary capacity of the ear to carve a volume into the void of darkness. The space traced by the ear in the darkness becomes a cavity sculpted directly in the interior of the mind.

  12. Time turned into shape

    A pebble polished by waves is pleasurable to the hand, not only because of its soothing shape, but because it expresses the slow process of its formation; a perfect pebble on the palm materializes duration, it is time turned into shape.

  13. Authentic architectural experiences

    Authentic architectural experiences consist of approaching or confronting a building, rather than the formal apprehension of a facade; of the act of entering, and not simply the visual design of the door; of looking in or out through a window, rather than the window itself as a material object; or of occupying the sphere of warmth, rather than the fireplace as an object of visual design.

    Architectural space is lived space rather than physical space, and lived space always transcends geometry and measurability.

  14. From body to body

    During the design process, the architect gradually internalizes the landscape, the entire context, and the functional requirements as well as his/her conceived building: movement, balance and scale are felt unconsciously through the body of the observer, the experience mirrors the bodily sensations of the maker. Consequently, architecture is communication from the body of the architect directly to the body of the person who encounters the work, perhaps centuries later.

    1. ​In the walls and mosses​