Pallasmaa

How can we understand and determine a person’s experience of architecture?

At best, I feel that we are simply estimating based off of research, conversations and personal experience. We cannot fully comprehend the thoughts and emotions of anyone but ourselves, but we can immerse ourselves in “their world” to try and gain a better understanding. I think of my case study architect, Gordon Bunshaft, who designed a pretty controversial library atYaleUniversity. While he built something that he and his clients were pleased with, others had entirely different experiences with the library. I think humans differ so greatly that we simply cannot determine a person’s experience, but we can do our research and try to, at best, understand and please the majority.

 

How do you interpret Pallassmaa’s ideas about the following?

All art eminates from the body…..

I thought it was interesting to realize that humans are the only beings to create and understand art. Our existence is essentially limited to our bodies; all of the art we create and experience takes place within us, and each of us experiences things differently.

 

Early childhood memories inform us and form us as we grow up….

I think Pallasmaa realizes the power of our memories in terms of experiencing art and architecture. His mention of childhood ones was intriguing for me; he explains how we tend to remember feelings of spaces from our childhood instead of concrete details. Children are taught at a very young age to categorize things (and emotions) in simple ways—“good” vs “bad”, and these memories are the ones that have a heavy hand in shaping us. The first example that comes to mind is the fact that I hate butterflies; once when I was very young a butterfly landed on my face, and I didn’t like it. It was “bad”. Now that I’m older, however, I understand how butterflies function, why they perform certain actions, and how they are beneficial to the environment, but I still hate them. The experience through my adolescent filter and because of my lack of complex understanding was reduced to something very simple yet has stuck with me into adulthood.

 

Other arts create the importance of place and experience…..

I feel that Pallasmaa emphasizes memories as important to our spatial experiences; whether or not we think they do, we retain all of the experiences we have and they do collectively affect our future ones. Much like how our childhood memories, we do not remember the small details (door frames, windows, etc.) but rather the feelings and emotions attached to them. Art, then, needs to be more about the experience than the actual thing, to be something that will influence how important it is within our memories, and how they will affect our future ones.

 

Loneliness and silence of buildings…….

I felt that Pallasmaa placed too much emphasis on the poetic aspect of architecture; while it is often something that resonates with our emotions like a work of art, I felt that he was tending towards ignoring the practical side of buildings. We do not go to a building simply to have a personal connection to the space. Instead, we are stopping by to perhaps grab coffee and catch up with an old friend, sit angrily for another hour at the DMV, or unwind at home after a long day at work. We are more affected by the people and activity around us in a space and what we are doing there than by the architecture alone. Of course, the architecture shapes the experiences and emotions taking place within a space, but it is not the loneliness and silence that gives them meaning.

 -Talisa