Pallasmaa

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

By understanding the person – who they are, what they believe in, and what they represent.  I was struck by the last paragraph of the text, entitled, “The Beginning,” where Pallasmaa recounts his commission for the design of a church.  “Only a heathen can design a really expressive church,” Pallasmaa writes, as he explains that only someone who is being “newly introduced to the dimensions of faith” could successfully represent the teachings of the church in its architecture.  I wish this paragraph were longer, because I really believe that this touches on what I believe is the best answer to the above question.  I agree that someone learning about a new faith would be a great candidate to design for it. In fact, that’s what the Priest at the Chapel of St Ignatius in Seattle told us on our class trip last month – Architect Steven Holl spent a great deal of time learning about the rituals of the Catholic Mass so that he could design a building that best accomplished the needs of the parish.  He succeeded.  In my research for Brasília, I learned that Oscar Niemeyer, who designed one of the most beautiful churches in the world in the Cathedral in Brasília, was and still is an Atheist, but he took the time to learn about the needs of the church to make sure his design was a success.  So there’s no denying that someone who cares enough to learn about the needs of the client and how they will utilize the architecture that they will be living, working, playing, or worshiping in, will be more successful than one who does not take the time to collect this information.  My question, however, is why Pallasmaa did not address those who live the life of the church.  Yes, if I am just learning about the church, I can design well.  But what if I’ve been a practicing Catholic all my life, and the rituals of the Mass are already embedded in my mind?  Will I design as well or better than the person who is new to the rituals, or will I be a worse designer, because I take the rituals for granted?  While this question looms, the fact remains that the only way we as designers can even begin to attempt to understand how a person will experience architecture is to get to know them, their interests, their rituals and their views about things.  Only then can we attempt to design something that will truly be meaningful to that (those groups of ) individual(s.)

 

2 | How do you interpret Pallasmaa’s ideas about the following?

a | All art emanates from the body

For the most part, art is what you want it to be.  I’m immediately reminded of the picture where if you look at it one way, it’s a rabbit, but if you look at another way, it looks like a duck.  And it never fails, some people see the rabbit, some see the duck, and that is a phenomenon that, in its most basic element, represents the essence of art in all forms.  Take music, for example – I like some of that Indie style music, I like Mumford and Sons, I like some country music.  My brother, on the other hand, hates all of those styles, but he likes his heavy metal.  I hate the heavy metal.  But we have common ground in that we both enjoy alternative and classic rock.  Every person has a different taste.  The screaming death metal or whatever he likes is presented in the exact same way to him as it is to me.  The song doesn’t change depending on the person it’s playing to – not physically, anyway.  But it does change in the mind of the listener as the listener processes the music.  Just as every person has a particular taste in music, they too have a particular taste in literature, sculpture, paintings, drawings, dance, and, yes, architecture.  In every case, the art being presented to the person remains constant, but only when it is absorbed and processed by the art-goer does it become something that can evoke emotion or, at the very least, opinions.  That is what is meant by “art emanating from the body.”

b | Early childhood memories inform and form us as we grow up

I don’t believe that we should cut this concept off at childhood.  I believe that memories continue to inform us as time passes, regardless of our age, because we are constantly having new experiences as life progresses.  Sure, when I was a kid, I liked playing in forts like every other kid.  When I was designing a K-8 Montessori school for my undergrad design studio, you’d better believe I threw lofts, forts and cubbies into that thing.  I remembered feeling safe, secure, almost invincible in my forts – that was a great feeling – it let my imagination run wherever it wanted.  So naturally, I want to create stimulating environments like that when I have the chance all these years later as a designer.  But right now, I’m designing an apartment complex in my design studio and, while there are some childhood experiences that I suppose are subconsciously driving my design, a lot of the design choices I’m making are based on my experiences in living in an apartment.  Well, until two months ago, I had never lived in an apartment building before.  So yes, I suppose I still am trying to make areas within the design project feel safe and secure, but I’m also looking back on very recent memories to assist in the practical design for the apartments.  Life is one big learning process – it’s never complete – and everything we do and everything we learn from throughout our whole life is constantly informing what we do in the future.

c | Other arts create the importance of place and experience

In literature, when I think of Shakespeare, my first thought is always my high school literature class, with the triangular wooden tables, Ms H teaching up front, and sitting next to two folks who I couldn’t stand because they would never shut up during class…  In music, when I hear most country music, I think back, again, to high school – driving down the country roads of rural Wisconsin on a cool autumn night, windows rolled down, the smell of freshly-chopped alfalfa all around…  When I think of modern sculptures, I think of being at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden with a good friend of mine, visiting Minneapolis for the first time…  The point is, in all these arts, there are memories attached.  I would argue that music is one of the most memorable, but that’s just me.  Just like I discussed in the Norberg-Schulz and Heidegger responses, things are things, art is art, and they don’t change.  But people are people and things do change when people are involved because people have the ability to think and feel and have emotion, and these intangibles are what we remember when we think back to tangible things.

d | Loneliness and silence of buildings

Pallasmaa is pretty black and white about this: “Experiencing art is a private dialogue between the work and the person experiencing it which excludes all other interaction.”  There isn’t much more I can add to this, a successful building is one that you can reflect upon, have an experience in, and that experience needs to happen solely between you and the building.  Unfortunately, there are far too many buildings out there that (seemingly) don’t offer this opportunity – they don’t seem to contain any spaces worthy of reflecting upon.  Some buildings, though, have an overload of this type of space – most recently this was experienced at the Chapel of St Ignatius, where seemingly every room (and even the reflecting pool outside) made you reflect upon the architecture, the materials and, I’m sure had we had the opportunity to spend more time there, we would have began reflecting upon ourselves…  I do think, however, that if you’re aware of the beauty around you, no matter where you are you will be able to find a detail somewhere that makes you stop and think and appreciate that detail.  For me, that often comes in the form of nature and the environment interacting with a building in an unintended way – the contrast of the sky against a material, the sun highlighting an otherwise dark corner – but for every person, this detail is different.  They just have to look for it.

-J. Maternoski