Images of Muscle and Bone by Juhani Pallasmaa

There is an inherent suggestion of action in images of architecture, the moment of active encounter or a promise of use and purpose. A bodily reaction is an inseparable aspect of the experience of architecture as consequence of this implied action. A real architectural experience is not simply a series of retinal images; a building encountered – it is approached, confronted, encountered, related to one’s body, moved about, utilized as a condition for other things, etc.

As we open a door, our body weight meets the weight of the door; our legs measure the steps as we ascend a stair, our hand strokes the handrail and our entire body moves diagonally and dramatically through space.

A building is not an end to itself; it frames, articulates, restructures, gives significance, relates, separates and unites, facilitates and prohibits.
Authentic architectural experiences consist of approaching, or confronting a building rather that the façade; of the act of entering and not simply the frame of the door, of looking in or out of a window, rather than the window itself.

The authenticity of architectural experience is grounded in the tectonic language of buildings and the comprehensibility of the act of construction to the senses. We behold, touch, listen and measure the world with our entire bodily existence and the experiential world is organized and articulated around the center of the body. Our domicile is the refuge of our body, memory and identity. We are in constant dialogue and interaction with the environment, to the degree that it is impossible to detach the image of the Self from its spatial and situational existence. “I am the space, where I am” as the poet Noel Arnaud established.

In “Questions of Perception; Phenomenology of Architecture”
by Steven Holl, Juhani Pallasmaa and Alberto Pérez-Gómez