Silence, Time, and Solitude by Juhani Pallasmaa

However, the most essential auditory experience created by architecture is tranquility. Architecture presents the drama of construction silenced into matter and space; architecture is the art of petrified silence.
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An architectural experience silences all external noise; it focuses attention on one’s very existence. Architecture, as all art, makes us aware of our fundamental solitude. At the same time, architecture detaches us from the present and allows us to experience the slow, firm flow of time and tradition. Buildings and cities are instruments and museums of time. They enable us to see and understand the passing of history.
Experiencing a work of art is a private dialogue between the work and the viewer that excludes other interactions. “Art is made by the alone for the alone”, as Cyrille Connolly writes in The Unique Grave. Melancholy lies beneath moving experiences of art.

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