Description
First published in 1996, The Eyes of the Skin has become a classic of architectural theory. It asks the far-reaching question why, when there are five senses, has one single sense – sight – become so predominant in architectural culture and design? With the ascendancy of the digital and the all-pervasive use of the image electronically, it is a subject that has become all the more pressing and topical since the first edition’s publication in the mid-1990s. Juhani Pallasmaa argues that the suppression of the other four sensory realms has led to the overall impoverishment of our built environment, often diminishing the emphasis on the spatial experience of a building and architecture’s ability to inspire, engage and be wholly life enhancing.
For every student studying Pallasmaa’s classic text for the first time, The Eyes of the Skin is a revelation. It compellingly provides a totally fresh insight into architectural culture. This third edition meets readers’ desire for a further understanding of the context of Pallasmaa’s thinking by providing a new essay by architectural author and educator Peter MacKeith. This text combines both a biographical portrait of Pallasmaa and an outline of his architectural thinking, its origins and its relationship to the wider context of Nordic and European thought, past and present. The focus of the essay is on the fundamental humanity, insight and sensitivity of Pallasmaa’s approach to architecture, bringing him closer to the reader. This is illustrated by Pallasmaa’s sketches and photographs of his own work. The new edition also provides a foreword by the internationally renowned architect Steven Holl and a revised introduction by Pallasmaa himself.
- FOREWORD Thin Ice by Steven Holl 6
- INTRODUCTION Touching the World by Juhani Pallasmaa
PART ONE
- Vision and Knowledge 18
- Critics of Ocularcentrism 22
- The Narcissistic and Nihilistic Eye 24
- Oral versus Visual Space 25
- Retinal Architecture and the Loss of Plasticity 28
- An Architecture of Visual Images 33
- Materiality and Time 34
- The Rejection of Alberti’s Window 37
- A New Vision and Sensory Balance 40
PART TWO
- The Body in the Centre 43
- Multi-Sensory Experience 44
- The Signifi cance of the Shadow 50
- Acoustic Intimacy 53
- Silence, Time and Solitude 55
- Spaces of Scent 58
- The Shape of Touch 60
- The Taste of Stone 63
- Images of Muscle and Bone 64
- Images of Action 67
- Bodily Identification 69
- Mimesis of the Body 71
- Spaces of Memory and Imagination 72
- An Architecture of the Senses 75
- The Task of Architecture 76
- A DOOR HANDLE, A HANDSHAKE An introduction to Juhani Pallasmaa and his work by Peter MacKeith 78
- NOTES 110
- INDEX 123
- PICTURE CREDITS 127
128 pages / 13 x 20,5 cm / English
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