In Husserl’s conception of phenomenology, philosophical enquiry rejects the rationalist bias that has dominated Western thought since Plato in favour of reflective attentiveness that reveals the individual’s “lived experience.” For those with a more phenomenological bent, the goal was to understand experience by understanding and describing its genesis, the process by which it emerged from an origin or event.
Up until recently, most evaluations of architecture focused on its aesthetic and visual qualities. But, because the architectural space is so important, it should not be judged in isolation from its surroundings and intended audience. Pallasmaa strongly emphasises the value of experience and a sense of place in architecture. Phenomenology, which tries to produce sensory perception, is about producing an intangible, abstract experience. Meaning is deeper when we perceive beyond physical objects in our spatial experiences. Cities and structures in general offer the necessary perspective to comprehend and confront human existence. Therefore, it is crucial to consider phenomenology as a subject of architecture.
Tadao Ando | Phenomenology in Architecture
Even though Tadao Ando never explicitly mentions phenomenology, focusing on his many texts and writings reveals that his philosophy of architecture implicitly raises some crucial issues and themes that are fundamentally connected to the “phenomenological discourse” in philosophy and architecture. In Ando’s reflection on architecture, concepts and ideas like the union of subject and object, space, body and movement, memory, corporeality, multi-sensory perception, etc., are all central themes that allude to the shared issues in the phenomenological discourse of architecture. Phenomenological reflections in Ando’s architectural thought and work are more deeply rooted in his mental state, approach to learning and understanding architecture, cultural background and attention to the Eastern-Japanese way of thinking, and to some extent studying the works of some other architects.
The church of Light
For Ando, the presence and absence of light are trustworthy tools for capturing the essence of things. For Ando, all existence originates in light. Things appear more complex because of their depth. Things seem like phenomena because of it. These events, which make up the environment, rely mostly on the light. By letting the phenomena reveal themselves from within, it is possible to say that light is what creates the world. The world is always being reinvented by light, according to Ando, who calls it “the maker of relationships that comprise the world”.
Jewish Museum by Daniel Libeskind | Phenomenology in Architecture
A new movement in phenomenological commemorative architecture could be seen in Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin. The phenomenological goal of the museum is highlighted by remarks from architectural critics and the architects’ own statements. Perhaps we are witnessing a shift away from hermeneutic commemorative strategies heavily invested in meaning and motivated by a didactical desire to direct public interpretation in favour of more phenomenological strategies that emphasise the existential tension between memory and forgetfulness by manipulating scale, space, and materiality.
The museum has a complicated past, and its physical layout is equally intricate. The holocaust axis and the axis of exile and exodus are a pair of intersecting axes at the basement level that make up the building’s most eye-catching design concept. The garden of exile, an external tilting courtyard made up of concrete pillars topped with trees, is reached by the latter, while the former ends at the Holocaust Tower. Disorientation visitors feel in the garden is a phenomenological example of exodus and escape. The old museum building connects to Libeskind’s addition via a subterranean tube, suggesting that the histories of Germany and the Jews are inextricably linked and that this relationship is concealed under the sedimented layers of memory.
The Brother Klaus Field Chapel by Peter Zumthor
Klaus’s austerity and Zumthor‘s reserve are beautifully embodied in this field chapel, which was completed in 2007. 112 nearby pine trees were felled and put into a wigwam-like shape by Scheidtweiler’s family and friends to create the building’s original framework. The chapel’s concrete was constructed using local sand and gravel and mixed and applied under the supervision of the same community group. It was built up in 50-cm-thick slabs on the chapel’s exterior over 24 days, reaching a height of 12 meters.
After the concrete was put in place, the wooden inside of the church was lit, with the pine slowly consuming itself over three weeks. The walls’ steel tubes, which had held the setting concrete in place, were endowed with glass beads put into the ends. This allowed light to enter the chapel’s dark interior. The floor was lined with molten lead.
The unglazed tear-drop oculus in the chapel is the main aesthetic feature. It is supposed to be a tribute to Brother Klaus’s vision in which he floated in his mother’s womb and saw a massive starburst. There are a few additional design elements, such as a sculpture of the saint.
The phenomenological design approach looks at the project’s core as the pinnacle of the design process rather than employing a predetermined methodology. Whilst sustainability, structural integrity, materiality, and other essential components of the architecture are important, the emotional and experiential aspect of the design—what one might refer to as the breathing soul—takes precedence over all others.
Philologically speaking, one can ask what a body is without a mind.
References:
Nielsen, K.L. (2023) The phenomenology of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum berlin – 2010, Invitation to ArchiPhen.[Online] Available at: https://www.pdcnet.org/zeta-archiphen/content/zeta-archiphen_2010_0000_0000_0041_0044?file_type=pdf (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Phaidon (no date) Sacred stories – bruder klaus field chapel, PHAIDON.[online] Available at: https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/architecture/articles/2015/february/04/sacred-stories-bruder-klaus-field-chapel/ (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Dreki, M. (2016) Architecture and phenomenology: Zumthor’s Therme Vals Spa examined with a phenomenological approach, Academia.edu.[online] Available at: https://www.academia.edu/30674328/ARCHITECTURE_AND_PHENOMENOLOGY_ZUMTHOR_S_THERME_VALS_SPA_EXAMINED_WITH_A_PHENOMENOLOGICAL_APPROACH (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Jewish museum berlin: Studio libeskind (2021) Arch2O.com.[online] Available at: https://www.arch2o.com/jewish-museum-berlin-studio-libeskind/ (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Nielsen, K.L. (2023) The phenomenology of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum berlin – 2010, Invitation to ArchiPhen.[online] Available at: https://www.pdcnet.org/zeta-archiphen/content/zeta-archiphen_2010_0000_0000_0041_0044?file_type=pdf (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Church of light – tadao ando / Osaka (no date) STUDIO.PHAM. [online]Available at: http://studiopham.com/new-gallery-29/ (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659 art venue to open in Chicago with exhibition on Ando and Le Corbusier (no date) Archinect.[online] Available at: https://archinect.com/news/article/150088479/tadao-ando-designed-wrightwood-659-art-venue-to-open-in-chicago-with-exhibition-on-ando-and-le-corbusier (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
(PDF) phenomenology as qualitative methodology – researchgate (no date).[online] Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341104030_Phenomenology_as_qualitative_methodology (Accessed: April 2, 2023).
