One of the principal roles of architecture is to trigger emotions, it influences how one feels spiritually and mentally. Architecture helps in surviving the chaos of our daily life and plays an important role in making us experience real-time situations with different design interventions. When an architecture exudes a ‘sense of place’ then the occupants can connect with the place. A sense of place helps an architecture to sculpt a personality and different personalities of architecture trigger different emotions. An architect can never predict what someone’s reaction towards an architecture will be but should always get towards a richly associative architecture away from the diagrammatic and abstract architecture.
Human emotion is an important factor while designing architecture because when architecture connects emotionally with the occupants then the message that an architect wants to give through his piece of work and the message that he wants to convey is felt more deeply and leaves an enduring impression. The perception of architecture is impacted by the occupants through the critical linking of the emotions. Also, buildings should always build according to the context of the place because architecture is already very violent. To build any space first we need to demolish the existing environment and then we build a space. Every element of a building, like materials, structures, and building’s construction directly impacts the character of the space.
In the case of public space let us talk about the library and see what kind of emotions it triggers. Libraries are considered as a serious space and exude dignity and restraints. Every time a person visits a library he/she is secluded from the noisy life of the outside world as if the library has safely engulfed him/her and has transported to another dimension. It makes a person feel as if he has discovered something for the very first time.
In the contemporary city, it is very difficult to sense the atmosphere of a library, the ambiance of a library is opposite to that of the world outside it. Every element in a library affects our emotions. The amplified sound. The furniture, smell of the books, quality and intensity of light, the materials, and the people around us, all get highly appreciated.
Another very important emotion that a library triggers is peace, that the 21st-century time-poor citizens lack the most. With so many social exchanges online and a clustered Wi-Fi zone, what we lack in today’s world is a ‘quiet zone’ where one can relax and come back to the reality of social surroundings from the virtual world.
9/11 Memorial & Museum is left as it was after the destruction and very minor changes have been done with no exaggerated ornamentations to keep the unique identity of the place, this identity is what connects the people with the place and triggers different emotions and makes the place sacred for everyone.
