BACHELOR OF SCIENCE (HONOURS) IN ARCHITECTURE

THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

(ARC61303/ARC2224)
SYNOPSIS: REACTION PAPER (MARCH 2017)
Name: Tang Wei Xin ID No.: 0322731
Lecturer: Mr. Nicholas Ng Tutorial Time: 1100-1200
Reader/Text Title: Geometry of Feeling Synopsis No: 2
Author: Juhani Pallasmaa
Debilitating language of architecture drives architects today to rejuvenate the shrinking terminology and
historical values. The continuous unfavorable phenomenon lead to the discussion of the reason for
impoverishment of inner meaning of architecture, and some presumptions go to the absence of idiom of forms.
In terms of architecture as play with form, it is prominent that assessing a building as a formal composition
blinds us from the experiences lie behind the symbol and reality the forms or geometry can give rise to the
architectural effect. The principle of elementarism dominates the practice of art and architecture, prompting
us to view it as a sum of elements. I agree with the idea of the authors saying, analysis of architectural work
does not reveal the artistic quality since the meaning of an artistic work are born out of one whole, and art
should be a vision that integrates parts, breaking it down into elements definitely losing the essence of the
experience compounded out of indefinite relations.
Understanding that artistic dimension exists solely in the consciousness of the person experiencing it, the
meaning of a work of art can only be found in the images transmitted by the forms, not the form itself. Reviving
the richness of architectural idiom through diversity of form loses its effectiveness, if merely we could find a
counterpart of viewers experience that responds to the effect of the building. Archetypal method of examining
architecture, mainly shaped by the way of architects designing buildings as images and feelings of users,
gives rise to the suspicion of introspective approach to art which is thought to lack objectivity. Knowing the
fact that phenomenology intentionally means to depict phenomena at its pure dimension of consciousness,
work of art becomes reality, when being experienced through personal identifiability and emotional force.
Phenomenological analysis of architectural experience can be presented through other branches of arts, as
the presentation of architecture in other arts is the innate way of experiencing buildings. Juhanis ideology to
inner architecture of the mind is that, its emerging out of feelings and memory images, driving my point of
view that, the art value of architecture form would definitely enhance the inner meaning of architecture, by
shifting our consciousness from one possible interpretation to another, shaping and interconnecting the
images and memories that made by the form, truly communicating the architecture with the users. Touches
in feeling of geometry terms the fundamental incorporation of complementary sensory other than eyes.
Word Count: 408 Mark Grade
Assessed by: Date Page No.