Anastasia Asenova Dissertation

ARCHITECTURE AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE STRUCTURES OF THE WORLD

ARCHITECTURE AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE STRUCTURES OF THE WORLD

ANASTASIA VASENOVA ASENOVA ANASTASIA V

ARCHITECTURE AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE STRUCTURES OF THE WORLD by ANASTASIA V ASENOVA 180301083

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my special gratitude to Kati Blom for the support and help in the moments when I was confused and unsure in myself and what I was doing. She has guided me through the field of philosophy and introduced me to books and authors that I absolutely loved, and therefore, became some of the main resources for this thesis.

DISSERTATION TUTOR: KATI BLOM

I am sincerely thankful to my teacher, H.D., who has encouraged me to look at the world in a different way and search for explanations beyond the readily available answers. He first sparkled my interest in philosophy and existentialism around 5 years ago, which changed both my understanding of the world and myself as a person. Writing this text has only encouraged me to keep broadening my horizons on the topic, and hopefully, find answers to some metaphysical questions that have kept my interest for philosophy for a few years now.

DISSERTATION WORD COUNT: 8 578 WORD COUNT WITH FOOTNOTES: 10 321

CONTENTS PREFACE

PAGE.1

PART I: THE BASIS OF PERCEPTION

PAGE.3

KANTIAN A PRIORI AND EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE THE INVISIBLE MATRIX THE NOTION OF REALITY THE UNCONSCIOUS

PART II: THE CONCEPT OF VISION

PAGE.14

MENTAL IMAGES INTENTIONALITY

"Seen, but not only seen."

PART III: PHYSICAL BODY

PAGE.24

THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR BODILY SENSATIONS

~ALDO VAN EYCK~ COLLECTED ARTICLES AND OTHER WRITINGS 1947-1998

SUBJECT AND OBJECT ATMOSPHERE MOVEMENT

PART IV: ARCHITECTURE AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE MATRIX

PAGE.33

ARCHITECTURE AS SCULPTOR OF SPACE THE CONCEPT OF TIME AND SPACE IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE JAPANESE TEA HOUSES

CONCLUSION

PAGE. 43

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

PAGE. 46

LIST OF FIGURES

PAGE. 47

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PAGE. 51

PREFACE

PREFACE

Our perception of the surrounding environment is a very complex process, which is influenced by the body and mind of the perceiving subject. In order to understand how we perceive the phenomenon world, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms behind our perception, both conscious and unconscious ones.

Our perception of the external world is not purely images projected on the retina; on the contrary, it is a mental representation of received stimuli that follow one another in time and space, constructing the world we experience as we move in space. The concept of time and space is indispensable part of the basic structures behind our perception of the external world and ourselves.

They provide the field for everything we are able to perceive with our physical senses and connect our experiences in a coherent and stabilized way. It is the invisible structures of the world that contain the visible and makes it possible to be apprehend by the perceiving subject.1 “The invisible becomes the structure of the visible”2 The aim of this thesis is to explain how space and time provide the invisible field for all material instances to be apprehended by the perceiving subject. At the beginning the text focuses on understanding the basic principles behind our perception of the phenomenon world. Thus, the text will be analyzing Immanuel Kant’s terminology for a priory and empirical intuition and how the relational matrix of time and space provides the invisible field in which our physical body and the world we know, for ourselves, are positioned. The unconscious plays crucial role in structuring our perceptions of the phenomenon world on the basis of received stimuli. In order to understand what we perceive, first, we need to understand how the unconscious connects all experiences of time, space and the manifold of phenomenal objects into a coherent totality, which we call reality.

Moving forward, there is a highlight on the importance of the physical human body as if it was not for it, we would not have been able to experience the phenomenon world around us. Being our “anchorage”3 to the three-dimensional world, the body not only allows us to experience the concrete world, but also places us within space, from where it provides our perspective upon the world both visually and sensually. Therefore, the text will be analyzing the intimate relationship between subject and object and how they interact with one another as we engage with the surrounding world by experiencing it through our entire 1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, (Northwestern University Press, 1968 ), p.151 2 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.xxviii 3 Ibid., p.146 PREFACE | 1

bodies and senses.4 As architecture is the tool by which we divide and shape space, it interacts with us not only on a visual level, but also with our physical body and unconsciousness.

It structures our understanding of space and time and defines the way me move through space and interact with it. The text will be looking at how the concept of time and space is understood in traditional Japanese architecture and why it has developed different building traditions (in comparison to the West) of sculpting space.

This thesis grounds its arguments on some of the most influential philosophy texts since the 18th century, psychology texts, neurological researches and architectural writings. Making use of insights from many different disciplines can be tricky, especially when I cannot claim to be an expert in any of these areas. However, the topic I intend to explore cannot possibly provide a full picture of the ideas behind it by limiting it to one discipline. Most of the terms used in the thesis will be explained as they are introduced, whereas others will be only explained in the Glossary of Terms.

4 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.33 2 | PREFACE

PART I

THE BASIS OF PERCEPTION The external world is not experienced directly through our physical senses as the senses are only a tool by which we gather information from the surrounding environment. We are able to make sense of the external world only through the help of time, space and the mind that intuits them. The perception of time and space is an indispensable part of our understanding of the world. If it was not for them, we would not have had a coherent stabilized experience of the surrounding environment. Time and space not only provide the possibility for existence of phenomenal objects, but also structure our experience of the surrounding environment by creating necessary connections between separate percepts, which are constructed as they exist objectively in time and space.5 However, the different connections made between separate percepts are dependent on the unconscious interpretation of the perceiving them subject.

Edmund Husserl’s representative theory of perception implies that every perception has two different entities. One is the extramental object we perceive as real; the other is the lived intramental representation of the experienced object in our consciousness. 6 In this part the thesis will be analyzing and explaining why these two are two separate notions, although, we may believe they are the same concept. It will explain how they are connected to one another and why our perception of them is mutually dependent.

KANTIAN A PRIORI AND EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE In The Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant writes that external objects are represented to us by means of sensibility, meaning that they affect us in in a certain way. The received sensibility is thought through understanding, which Kant calls intuitions. And the concepts we have of an object are result of the understanding we have from our sensibility. Hence, it follows that the representation we perceive of an object is constructed based on the way it affects us through sensation (experience), which he terms empirical intuition.7 However, form is not a sensation in itself. If we take away the empirical 5 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, (The Macmillan Press Ltd), p.209 6 Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2003), p.17 7 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, (The Macmillan Press Ltd), p.65 4 | PART I

intuition of an object, namely, its sensibility and our understanding of it, there is still something left behind that allows sensations to be posited and ordered in a certain way, in a certain form, that is separate from the appearance of the given object. Kant insists that if we remove everything the understanding thinks of an object, namely its substance, materiality, colour, ect., there is still something that remains prior to external sensations and does not depend on them.8 He terms that a priori intuition, which is given to us prior to all empirical sensations because it cannot be experienced. The a priori knowledge is then separated into two principles that organize the manifold of the phenomenon world in our mind.

These two categories, space and time, provide the field for all phenomenal objects to be perceived through experience (empirical knowledge).9 Space is the condition which makes appearances possible rather than a determination based on objects’ appearances.10 It is only represented by the objects which take in space in different shapes and sizes. The outer objects are that by which we are able to apprehend the existence of space, and yet, these objects would not possibly exist without the invisible structures of space, hence, their existence is mutually and necessarily dependent. According to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, space is not just ether in which the concrete world is immersed, but the structure that makes the position of objects possible.11 It is not a concept of relations of objects, but a pure intuition, which is found in us prior to any perception12 and objects are the sensible form representations of that a priori intuition.13 Similarly, the presupposition of time underlies in a priory intuition,14 which makes the actuality of appearances possible. Time is not inherent in things nor does it exist by itself outside of the thought of the one who intuits it.15 We maintain an empirical reality of time, as we are the ones who intuit it, whereas every object conforms to an objective condition of time.16 Likewise, space is not a property of an object nor does it represent a relation of properties to one another, because no property or determination can be intuited prior to the existence of the object, to which they belong. 17 On one hand, different spaces 8 Ibid., p.66 9 Ibid., p.67 10 Ibid., p.68 11 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.254 12 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, (The Macmillan Press Ltd), p.70 13 Ibid., p.74 14 Ibid., p.74 15 Ibid., p.76 16 Ibid., p.78 17 Ibid., p.71 PART I | 5

are simultaneous, whereas different times are always successive,18 because the time-sequence is represented in a progressive line. 19 The passage of time might be linear, but our perception of it is quite different.

We maintain the simultaneous coexistence of past, present and future moments in order to construct stable relations between the surrounding environment and ourselves, as the perceiving subjects.20 While experiencing the present we also maintain the memory of the past and expectations for the future that influence the way we react to the present. Let’s take a person walking down a street as an example. As we alternate our spatial position, apart from what we perceive at the present moment, we also hold on to the part of the street that we already passed and based on that we move forward with somewhat confidence that we would keep moving around a similar kind of environment. In a way, the past and the present shape our idea of what the near future might hold.

If time is objectively linear, it does not necessarily mean that our perception of it is also linear. In contrast, cycles of time are apparent in nature in the passage of days, seasons and even the way humans have divided time into seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, decades and so on. Following that, if nature conforms to cyclical time and humanity uses cyclical division of time to provide some sort of understanding of its passage, that would mean either that we use cyclical time as a subjective made-up representation of the objective linear time, or that linear time is composed of successive cycles of time, or that time is not linear, at least our perception of it is not. Regardless of which one of these is true, the presupposition of time passes uniformly without regard to any means of measure (natural or artificial), external objects or subjective perception; it is a necessary condition which allows changes in the world to take place.

As outer objects are mere representations of our subjective condition of sensibility, we can speak of space and time solely from a human subjective standpoint. Although, the perception of both space and time is purely subjective condition, they are also necessarily objective capacities that exist in the mind prior to all actual perceptions in order to construct a stabilized field for the concrete world that is shared by all.21 Therefore, our capacity to be affected by outer objects must precede our sensibility of them.22 Hence, we could conclude that we are born with a universal, objective a priori knowledge of the world that provides the field for possibility of existence of phenomenal objects, upon which 18 Ibid., p.75 19 Ibid., p.77 20 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of Perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.288 21 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, (The Macmillan Press Ltd), p.78 22 Ibid., p.71 6 | PART I

we build up our understanding of the world by means of empirical knowledge.

THE INVISIBLE MATRIX Upon reading John Shannon’s analysis of Immanuel Kant, I created this very clear idea of the Kantian a priori intuition as an invisible transcendental matrix consisting of the two categories of a priori intuition (space and time); a matrix that holds the whole phenomenon world in place. Space and time organize the basic structure behind our perception of the external world. Everything we perceive is connected in a complex matrix in space, time and the manifold of phenomenon objects situated within it, which we experience with our physical senses. This transcendental matrix (which I will be calling ‘the invisible matrix’ from now on) is the intramental essence behind our perception, which provides nothing more than a field for the sensible objects to be apprehended.

The invisible matrix consists of two relational nets that construct the visible concrete world on the basis of the connections formed between the two nets.

One of them connects every single point in space to other points in space simultaneously, creating a stabilized field in which the phenomenon world is situated in. Hence, it follows that every phenomenon object in space conforms with the relations of space, meaning that all outer appearances are connected to one another. Similarly, all objects of the senses stand in time relations,23 where every moment in time is connected to other moments in time, which follow each other, forming the second net. The former is a simultaneous condition of existence; the latter conforms to a successive condition of existence. Therefore, we can assume that a point in space cannot possibly exist individually in space, and a moment of time cannot exist separately unrelated to other moments in time as they are all connected in the transcendental realm of every individual.

This view is supported by Shannon, who disclosed that the formed reality is manufactured by human reason.24 These two relational nets, the space net and time net, are positioned within one another. They form complex internal connections between each other and constantly inform one another in order to create stable representation of the concrete world. The two nets are constantly being updated with the new information our bodies register from the surrounding environment and connect every single experience into a totality that structures the reality we 23 Ibid., p.77 24 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm, Architecture and the Unconscious, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, Farnham, England, 2016 ), Architecture and the Kantian Unconscious by John Shannon Hendrix,p.46 PART I | 7

know for ourselves in the visible world. It is a manifold constructed by the unconsciousness of different individuals that creates mental maps and numerous knots of connections similar to the linguistics of language. We structure the world we know for ourselves, based on the places we visit and the objects we encounter as individuals. It is an unconscious process we are not aware of, but have learned to accept and use since the moment we were born, regardless if we understand the working mechanisms behind it or not. To a great extent, we are individually shaped by the buildings and cities we have inhabited and experienced. They have formed mental maps that have shaped our personalities and created a sense of belonging or rejection.25 Juhani Pallasmaa summarized it very well by saying that “our world is constructed on the basis of mental maps.”26 Similarly, the Japanese understanding of town is regarded as a sense of place, tightly related to the transcendental perception of time and space, rather than to a physical entity.27 Humanity has created a visual representation of the invisible matrix through city grids and architectural traditions that determine the cultural order of a place specific space net. In the same way humans have created a cyclical division of time, we have also created a way of dividing space by the use of different measurement units and the intelligibles of mathematics and geometry. Despite the different units of measure used around the world, they all use the same principle (geometry and mathematics) that divides the very same space, just a different interpretation. The orthogonal grid, which dates back to antiquity, is the most popular way of dividing space in large scales.28 (Fig. 1-6)

THE NOTION OF REALITY The notion of ‘one concrete reality shared by all’ is not an argument supported in this text for many reasons. Edmund Husserl proposed that there might not even be such thing as external world (reality) at all.29 Despite that we would not have had precepts and sensibility of the phenomenon world if we were not aware of something that actually exists. The connections, created between the space net and the time net, organize the concrete reality of the different individuals. It is a subjective mode of existence because every person creates 25 Juhani Pallasmaa, OASE #58 Lived Space. •Embodied Experience and Sensory Thought, p.22 26 Ibid., p.14 27 Monica Pidgeon, Architectural Design Magazine Volume XXXVI (36) March 1966, (London: The Standard Catalogue Co. Ltd., 1966), p. 153 28 Susanna Moreira, Orthogonal Grids and Their Variations in 17 Cities Viewed from Above, (Archdaily, October 2020) 29 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), Foreword, p.ix 8 | PART I

distinct links between objects in space and moments in time, based on their experience of space, both visual and sensual. Therefore, every person lives in a reality formed by one’s unconsciousness, memory and understanding rather than in an identical reality shared by all.

Hence, we could say that the notion of reality plays itself out as it has been interpreted by the unconsciousness of the different individuals. Despite the empirical individual experience of reality, there is still the a priori knowledge (the invisible matrix) that creates the same possibility of existence, which is shared by all and purely objective. To some extent, this and the following two parts of the text give an explanation of why it is impossible for all individuals to experience the same reality. However, this topic is not the aim of this thesis and I will not be getting into more details here.

THE ROLE OF THE UNCONSCIOUSNESS A number of texts use psychoanalytic theory as a tool of understanding architecture. In turn, architecture is used as a mean of understanding the psyche by important figures such as Sigmund Freud, when he used the Eternal City as an analogue for the unconscious. (Civilization and its Discontents 1930) Unconscious thought is the connection between the material and the transcendental, between architecture and human, between object and subject.

There is a constant oscillation between conscious and unconscious, apperception and perception that inform one another in every moment in order to create logical connections within the phenomenon world and the body that perceives it and moves within it. As John Locke put it: “Whatever alterations occur in the body, if they don’t reach the mind there is no perception.”30 Architecture is a conceptual mediation between two inaccessible instances for us. The first one is the invisible matrix, which provides nothing more than a field for the physical objects, the second one is the mind of the different individuals that perceive the phenomenon world diffracted by the prism of their unconsciousness. 31 As the subject does not exist outside of the signifying 30 John Locke , An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book II: Ideas, ( Jonathan Bennett 2017), p.34 31 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm, Architecture and the Unconscious, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, Farnham, England, 2016 ), Architecture and the Kantian Unconscious by John Shannon Hendrix p.49 PART I | 9

system in which he is positioned,32 it is impossible to know the phenomenal objects outside of the subjective mode of perceiving them. According to Juhani Pallasmaa we live in individual mental worlds that fuse together experiences of the matter, memory and imagination rather than a purely objective material reality filled with scientific facts. He talks about existential space, where we consciously or unconsciously project meaning and value onto the surrounding environment, rather than perceiving it as a pure geometrical and physical space.33 Thus, our perception of architecture (as phenomenon object) is an unconscious apperception which organizes the different sense perceptions into a totality, which is informed by the invisible matrix and situated within it. The unconsciousness forms a transcendental representation of the surrounding us objects, making our perception of architecture a mental process. Henceforth, it is impossible to analyze the perception of architecture without considering the unconsciousness. It is responsible not only for our perception, sensitivity and vision, but also for our intellection, judgment, imagination and dreams, which are all involved in the production and experience of space and architecture.34

nothing but a void we cannot conceive.38 Given as a reference in attempt to explain what perception is in numerous texts, language is probably the most accurate way to explain the mechanism behind the symbolic meaning of forms. It is an unconscious system of connections, signs and images, which exist a priori in the mind. Similarly like form, it does not exist outside of our mind, we do not see forms according to the sensations we perceive from the external world to assume forms as they are two separate percepts - one is empirical, the other a priori.

The following two parts intend to explore the mechanisms behind our perception in greater detail and provide an understanding of how our perception is structured and what influences it both on mental and physical level. Ironically, the closest explanation of the idea of the invisible matrix might be explained through vision and memory and the way they structure the experience of the so called ‘reality’ around us piece by piece, moment after moment.

The Japanese understanding of space and time is best represented through their sand and rock gardens which are intended to emphasize that the consciousness transcends the form.35 One of the most famous gardens in the world, The Rock Garden at Ryōanji Temple, (Fig. 7) is a perfect example of the Japanese tradition to include the involvement of memory and imagination in the process of perception.36 The garden consists of fifteen stones of different sizes on a bed of white gravel, which are arranged carefully in groups so that only fourteen of them are visible from any perspective.37 (Fig. 8) The moss and gravel that surround the rocks create an illusion that the rocks are moving. In a way, the garden represents how easily we can be deceived that what things appear to be is, in fact, what they are. The centre is left empty, framed by the stone clusters, which give it a somewhat of a shape. The circular lines on the gravel, around the clusters, are like waves that pulsate into the emptiness, whereas the parallel raked lines on the gravel provide a visual grid of the emptiness, which creates a metaphor for the invisible. (Fig. 9) The interaction between form and space in the rock garden is intended to illustrate how the visible shapes the invisible.

Therefore, if it was not for the stones (objects) to define the space, it would be 32 Ibid., Intro by John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm p.4 33 Juhani Pallasmaa, OASE #58 Lived Space. •Embodied Experience and Sensory Thought, p.18 34 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm, Architecture and the Unconscious, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, Farnham, England, 2016 ), Intro by John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm p.6 35 Monica Pidgeon, Architectural Design Magazine Volume XXXVI (36) March 1966, (London: The Standard Catalogue Co. Ltd., 1966), p. 154 36 Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Man’s Use of Space in Public and Private (London, The Bodley Head Ltd, 1966), p.143 37 Dr. Yoonjung Seo, Ryōanji, Peaceful Dragon Temple, (Khan Academy) 10 | PART I

38 Paul Schollmeier, The Rock Garden of the Ryoanji Temple, (The Montréal Review, May 2018) PART I | 11

Figure 7 The Rock Garden at Ryōanji Temple

Figure 8 Rocks compositon

Figure 9 Cluster of rocks and a miniature of the garden 12 | PART I

PART I | 13

THE CONCEPT OF VISION

PART II

Vision is the sense humans trust the most, because we assume that we see the external world directly with our eyes, rather than a mental image constructed by our unconsciousness. However, basic physics teaches us that the external image is projected on the retina rotated on 180 degrees, it is smaller and bent. (Fig. 10) Consequently, if we were seeing the external world directly with our eyes, then we would have been seeing everything upside down. One might say that it turns around for us automatically, but if that was the case, therefore, a lot of other processes can be happening automatically without us realizing. Processes like forming a mental imagery based on a priori intuition, experience, memory, associations and understanding.

In the 1830s, Charles Wheatstone used a stereoscope to discover that the separation of the two eyes (binocular vision) means that each of them projects a slightly different image of the viewed object, which provides the viewer with more accurate idea of distance and depth in space.39 (Fig. 11) This proves that the image we see is not the actual object as it exists in space, but a combination of two representations from a different perspective. The psychologist, James Gibson, stated that there is a necessary mental process, involved in the visual sense, which organizes the information received from the surrounding environment in a coherent totality,40 which is influenced by the movement of the gaze, the thought process and understanding of separate individuals. As every experience of the visible world is given to us through the movement of the eyes,41 the shift of the gaze has crucial impact on what information we register from the environment both intentionally and unintentionally. It is the one that shapes our visual perception of the world depending on the created connections in space and time.

MENTAL IMAGES The basis of visual perception is that what we see is not the object itself, but the light that is being reflected from the different surfaces of the objects on the retina, in turn, different surfaces reflect light in distinct ways.42 By moving the 39 Nicholas J Wade, Charles Wheatstone (1802 -1875), Perception, volume 31, (2002), (SAGE Publications Ltd) , p.265 40 James Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World, (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, USA), p. 13 41 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, (Northwestern University Press, 1968 ), p. 134 42 James Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World, (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, USA), p. 45 PART II | 15

eyes across the observed object we gather information from different points across the object, which leave impressions in us and connect to form one uniform whole. The gaze is like a “knowledge machine”43 that takes up all of the information from the senses together, synthesized into a manifold of successive mental images. Although, we look around all the time, most of the time we have just a glimpse of the surrounding we move through and trust our peripheral vision and memory. Therefore, we trust an assumption that our mental mapping has created for us, based on experience and memory, not something we have actually seen with our eyes at the moment of perception.

When Steen Rasmussen was talking about vision in his book Experiencing Architecture, he suggested that if we look at a building from one angle, we immediately assume that we have seen the building, because our unconsciousness builds a mental representational idea of what might be happening on the sides of the building, which we do not see.44 However, no single appearance can possibly capture the entire object, because we only see a certain limited perspective of it.45 Nevertheless, even if we walk around a structure 360 degrees, we can never see all the perspectival sides at the same time. The most accurate representation we can get would be a combination of all the impressions we have gathered following each other in space and time to create one totality of manifold. Thus, we live in a constantly changing manifold of visual and tactile sensations, where the parts constitute the idea of the whole. This view is supported in the book Husserl’s Phenomenology by Dan Zahavi, where he stated that the object is not a sum of all the appearances that constructs its totality, but rather a constructed idea from all the received appearances.46 The process of changing images is incredibly complex involving constantly shifting perception of every object in terms of shape and size, as if the observed objects are deforming when the perceiving subject changes position in space.

Moreover, the change in focus is also influenced by the eye movements of the observer.47 The fixation points of eye movement are not in a specific order or following any logic, very often they move with irregular jumps from one fixation point to another, unrelated to the composition of the observed image. 48 (Fig. 12) There is a correspondence of information between separate mental images,49 this connection and distribution of information is possible only through the 43 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.275 44 Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Experiencing Architecture, 2nd edition, (Cambridge : M.I.T. Press, 1964) 45 Dan Zahavi, Husserl’s Phenomenology, (Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 2003), p.16 46 Ibid., p.16 47 William Epstein, Sheena Rogers, Perception of Space and Motion, Second edition, (Academic Press, Inc. 1995), p.166 48 James Gibson, The Perception of the Visual World, (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, USA), p. 155 49 William Epstein, Sheena Rogers, Perception of Space and Motion, Second edition, (Academic Press, Inc. 1995), p.169 16 | PART II

processes occurring between the space and time nets that pass information from past to present to constitute a stable perception of the surrounding environment.

Studies comparing behaviour during mental imagery and perception tasks have found functional similarities between the ways the two processes specify information. A study by Harvard University conducted in 2008, even supports the claim that the two processes depict information in the exact same way as there are brain areas that are involved both in perceptual and mental imagery representation. Furthermore, some studies document that mental images arise from perceptual representations (from stored information) rather than relaying purely on information registered by the senses in the moment of perception.50 Having these results in mind, we may conclude that our mental mapping exists in our transcendental realm relaying vastly on memory and would construct the phenomenon world around us on the basis of both previously gathered information and what we are looking at or sensing at moment of perception.

The neuroscientist Antonio Damasio supports the view that memorized and perceived objects influence the consciousness in the same way, both of which processes are equally available to the subject at the moment of perception.51 Therefore, the mental imagery we receive is not necessarily as accurate or as vivid as we may believe.

INTENTIONALITY Yet, here comes another aspect of vision that depends greatly on the level of attention we put into looking at one object or said differently- our intentionality.

While walking around a building we can either have unintentional glimpses (creating a vague representation of a shape) or intentional looking, (that would look at different points of the object one after another) which would create a deeper analysis of the object, which in turn, will construct a denser block of information. By a ‘dense block of information’ I mean that instead of saying that there is a circular shape, we would say that it has a golden outer leaf in hexagonal shapes, which has cracked at the top, resulting in a hexagonal piece of the covering falling down and we can see a part of the layer below, which has an oxidized coloring on the boundary between the two layers and so on.

The concept of information has crucial influence on our perception and thus understanding of the surrounding environment. It is the basis of mental images 50 Gregoire Borst, Stephen M. Kosslyn. 2008. Visual mental imagery and visual perception: structural equivalence revealed by scanning processes. Memory & Cognition 36, no. 4: 849-862.

51 Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Boby, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness, (Vintage 2000), p.161 PART II | 17

and the one that creates a dialogue between subject and perceived objects.52 The different density of information blocks construct mental images with varying degrees of details and understanding of how the parts constitute the whole.

Nevertheless, even when we take time to take in as much of the information from the surrounding environment as possible, we are still not fully consciously aware of everything we see or sense.

stabilizes the visual world.56 It is the one by which one senses and perceives the surrounding environment as it is the body by which the perceived objects are positioned.57

In the book, Eye Movements and Vision, Alfred L. Yarbus shows how incredibly different impressions can be received by people inspecting complex objects and scenes by attaching a device (invented by himself and his team) that follows the participants’ eye movements when they look at a painting intentionally (to answer questions based on observation) and unintentionally. The research clearly shows that different individuals’ attention is attracted by separate elements of a painting, making some elements practically unnoticed, whereas others are being examined thoroughly.53 Despite that, the unnoticed details still contribute to the general impression as they are parts of the whole.

The images below show series of eye movement records of observers viewing Ilya Repin’s painting The Unexpected Visitor. (Fig. 13) By analyzing the information from the first example (Fig. 14), we could conclude that the different individuals look at the painting in different ways, because the movements of the eye of the observer reflects the thought process of an individual. (Have in mind that the results are unusually similar because all of the participants are familiar with the painting and have quite a similar background and education.) Whereas, the second example (Fig. 15) shows significant similarity between the way the painting is being observed by the same person, supposing that this reflects the consistent flow of thought.54 On the other hand, the third example (Fig. 16) follows the eye movements during intentional observation. Each record of eye movements is intended to obtain different information from the painting, unlike the first two examples, which were unintentional looking. Following the results we can conclude that the way we look around and gather information from the surrounding environment can vary greatly depending on whether we look intentionally or unintentionally. The movement of the gaze is the essence behind the perceived visual information.

Visual and kinaesthetic spatial experiences are so interwoven that if we try to separate them we would not possibly have a coherent stabilized experience of the surrounding environment.55 According to Edward Hall, it is the body that 52 William Epstein, Sheena Rogers, Perception of Space and Motion, Second edition, (Academic Press, Inc. 1995), p. 166 53 Yarbus A L, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum Press, 1967), p.171 54 Ibid., p.192 55 Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Man’s Use of Space in Public and Private (London, The Bodley 18 | PART II

Head Ltd, 1966), p.57 56 Ibid., p.62 57 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.94 PART II | 19

Fig. 10 Object projection of the retina

Fig. 11 Binocular vision 20 | PART II

Fig. 12 Fixation points during eye movement PART II | 21

Fig. 13 The Unexpected Visitor by Ilya Repin 1888

Fig. 15 Records of the eye movement of the same subject examining the painting after some time

Fig. 14 Record of the eye movement of seven different subjects observing the painiting unintentionally

Fig. 16 Record of the eye movement of the same subject examining the painting intentionally to answer specific questions after the observation period

22 | PART II

PART II | 23

PHYSICAL BODY

PART III

Our bodily sensitivity is constantly scanning the phenomenal world and the space we occupy (as objects in space) with millions of sensors all over our bodies.58 Consequently, as a receiver of information, the physical body converts all of the sensations and images from the external world into a transcendental interpretation that creates a mental net of relations and understanding. Maurice Merleau-Ponty proposed that we should regard the physical body not as a mere biological unit, but as the body which structures one’s perspective of the world59 as it is the physical body that engages directly with the three-dimensional world.60 “Our perception and our ability to relate our surrounding to our bodies seem to cause an interrelationship between an otherwise incoherent spatiality and temporality.”61 The body is the tool by which we are able to produce a conception of outer objects. Therefore, without the senses we would have no true idea of space because there is constant osculation between visual and tactile perception, between subject and object, which forms a coherent sense of reality. Pallasmaa writes that our sense of reality is constantly articulated and strengthened by our bodily interaction with the phenomenon world,62 as it is the source of all stimulations detected by the senses.63

THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR BODILY SENSATIONS James Gibson, defined the verb ‘sense’ as having two meanings. It can mean either to detect something (which can be consciously unrealized by the perceiving individual) or to actually have a conscious sensation received from the external environment.64 The two meanings of the word are produced 58 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.105 59 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), Foreword by Taylor Carman, p.viii 60 Alina Payne, From Ornament to Object: Genealogies of Architectural Modernism, (New Haven and London, 2012), p.16 61 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.53 62 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of The Skin, (Chichester : Wiley-Academy, 2005) 63 James Gibson, The Senses Considered as Perceptual System, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1983), p. 7 64 Ibid., p.1 PART III | 25

simultaneously, hence, we cannot experience them disjointed, leading to us assuming that they are one process.65 When it comes to experience it is what we feel on an unconscious level that creates the total impression of a space. Our senses structure the experienced world around us mentally, without us being aware of its perpetual activity.66 Instead of feeling all the sensation we receive separately, our unconsciousness takes all the information and presents it to us as a totality of impressions; our conscious perception of them is simultaneous and instant. Our unconsciousness reaches to a conclusion, which it presents to us readily, taking from us the decisions of what to include in the final interpretation and what to leave behind. Perhaps, the strongest sensations will take over and subsume some of the weaker ones, making us unaware of them.

Additionally, an individual with different sensitivity than ours could receive disparate sensations of the surrounding space even if his position in space is not far away from ours. Thus, the experience of space is very subjective depending not only on bodily sensitivity, but also on intentionally, memories, (that create associations) imagination and movement.67 It is a very subjective realm of perception influenced by the physical sensitivity and mentality of the individual, making subjectivity world-constituting. As we perceive architecture as an object positioned in the invisible matrix, it is inevitable not to consider the relation between subject and object, because “the body is a thing among things”.68

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SUBJECT AND OBJECT The physical body is the only reason we are able to exist in the three-dimensional world and apprehend it. As every object in space is in connection to other objects in space so is the body. It interacts with its surrounding and affects it, the same way the external world affects the body. The human body, with its scale and senses, is in constant interchangeable relation with the immediate surrounding which provides a stable sense of spatiality and temporality. It interacts with the phenomenon world both when there is a physical contact between the two and when there is distance between them. Every object in space radiates a certain kind of energy into space, which we might or might not sense consciously, nevertheless, our bodies detect it and guide us through space based on that information. The energy emanating from objects spreads through space and fills it with waves of different frequencies going in different directions that intersect 65 Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Edinburgh University Press), p.17 66 Juhani Pallasmaa, OASE #58 Lived Space. •Embodied Experience and Sensory Thought, p.28 67 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of The Skin, (Chichester : Wiley-Academy, 2005) 68 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Visible and the Invisible, (Northwestern University Press, 1968 ), p. 137 26 | PART III

and interact, creating an invisible relation between different objects in space.

In the book, The Eyes of The Skin, Pallasmaa stated that vision is the sense that separates us from the world, while the rest of our bodily senses connect us with the surrounding environment.69 This view is supported by Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space, where he disclosed that what we perceive is not just an image that is merely seen, but a lived experience.70 When thinking about a building it is logical to think about the way it looks, its walls, columns and maybe something that caught our attention, like a small balcony on the top floor. However, none of those is the primary impression one has from a building or a space; on the contrary, it is what we think of because we are taught to think in this way since we were children. Infants learn about the surrounding environment by using their tactile senses, but with time they stop inspecting the world around them by means of touch and start trusting their visual system as a main tool to understand the phenomenal world. We are used to describing mere external retinal images that unite us with what everybody else is seeing (supposedly). Whereas, we are not used to talking about the emptiness that spreads out between the boundaries of the walls and the vibrations we feel emerging and flowing within us. Often it is not easy to understand consciously what exactly we sense, which makes describing it to others even more confusing. Despite that, the sensibility of our body and the transcendental understanding of the phenomenon world is what leave the strongest impressions in our consciousness. There are spaces that make us feel calm and welcomed, whereas other reject us and make us feel out of place.

In other words, the atmosphere of a space can influence our state of mind, regardless of what we see as mental images.

ATMOSPHERE The notion of atmosphere was first introduced in the mid-1900s by the German philosopher Gernot Böhme. He wanted to overcome the gap between subject and object, which he understood as atmosphere – the “common reality of the one who perceives and the object which is perceived.”71 According to Peter Zumthor, the way we perceive atmospheres happens incredibly quickly through our emotional sensibility,72 as it is the parts which we feel on an unconscious 69 Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, (Chichester : Wiley-Academy, 2005) 70 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, (New York, New York : Penguin Books, 2014), p.xxv 71 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, (Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), Presence: The LightTouch of Architecture by Philip Ursprung, p. 22 72 Peter Zumthor, Atmospheres: architectural environments; surrounding objects (Basel Boston Berlin : Birkhäuser, 2012), p.13 PART III | 27

level that create the total impression of a space. Nevertheless, we do not feel them individually; they come to us like a wave of sensations, energy that envelops us and make us react to our surrounding in an instant.

The atmosphere of a space can be influenced by something as simple as the temperature of the air or the colour of the walls. The tones of an image on the wall, whether warm or cold, chromatic or achromatic would invoke different responses in the observer, as every colour has different frequencies of vibration, it fills the room with a different kind of energy. (Fig. 17) Nonetheless, the play of light and shadow is probably one of the most influential aspects. Kengo Kuma proposed that the key to creating a free and vibrant connection between object and subject is in regarding the material structure and the human body on equal terms, which can be achieved with a balanced equation between the two with the use of soft materials and light.73 This concept is evident in traditional Japanese architecture, which is delicate and in tune with the physical body. (Fig. 18) Another way to achieve this is by connecting the building with the surrounding as if they are one, which Frank Lloyd Wright has done in Fallingwater, where the natural environment becomes part of the manmade structure and the architecture becomes part of nature. (Fig. 19-20)

The path we choose to move through affects our sensations of a space, as an object in space surrounded by other objects. Kengo Kuma emphasized on the importance of the way we move through space when experiencing architecture and how framing views and movement can create changing perspectives or different effects of the same environment.78 Consequently, the way the body moves through a space determines the way it interacts with it, which plays an essential role on the way a space is both viewed and felt.

MOTION Motion perception is an important aspect to consider when thinking about perception of a surrounding environment as the perceptual systems have the crucial role of guiding the movements of physical bodies in space.74 The succession of time creates the possibility of alternation of place by holding simultaneously the past, present and future moments in the thickness of the lived present,75 which is possible only through the involvement of memory and imagination in the moment of perception. This mental process allows the being and not-being of an object in the same place, at the same time.76 The trajectory one’s body inscribes in space defines the information received by the body and the changing conditions of perception of the experienced space.77 73 Agata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Terunobu Fujimori, The Contemporary Tea House, (Kodansha International Ltd., 2007), p.109 74 William Epstein, Sheena Rogers, Perception of Space and Motion, Second edition, (Academic Press, Inc. 1995), p.345 75 Merleau- Ponty, Maurice, Phenomenology of perception, (UK, Routledge,2014), p.288 76 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, (The Macmillan Press Ltd), p.76 77 John Shannon Hendrix and Lorens Eyan Holm, Architecture and the Unconscious, (Ashgate Publishing Limited, Farnham, England, 2016 ), Composing Form, Constructing the Unconscious: Empiriocriticism and Nikolai Ladovskii’s ‘Psychoanalytical Method’ of Architecture at VKhUTEMAS by Alla G. Vronskaya, 28 | PART III

p.87 78 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.35 PART III | 29

Fig. 17 Mini paintings 5x5cm made with tempera paint 30 | PART III

Fig. 18 Traditional Japanese house, built with natural materials PART III | 31

PART IV

Fig. 19 Fallingwater by F. Ll. Wright

Fig. 20 Interior of Fallingwater. In the heart of the living room there is a bolder extruding through the floor as a sitting area in front of the fire place 32 | PART III

ARCHITECTURE AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE INVISIBLE MATRIX

built environment in the physical world82 with the use of geometry and mathematics. When designing, we do not design the architecture, but use the material form as a tool to shape the space within and around it, which creates an environment for the subject to experience. It is about designing the boundaries of space,83 which interact with the body directly physically and visually.

“First we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”84

As a material projection of the invisible matrix, architecture entails the simultaneous coexistence of intuitive and sensible, of real and imaginary. It represent the invisible matrix in the concrete world, because phenomenal objects are the ones by which we are able to conceive space and time. Architecture shapes and divides the space both within the material form and around it. One structure shapes the space inside and around itself, whereas multiple structures form a net of connected internal and external spaces. However, space is not quality of architecture, as it does not exist as an entity and cannot be perceived, it only provides a field for the sensible objects to be apprehended in the transcendental realm.79 Thus, it would not have been possible to conceive architecture without space, because its existence is dependent on a priori intuition of space and time, rather than purely on sensory perception. In the famous Japanese book, The Book of Tea is written that the truly essential lays in vacuum. The real experience of space is in the vacant space within the walls and roof that enclose it rather than the material structure itself.80 “Architecture tames and domesticates space and time”81 Hence, we can say that the existence of architecture and the invisible matrix is mutually dependent as architecture is not only a representation of the invisible matrix in the visual world, but also the material tool, which gives form to the invisible to be apprehended.

ARCHITECTURE AS SCULPTOR OF SPACE Playing the role of separator of space, architecture is the tool by which we intentionally divide space in different sizes and shapes in order to accommodate a certain activity. Whereas, the imagination is the one that creates the material instances that shape space. Pallasmaa described architecture as an externalization of the mind as it has a mental background and counterpart. First, it is always constructed and tested in the mind and then manifested as a three-dimensional 79 Juhani Pallasmaa, OASE #58 Lived Space. •Embodied Experience and Sensory Thought, p.22 80 Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea, (New York: Putnam’s, 1906), p.16 81 Juhani Pallasmaa, OASE #58 Lived Space. •Embodied Experience and Sensory Thought, p.22 34 | PART IV

Architecture provides the basis of our mental mapping of the external world; it is the one by which we create conscious connections between different points in space. It shapes not only the vacant space, but also our lives by defining the way we move our body through space and the paths we choose to take.

Architectural forms define our daily habits both indoors and outdoors by shaping our understanding of space and time.

THE CONCEPT OF TIME AND SPACE IN JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE The Western understanding of space in architecture is based on the concept of three-dimensional geometrical space and mathematics. Whereas, in Japan it is the space within, the emptiness, that is designed, rather than the physical entity. The Japanese “Ma/ 間” means a sense of place or as Kengo Kuma put it “a rich emptiness”. He compared space with the pause we find in music “the richness of the silence”, which enhances our awareness of the sound; two opposites enhancing each other when in close proximity- a yin and yang.85 However, the notion of "Ma" is neither Descartes’ mathematical interpretation nor Kant’s transcendental a priori intuition. On the contrary, it is regarded as a spatio-temporal interval, which exists both prior to and simultaneously with the existing entities.86 The understanding of “Ma” has duality, (time/space, objective outer world/ subjective inner world) which has been the basis of traditional Japanese architecture since ancient times.87 It expresses that the experience of time and 82 Ibid., p.14 83 Andrew Ballantyne, What is Architecture? (New York : Routledge, 2002) p. 23 84 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.36 85 Ibid., p.35 86 Henk Oosterling, Ma or Sensing Time-Space: Towards a culture of the inter, Lecture “Japanese Inter-Esse: ‘MA’ as In-Between” voor Transmediale.05 BASICS Berlin, February 5, 2005 Haus der Kulturen der Welt 87 Monica Pidgeon, Architectural Design Magazine Volume XXXVI (36) March 1966, (London: The Standard Catalogue Co. Ltd., 1966), p. 152 PART IV | 35

space are mutually dependent on one another. The suffix “Ma” is the Japanese interpretation of the invisible matrix, (more precisely - the connections made between the time and space nets) which proposes that the experience of space is constructed on the basis of time passage and the experience of time is dependent on the changing perception of space.88 On one hand, it expresses the objective experience of a priori intuition and how the relations between the space net and time net structure the invisible matrix. On the other hand, the subjective interpretation of “Ma” is the empirical experience of the surrounding environment, which is dependent on the mind of the beholder.89 It highlights that both the concept of place and its physical instances exist in the mind of the perceiving them subject.90 Traditionally, the suffix “Ma” refers to rooms, which are used for various activities during the timeframe of the day just by moving the furniture around.91 (Fig. 21) It illustrates the passage of time by the changes that take place, making different connections between the time net and the space net throughout the day, which depend on the new arrangement of furniture that presupposes not only different movements through the space, but also different atmospheres. It is interpreted from prehistoric times that Japanese architecture was designed to express the passage of time, rather than space.92 Often, the concept of time is used to create the illusion that the space is bigger than it actually is by the use of long paths to the final destination.93 This is evident in the path to traditional Japanese tea houses, which is intended to create the illusion that one is leaving behind the everyday life and goes to a different dimension where materiality and time do not exist.94

JAPANESE TEA HOUSES The architectural form of tea house exists only in Japan. It is a private very small space isolated from its surrounding, which is regarded as a spiritual space, 88 Günter Nitschke, From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan, (London: Academy Editions, 1993), p.54 89 Ibid., p. 58 90 Ibid., p. 55 91 Kevin Nute, Place, Time and Being in Japanese Architecture (New York, NY : Routledge, 2004), p.71 92 Kevin Nute, Space, Time, and Japanese Architecture: The Birth of a New Temporal Tradition, (The International Journal of Architectonic Spatial and Environmental Design, September 2019), p. 56 93 Alex Veal, Time in Japanese architecture: tradition and Tadao Ando, (Cambridge University Press: 2002), p. 351 94 Kevin Nute, Ma and the Japanese Sense of Place Revisited: By Way of Cyberspace, (Conference: Challenging New Technologies to Fulfill the Human Spirit, Third International Symposium on Asia-Pacific ArchitectureAt: University of Hawaii, Honolulu, April 1999) 36 | PART IV

usually constructed from raw unfinished materials.95 There is great attention put in designing tea houses, because of the long tradition of drinking tea in Japan and the ideals related to it. It is like a sacred ceremony that eases the soul, a religion of the art of life. As a rule, ceremonies require a specific set of circumstances to take place; they cannot be done in an ordinary room, the space needs to be detached from everything that might break the harmony of the surrounding, similarly to sacred temples. The garden, leading to the tea house, is regarded as a way of pilgrimage that provides transition from the outside world96 and the tea room is regarded as a necessary condition for the art of drinking tea, (Fig. 22) which has an evolved philosophy behind it, namely, Teaism.97 Japanese architecture aims to disconnect the participants from the material world, suggesting that time and space are illusions connected to the material existence, thus the presence of a clock in the tea room is not accepted so that the subjects can concentrate on the present.98 Despite the old tradition of building the tea rooms isolated from the surrounding, modern architects have started to open up the spaces and connecting them to the immediate surroundings.99 The principle of construction of the tea house is completely different to the building traditions of the West. Unlike the European use of stone and brick, the Japanese build with wood, paper and earthen materials,100 which are intended to create an environment in tune with the natural fragility of the human body. As a rule, the light in the room is subdued, allowing no more than a few sun rays to be admitted into the space.101 (Fig. 23) This is mainly because the symbol for "Ma" ( 間 ) literally means sunlight peeping through the crevices of a gate.102 (Fig. 24) In traditional Japanese architecture it is more important what is inside the structure, not the material instance itself. They aim to create an expanding universe in a small enclosed space, which can be evident in the flexibility of the furniture and the movable wall planes, which illustrate the change over time.103 In Japanese architecture touch and smell play an important role when choosing 95 Agata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Terunobu Fujimori, The Contemporary Tea House, (Kodansha International Ltd., 2007), p.26 96 Antariksa Sudikno, Space in Japanese Zen Buddhist Architecture, (DIMENSI: Journal of Architecture and Built Environment, January 2004), p.79 97 Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea, (New York: Putnam’s, 1906), p.12 98 Kevin Nute, Space, Time, and Japanese Architecture: The Birth of a New Temporal Tradition, (The International Journal of Architectonic Spatial and Environmental Design, September 2019), p. 60 99 Agata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Terunobu Fujimori, The Contemporary Tea House, (Kodansha International Ltd., 2007), p.19 100 Okakura Kakuzō, The Book of Tea, (New York: Putnam’s, 1906), p.20 101 Ibid., p.23 102 Monica Pidgeon, Architectural Design Magazine Volume XXXVI (36) March 1966, (London: The Standard Catalogue Co. Ltd., 1966), p. 116 103 Kevin Nute, Space, Time, and Japanese Architecture: The Birth of a New Temporal Tradition, (The International Journal of Architectonic Spatial and Environmental Design, September 2019), p. 58 PART IV | 37

a material, as it is in the culture to take off your shoes at the threshold, consequently, people can feel the texture of the floor. Unlike today, in the past people used to choose materials depending on the way they smell and feel, instead of the way they look.104 The natural materials used in traditional Japanese architecture create delicate structures that can connect with the perceiving body and create a natural connection between subject and object. The structures built in the environment are regarded as an addition to the surrounding that ideally improves the original landscape. Whereas, concrete, a strong and coarse material, destroys everything that the Japanese building traditions stand for.105 Bruno Taut had great admiration towards the architecture of Japanese rooms, which unlike Western architecture, is in a way absent, as if the structure is only containing the space, without being perceived as an object, but rather somewhat of a landscape.106 (Fig. 25-26) The Japanese understanding of space and time has developed building traditions that express that notion and regard architecture as a matter of relationships (natural harmony) between the structure and its immediate environment rather than an object.107 However, architectural forms are still objects, because they are material instances, which are distinct from their environment.

104 Kate Goodwin, Philip Ursprung, Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined, ( Royal Academy of Arts, London 2014), p.35 105 Agata Isozaki, Tadao Ando, Terunobu Fujimori, The Contemporary Tea House, (Kodansha International Ltd., 2007), p.108 106 Kengo Kuma, Anti-object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture, translated by Hiroshi Watanabe, (AA Words, No 2), p.22 107 Ibid., p.5 38 | PART IV

Fig. 21 Okubo House, Mito, Ibaraki PART IV | 39

Fig. 23 Light source in a tea room

Symbol for entrance, two leaves of a gate

Fig. 22 Japanese Tea room 40 | PART IV

Symbol for sun

The combination of the two symbols (Ma) suggests sunlight peeping through the openings of a door

Fig. 24 Symbol for "Ma" PART IV | 41

CONCLUSION

Fig. 25 Traditional Japanese living area

Fig. 26 Ritsurin Garden, Shikoku, Japan 42 | PART IV

CONCLUSION

spatio-temporal existence motivated me to explore the fields of philosophy and neurology even further.

The principal categories of a priori intuition, defined by Kant in the 18th century, are the sole reasons for the existence of three-dimensional world as they are the fundamental structure that provides the field for existence of all visible and sensible percepts. Time and space are indispensable parts of the way we experience the phenomenon world and ourselves, because they form the organization and sequence of both our external and internal world. They are the ones that construct a stabilized field of perception and the idea of reality in the transcendental realm. The invisible matrix provides the building blocks of our perceptual experience and memory, which structures our mental mapping and notion of reality. It is the basis behind every sensual and visible information detected by our bodies, which is organized in our transcendental realm in accordance to the connections made between the time net and the space net. The phenomenon world exists objectively, conforming to the principles of time and space, but our perception of it is bound to be subjective, because our perception of time and space is subjective. Every individual creates different connections between singular lived moments, influenced by the movement of the subject and the encountered objects in the spatial field. The physical body is that by which there are objects, therefore, the body is the one that structures our perspective upon the world as there is constant oscillation between subject and object, between perceiving body and architecture. Aldo Van Eyck proposed that place and occasion are the equivalent of the human understanding of space and time108 and architecture provides them.

One cannot in a few pages do justice of such an extensive topic, the idea of which has been evolving for centuries. However, for the time being and limited word count, I hope that the thesis manages to describe the idea of the invisible matrix and how architecture mediates itself as a visible representation of the invisible structures of the world. With the knowledge, gained so far, it is only possible to sketch in the broad outlines of this extensive topic, which is the basis of our perception and understanding of the world. The thought in this thesis belongs to my own understanding of the world, which I have been contemplating in the last five years, rather than only by the texts I have encountered after I decided to write on this topic, which I did not consider I will be ever discussing in a written form. But here we are, in the midst of a, hopefully, long journey of broadening my horizons on the topic, in which I got more intrigued than ever since the start of this thesis. Reading texts that share and broaden my understanding of the 108 Kevin Nute, Space, Time, and Japanese Architecture: The Birth of a New Temporal Tradition, (The International Journal of Architectonic Spatial and Environmental Design, September 2019), p. 52 44 | CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION | 45

GLOSSARY OF TERMS TRANSCENDENTAL - It is concerned with matters beyond the scope of sense experience and material existence, such as a priori intuition, imagination and abstract thought.

INTRAMENTAL - Existing only in the mind / not comparable EXTRAMENTAL - Existing outside of the mind / "real" SENSATION - When our physical senses are stimulated, we have a conscious sensation/feeling from the external world dependent on the detected information.

REPRESENTATION - An interpretation of the external world, based on the sensations received from the physical senses, which are interpreted and organized in the unconsciousness and then presented as to the consciousness.

MENTAL IMAGE - A representation of an object is in fact a mental image.1 One of the most challenging problems in philosophy is defining and understanding what consciousness and unconsciousness are. Their terminology slips between definitions because it is still not clear what they are and how exactly they work.2 CONSCIOUSNESS - A mental process that provides the theatre for all our experiences and thoughts, which we are aware of and able to comprehend. All conscious precepts arise from the unconsciousness, to which we do not have access.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS - A mental process that contains all our thoughts that we are both aware and unaware of as well as our deepest desires. It processes all the received information from the external world without making us aware of its perpetual activity. We cannot control what information it provides to the consciousness and what it leaves us unaware of as we do not have a conscious access to it. However, sometimes information from the unconsciousness can be revealed through our dreams.

1 Antonio Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Boby, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness, (Vintage 2000), p.310 2 Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd rev. ed., (Oxford University Press, 2008) 46 | GLOSSARY OF TERMS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF FIGURES Cover Page Edited image by Oliver Ler Marinkoski, Available at < https:// designyoutrust.com/2019/05/artist-creates-3d-sculptures-of-ancient-deitiesand-mythological-creatures-with-a-modern-and-surreal-twist/>, [Accessed on 22.01.2021] PART I Figure 1-3 Barcelona, Elche, La Plata, Available at <https://www.archdaily. com/949094/orthogonal-grids-and-their-variations-in-17-cities-viewed-fromabove > Moreira, Susanna, Orthogonal Grids and Their Variations in 17 Cities Viewed from Above, 2020, [accessed 6 January 2021] Figure 4 Paris, Available at <https://www.archdaily.com/785740/civilizationin-perspective-capturing-the-world-from-above/57150279e58ece1ae0000057civilization-in-perspective-capturing-the-world-from-above-image > Fiederer, Luke, Civilization in Perspective: Capturing the World From Above, 2016, [Accessed 06 January 2021] Figure 5 Ankara, Available at < https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/ post/141045527034/today-our-thoughts-are-with-the-people-of-ankara > [Accessed 06 January 2021] Figure 6 New Delhi, Available at < https://dailyoverview.tumblr.com/ post/160416416979/delhi-serves-as-the-capital-of-india-and-is-home > [Accessed 06 January 2021] Figure 7 The Rock Garden at Ryōanji Temple, Available at <https:// brewminate.com/gardens-as-pleasurable-microcosms-comparisons-andconnections/> [Accessed 04 January 2021] Figure 8 Rocks Composition, Available at <https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ pin/506655026812702614/ > and < https://figuregroundgame.wordpress.com/ tag/ryoan-ji/ > [Accessed 04 January 2021] Figure 9 Cluster of rocks and a miniature of the garden, Available at < https:// www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/south-east-se-asia/japanart/a/ryoanji > and < https://kyotokankoyagi.com/ryoanji-e >, [Accessed 04 January 2021]

48 | LIST OF FIGURES

PART II Figure 10 Object projected on the retina, Available at <https://www. desktopclass.com/physics/image-formation-simple-camera-human-eye.html>, [Accessed on 04.12.2020] Figure 11 Binocular Vision, Gibson, James, The Perception of the Visual World, (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, USA), p.20, Figure 4. The Disparate Views of an Object by the Two Eyes Figure 12 Fixation points during eye movement, Gibson, James, The Perception of the Visual World, (The Riverside Press: Cambridge, USA), p.165, Figure 66. Successive Fixations of the Eyes in Looking at a Picture Figure 13 Ilya Repin’s painting The Unexpected Visitor, Available at <https:// upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Ilya_Repin_Unexpected_ visitors.jpg> , [Accessed on 16.11.2020] Figure 14 Yarbus A L, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum Press, 1967), p.172, Fig. 107. Reproduction from I. E. Repin's picture ''An Unexpected Visitor '' and records of the eye movement of seven different subjects. Each subject examined the picture freely (without instruction) with both eyes for 3 minutes.

Figure 15 Yarbus A L, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum Press, 1967), p.173, Fig. 108. Seven records of eye movements by the same subject, examining Repin's picture freely with both eyes. The records, arranged in chronological order, laster 3 minutes. The interval between records was 1 or 2 days.

Figure 16 Yarbus A L, Eye Movements and Vision (New York: Plenum Press, 1967), p.174, Fig. 109. Seven records of eye movement by the same subject.

Each record lasted 3 minutes. The subject examined the reproduction with both eyes. 10 Free examinating of the picture. Before the subsequent resording session, the subject was asked to: 2) estimate the material circumstances of the family in the picture; 3) give the ages of the people; 4) surmise what the family had been doing before the arrival of the ''unexpected visitor''' 5) remember the clothes worn by the people; 6) remember the position of the people and objects in the room; 7) estimate how long the ''unexpected visitor'' had been away from the family.

LIST OF FIGURES | 49

PART III Figure 17 Mini paintings 5x5cm made with tempera paint, by Anastasia V Asenova Figure 18 Japanese house, built with natural materials, Available at < https:// www.pinterest.com.au/pin/416301559301696334/>, [Accessed 16 January 2021] Figure 19 Fallingwater by F. Ll. Wright, Available at < https://www.dezeen. com/2017/06/07/fallingwater-frank-lloyd-wright-pennsylvania-house-usa150th-birthday/>, [Accessed 16 January 2021] Figure 20 Fallingwater, ©Ezra Stoller/Esto, Available at <https://www. facebook.com/estophoto/photos/a.214852711895776/1755120997868932/?ty pe=3>, [Accessed 16 January 2021] PART IV Figure 21 Okubo House, Mito, Ibaraki: Nute, Kevin, Place, Time and Being in Japanese Architecture, (New York, NY : Routledge, 2004), p.70, Figure 11 Figure 22 Japanese tea room, Available at < https://www.flickr.com/photos/ anamu/10383006096>, [Accessed 22 January 2021] Figure 23 Light source in a tea room: Matsumoto, Kiyoshi, MA — The Japanese Concept of Space and Time, (Medium, 2020), Available at < https:// medium.com/@kiyoshimatsumoto/ma-the-japanese-concept-of-space-andtime-3330c83ded4c >, [Accessed 06 January 2021] Figure 24 Symbol of Ma image done by author, based on images from: Pidgeon, Monica, Architectural Design Magazine Volume XXXVI (36) March 1966, (London: The Standard Catalogue Co. Ltd., 1966), p. 116 Figure 25 Traditional Japanese living area, Available at <http://www. japaneseinteriordesign.com/japanese-interior-design-and-decor-living-areadesign/ >, [Accessed 22 January 2021] Figure 26 Ritsurin Garden, Shikoku, Japan, Available at < https://www.flickr. com/photos/anamu/10383006096 >, [Accessed 22 January 2021]

50 | LIST OF FIGURES

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