perception

Repetition repetition repetition

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Repetition takes place in time and space. But the same may be said of everything aesthetic,[1] architectural or otherwise. Which of these has priority, then? Time or space? Empirically, the recognition of repeated instances is almost always a temporal affair. They take a little while to figure out, in other words. Some disagreement remains as to whether this procedure is more a function of memory or perception, however. In studies of repetition blindness, for example, it is unclear if the failure to recognize recurring items in a sequence owes primarily to one’s inability to notice similarities the second time something appears. Conflicting evidence indicates it could just as easily involve an inability to remember the qualities it displayed the first time around. Psychologists are still split over this question.[2]

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Repetition has been acknowledged as an important aspect of architecture and design for several centuries now, although it was seldom theorized until recently. Despite architecture’s usual preoccupation with problems of space, most repeating patterns or spatial arrangements require time to grasp. That is, unless they’re intuited all at once, in a single glance. One must first be allowed to perambulate the structure, eyes gliding along its surface. Continue reading →

A brief addendum on architecture and habituation

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Image: Claude Shannon setting
“Theseus” into its rat maze.

Just to clarify, in case my recent post on Bourdieu and de Certeau was misleading, I do not intend to dismiss the role of habituation in art and architecture wholesale:

The human need for shelter is permanent. Architecture has never had fallow periods. Its history is longer than that of any other art, and its effect ought to be recognized in any attempt to account for the relationship of the masses to the work of art. Buildings are received in a twofold manner: by use and by perception. Or, better: tactilely and optically. Such reception cannot be understood in terms of the concentrated attention of a traveler before a famous building. On the tactile side, there is no counterpart to what contemplation is on the optical side. Tactile reception comes about not so much by way of attention as by way of habit. The latter largely determines even the optical reception of architecture, which spontaneously takes the form of casual noticing, rather than attentive observation. Under certain circumstances, this form of reception shaped by architecture acquires canonical value. For the tasks which face the human apparatus of perception at historical turning points cannot be performed solely by optical means — that is, by way of contemplation. They are mastered gradually — taking their cue from tactile reception — through habit.

Walter Benjamin, “The work of art in the age
of its technological reproducibility” (1935)[1]

There is probably more to this, as well. Frampton’s insistence upon the tactile, tectonic dimension of architecture as opposed to the visual, scenographic qualities celebrated by postmodern architects, likely stems from a similar reasoning.

Notes

[1]  Translated by Michael Jennings, Howard Eiland, and Gary Smith. Selected Writings, Volume 3: 1935-1938. (Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA: 2003). Pg. 120.