peripheral

all quotes from the essay "space place and atmosphere: emotion and peripheral perception in architectural experience” by juhani pallasmaa

"An atmospheric perception also involves judgements beyond the five Aristotelian senses, such as sensations of orientation, gravity, balance, stability, motion, duration, continuity, scale and illumination. Indeed, the immediate judgement of the character of space calls for our entire embodied and existential sense, and it is perceived in a diffuse, peripheral and unconscious manner rather than through precise, focused and conscious observation."

"The quality of a space or place is not merely a visual perceptual quality as it is usually assumed. The judgement of environmental character is a complex multi-sensory fusion of countless factors which are immediately and synthetically grasped as an overall atmosphere, ambience, feeling or mood."

"In his book, The experience of place, Tony Hiss uses the notion 'simultaneous perception' – the system we use to experience our surroundings. . .Atmosphere is similarly an exchange between material or existent properties of the place and the immaterial realm of human perception and imagination. Yet, they are not physical ‘things’ or facts, as they are human experiential ‘creations’.

Paradoxically, we grasp the atmosphere before we identify its details or understand it intellectually. In fact, we may be completely unable to say anything meaningful about the characteristics of a situation, yet have a firm image, emotive attitude, and recall of it. In the same way, although we do not consciously analyse or understand the interaction of meteorological facts, we grasp the essence of weather at a glance, and it inevitably conditions our mood and intentionality. As we enter a new city, we grasp its overall character similarly, without having consciously analysed a single one of its countless material, geometric, or dimensional properties."

"Theater relies heavily on atmosphere which supports the integrity and continuity of the story regardless of the often abstracted and vaguely hinted features of the place or space. The ambience can be so suggestive and dominating that very few cues of the setting are needed."

"Music creates atmospheric interior spaces, ephemeral and dynamic experiential fields, rather than distant shapes, structures or objects. Atmosphere emphasizes a sustained being in a situation rather than a singular moment of perception. The fact that music can move us to tears is a convincing proof of the emotive power of art as well as of our innate capacity to simulate and internalise abstract experiential structures, or more precisely, to project our emotions on abstractly symbolic structures."

"Once we have assessed a space inviting and pleasant, or uninviting and depressing, we can hardly alter that first-hand judgement. We become attached to certain settings and remain alienated in other kinds of settings, and both intuitive choices are equally difficult to analyse verbally or alter as experiential realities."

"We have traditionally underestimated the roles and cognitive capacities of emotions in comparison with our conceptual, intellectual and verbal understanding. Yet, emotional reactions are often the most comprehensive and synthetic judgements that we can produce, although we are hardly able to identify the constituents of these assessments. When we fear or love something, there is not much scope or need for rationalization."

"The all-encompassing and instantaneous perception of atmospheres calls for a specific manner of perception – unconscious and unfocused peripheral perception. This fragmented perception of the world is actually our normal reality, although we believe that we perceive everything with precision. Our image of our world of perceptual fragments is held together by constant active scanning by the senses, movement and a creative fusion and interpretation of these inherently dissociated percepts through memory.

The historic development of the representational techniques depicting space and form is closely tied to the development of architecture itself. The perspectival understanding of space gave rise to an architecture of vision, whereas the quest to liberate the eye from its perspectival fixation enables the conception of multi- perspectival, simultaneous, and atmospheric space. Perspectival space leaves us as outside observers, whereas multi-perspectival and atmospheric space and peripheral vision enclose and enfold us in their embrace. This is the perceptual and psychological essence of Impressionist, Cubist, and Abstract Expressionist space; we are pulled into the space and made to experience it as a fully embodied sensation and a thick atmosphere. The special reality of a Cézanne landscape, Jackson Pollock painting, as well as of engaging architecture and cityscapes, derives from the way these experiential situations engage our perceptual and psychological mechanisms. As Merleau-Ponty argues, 'we come to see not the work of art, but the world according to the work'.

While the hectic eye of the camera captures a momentary situation, a passing condition of light, or an isolated, framed and focused fragment, the real experience of architectural reality depends fundamentally on peripheral and anticipated vision; the mere experience of interiority implies peripheral perception. The perceptual realm that we sense beyond the sphere of focused vision is as important as the focused image that can be frozen by the camera. In fact, there is evidence that peripheral and unconscious perception is more important for our perceptual and mental system than focused perception."

"This assumption suggests that one reason why contemporary spaces often alienate us – compared with historical and natural settings that elicit powerful emotional engagement – has to do with the poverty of our peripheral vision, and the consequent weakness of the atmospheric quality. Focused vision makes us mere outside observers; whereas peripheral perception transforms retinal images into a spatial and bodily involvement and gives rise to the sense of an engaging atmosphere and personal participation. Peripheral perception is the perceptive mode through which we grasp atmospheres. The importance of the senses of hearing, smell, and touch (temperature, moisture, air movement) for the atmospheric perception arises from their essence as non-directional and embracing experiences. The role of peripheral and unconscious perception explains why a photographic image is usually an unreliable witness of true architectural quality; what is outside of the focused frame, and even behind the observer, has as much significance as what is consciously viewed. Indeed, architects would do better if they were less concerned with the photogenic qualities of their works. As neurological understanding suggests, meaning is always contextually grounded."