Psychology of Perception in Architecture

The article implies a critical review of the use of the term in contemporary architectural theory and criticism after its transmission from psychology. The term was introduced by C. G. Jung in 1919 to designate universal patterns that emanate from the unconscious, but only during the 1960s gained relative popularity within the field of architectural criticism. However, it was never particular school of Jungean architectural theoreticians but various authors that somehow applied the term, suggesting its free interpretation. The main goal of the article is not to provide an ultimate proof of existence of architectural archetypes but to trace the concept discourse within the Western perspective of architectural theory. To do so, several texts referring to C. G. Jung are analysed, mostly from the 1950s to the present day. Having analyzed the texts of several postwar architectural critics, it was concluded that different authors posited discrepant interpretations of architectural archetypes , which partly stems from the uncertainty of the very term "arche-type", for C. Jung himself fell short of providing a concrete definition for it. Yet, the question of existence of architectural archetypes still remains open.

Abstract:

Marta Cobel-Tokarska
Bezludna wyspa, nora, grób. Wojenne kryjówki Żydów w okupowanej Polsce.
[Desert island, burrow, grave. Wartime hiding places of Jews in Poland]
Warszawa: IPN, 2012, s. 304+aneks,
ISBN: 978-83-7629-354-7

My book presents the result of a research on spacial aspect of  hiding places in occupied Poland during The World War II, that have been used by Jews, both in ghettos (mostly during “deportation actions”) and on the Aryan side. This book shows personal experience of a specific hiding place from the point of view of environmental psychology and cultural anthropology.
Not to omit many interesting sources, I have  disregarded commonly used space division on the Aryan side and ghettos This is connected with the assumption about universality of the main shelter features, which do not depend on their location.
A collocation “hiding place” means a specific place  used by a man that needs protection. The features constituting a place as a shelter belongs to spatial order: placement, boundaries, size, constructions, structure. Therefore the space has been chosen as the key analyzing category.
The book is based on written reports from Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (team 301) and from Yad Vashem as well as on both published and unpublished journals and memoirs that have been written during the fascist occupation or after the end of the war.
I analyze the sources from the perspective of social sciences: spatial  psychology, cultural anthropology and environmental social psychology.

In Chapter I entitled „Scope of the analysis; attempt at typology of hiding places by objective criteria” the typology of Jewish hiding places ordering the analyzed phenomena is presented.
Analysis of the phenomena of hiding places as social space and a description of individual perception of hiding place’s space is presented in Chapter II. The following categories are used: perception of space, environmental stress and body.
This part of the book describes a sensorial perception of a shelter space. Different ways of sensual reception are presented: visual, auditorial, olfactorial and tactile. Later the question of what was the impact of  congestion, violation of personal space and arduous environmental parameters on the hiding people and their levels of stress is tackled. Concluding the issue of “a body in a hiding place”, the basic experience of living in a hiding place was connected with the biological constraints that have determined social behavior and personal feelings.
Chapter III entitled “Meanings in the space of a hiding place” are devoted to anthropological analysis of the discourse reflecting the perception of the authors of the testimonies, i.a. metaphors used in the texts. The subject of this chapter is the space of a hiding place that is being explored by using classical categories of cultural anthropology. Jews in hiding have been using some metaphors in their diaries. I am analyzing those metaphors trying to match an appropriate pattern of interpretation to each testimony. I would like to unveil what kind of space was  the space of the hiding place as perceived by\ the hidden people: was it a desert island, have  they been feeling like Robinson? Was it a Noah's Ark? A burrow, where they felt like a persecuted victim? A besieged citadel? A grave, where they felt buried alive? Each of those concepts might be found in the elemental part of culture of our civilization. Finally I would like to mention a more universal metaphor of prison.
Chapter IV constitutes an analysis of the idea of home through sociological categories of exclusion, marginalization and homelessness. In there I reach the clue (aside from the basic function, i.e. saving lives ) role of hiding places in overcoming by Jews the social status imposed on them.
Publication Date: 2012

A B S T R A C T Architects and non-architects have different perceptions, and assume differently. Previous studies show that uniqueness, Novelty and originality depend significantly on the general aesthetics in the view of non-architects. Also, moderate complexity has been chosen as the most favorable complexity. This study aims at bringing together the architectural and non-architectural perception and also understanding the non-architects' significant criteria related to the aesthetics of the façade design. This research focuses on understanding the aesthetic differences and the relation between aesthetics and complexity in residential façades using qualitative methodology in Iran. The data have been collected using interview techniques and analyzed using content analysis.61 architects and 59 non-architects were examined. The results reveal that among the conceptual properties, properties such as simplicity and uniqueness are common to both architects and non-architects, however, there are differences that needs to be taken into consideration. The relation of complexity, as one of the most important conceptual properties, to aesthetics was examined; and it was revealed that medium complexity is the complexity level that satisfies both groups, and low complexity and high complexity are not so favorable. It is concluded that complexity plays a major role for non-architects when it comes to aesthetic judgments of a building.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the structure of experience of architectural expressiveness of architects and non-architects. Twenty architects and twenty non-architects rated twenty photographs of architectural objects on thirty expressiveness scales. Principal components analysis revealed four factors for both groups of participants: Aggressiveness, Regularity, Color and Aesthetics. In a cluster analysis two clusters of architectural objects were obtained: Choleric (high Aggressiveness and Color) and Phlegmatic (low Aggressiveness and Color, and high Regularity). All objects were highly rated on Aesthetics. Analysis of variance has shown that architects rated both clusters as less aggressive than non-architects. Also, experts rated the Phlegmatic cluster as more aesthetic, while nonexperts rated the Choleric cluster as more aesthetic. These results supported the Processing Fluency model: compared to non-architects, architects processed the expressive information of minimalistic objects (Phlegmatic cluster) with ease, which led towards positive hedonic reactions and higher.
Key words: experience, expressiveness, architecture, expertise, basic dimensions

If we consider the city as a set of objects, it is easy to understand how their presence becomes a perennially observable and/or per- ceptible scenario. The urban ele- ments that are “building” our cities are part of what could be obser- ved; more precisely their envelo- pe, their volume and their skin: we can look at it, touch it, vandalistical- ly engrave it, tag it and so on. The perception of the skin of our cities becomes a fundamental element for better understanding that layer that divides the exterior and inte- rior of the buildings in which and between which - at different levels - all the possibilities of daily life are manifested.

Islamic Arab societies have a distinctive but culturally common system of beliefs, attitudes and values that over time have formed traditional expression. These traditions have been articulated through art, architecture, community designs, social institutions and conventional behavior; all of which form spatial patterns. Knowledge regarding Islamic
and Arab architecture is in hand through numerous publications. Recently, in Arab Gulf countries, the conservation of local identity has become the center of attention. Their attempts have been specifically demonstrated through the conversion of significant historical buildings into museums or applying neo-vernacular architectural styles in newly built museums. One might question their utilization of specifically museums. Museums symbolize cultural values, wealth, global status, and a center attraction. Contemporary architecture of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar is a conspicuous example that is going to be the focus of this research. Even though the building was designed by I.M. Pei, a well-known architect who is foreign to Islamic design principles and to Qatari local architecture, it is one of the most protuberant landmarks in the city and one of the emblematical icons of neo-vernacular Qatari architecture that catalyzes urban rejuvenation. It is anticipated that the key of success of the architecture of the Museum of Islamic Art studied in this research suggests an approach for analysis of museum study.

The paper outlines the theoretical framework for the concept of applying analytical
psychology to architectural design. What has been discussed are methods and process of designing tools for the analysis of perceptual experiences resulting from the representations of the notions used in the description of the architectural space attributes. A tool is presented – pictogram test based on the graphic reduction of the language of architecture as well as environmental research results confirming its accuracy. The presented methods of analysis concern pictograms as well as perceptual experience presumption errors in the design process. The errors a designer unwary of the complexity of the perceptual experience of the designed architectural space could be prone to have also been identified.

Acoustics is central to church design, as are the other perceptual modalities.  There is good research that what users say they want for church design is not an effective metric for selecting that design. Quantitative subjective visual juries are very helpful in understanding the user's feelings and associations about design of churches

The paper outlines the theoretical framework for the concept of applying analytical psychology to architectural design. What has been discussed are methods and process of designing tools for the analysis of perceptual experiences resulting from the representations of the notions used in the description of the architectural space attributes. A tool is presented – pictogram test based on the graphic reduction of the language of architecture as well as environmental research results confirming its accuracy. The presented methods of analysis concern pictograms as well as perceptual experience presumption errors in the design process. The errors a designer unwary of the complexity of the perceptual experience of the designed architectural space could be prone to have also been identified.

There is no strict definition for the architectural concept of Out of scale. Nevertheless, European forma mentis is fed by centuries of architectonical orders and proportion studies. For this reason, most of Europeans pretend to be able to perceive the Out of Scale manifestation. Can a perception on built environment be the same for different populations and cultures?
The research intends to investigate this issue, thru the comparison with a different culture and bringing examples from urban sociology studies, newspapers and interviews. Given its evolution, so different from European one, Japanese architectural culture has been chosen as comparison tool, since born under a philosophic system, Buddhist-Shinto so different from Greek-Latin philosophy and Judeo-Christian religion.
Main result is the discovery of a contemporary Japanese lack of proportion sense, at least as perceived in the West. Japan evolution brought to the creation of a peculiar two-dimensional perception system, almost lost since the modernity introduction. This loss has partially been possible due to lack of established proportions theory.
Looking at the vibrant contemporary Japanese architecture, it seems that this lack of theory offered designers great freedom in their urban context approach, thus demonstrating that scale perception can really be different for different cultures.

The article implies a critical review of the use of the term in contemporary architectural theory and criticism after its transmission from psychology. The term was introduced by C. G. Jung in 1919 to designate universal patterns that emanate from the unconscious, but only during the 1960s gained relative popularity within the field of architectural criticism. However, it was never particular school of Jungean architectural theoreticians but various authors that somehow applied the term, suggesting its free interpretation. The main goal of the article is not to provide an ultimate proof of existence of architectural archetypes but to trace the concept discourse within the Western perspective of architectural theory. To do so, several texts referring to C. G. Jung are analysed, mostly from the 1950s to the present day. Having analyzed the texts of several postwar architectural critics, it was concluded that different authors posited discrepant interpretations of architectural archetypes , which partly stems from the uncertainty of the very term "arche-type", for C. Jung himself fell short of providing a concrete definition for it. Yet, the question of existence of architectural archetypes still remains open.