劉士林·時代需要詩性文化——如果一個德國人遭遇挫折，他首先想到的應該是音樂；如果一個中國書生科場失意，他的第一反應可能是寫一首詩——中國古人之所以總是本能地、不假思索地求助於詩歌，是因為他們最深層的文化結構是詩性文化。

與其他古代民族相比，中華民族的最大貢獻之一是詩性文化，這既是我們民族與其他民族相區別的標識，也是中華民族自我認同的身份證明。

今天，詩性文化對於我們的時代有何意義？《解放周末》獨家專訪上海交通大學媒體與設計學院教授劉士林，在平仄回響的詩性文化中，追尋我們精神的回鄉之路。

中國文化是從 “詩性智慧”中轉換生成的一種文化形態，本質上是詩性文化

解放周末：您曾是一位詩人，多年來一直研究詩歌美學與文化，很早就提出了中國文化是詩性文化，這一切是怎麽開始的？

劉士林：對我而言，“詩性文化”概念的出場，在很大程度上可以說是“純乎偶然”。1990年前後，當時我還是一個剛畢業的大學生，很偶然的機會，接觸到與西方理性傳統差異很大的意大利學者維柯的著作《新科學》，他在書中提出了“詩性智慧”的概念，在這個觀點的啟發下，我幾乎是帶著幾分“詩意的迷狂”撞進了詩性文化之門。

解放周末：維柯帶給您最重要的啟發是什麽？

劉士林：維柯認為，“詩性智慧”是人類最初的智慧，古代各民族都以“詩性智慧”的精神方式創造了最初的文化模式。在人類文明之初，由於具有反思功能的理性意識尚不成熟，人類不能區別主體與對象、感性與理性，而只能借助詩性智慧來思考和創造。詩性智慧，從人類學上來說，類似於人類學家講的原始思維，從現代意義上，又近乎美學講的“藝術思維”。這與我們當時都把西方理性哲學看作是人類精神的源頭有質的差異，同時也為重新理解東方文明、特別是有“詩的國度”之稱的中國文化提供了一把鑰匙。

解放周末：我們今天已很難想象這種不區分自然與人、個體與他人，甚至不區別生與死的生命方式。 “詩性智慧”這一人類最初的智慧又是怎麽消失的呢？

劉士林：詩性智慧正如莊子說的“其生也天行，其死也物化”，曾是人類在遠古洪荒年代共同的生命方式。隨著距今最近的第四紀冰川及大洪水時代到來，直接摧毀了原始社會異常豐富的食物資源，終結了人與大自然同體合流的原始和諧關係，人類開始走出自然界；再加上青銅時代原始公有制的瓦解和私有制的成熟，加劇了人類社會內部對生活資料的激烈競爭，促發了個體精神生命的覺醒。

在這兩種經歷後，人類開始面對兩大問題：一是如何面對資源越來越緊張、生存條件越來越惡劣的大自然。他們不明白，曾經極度慷慨的大地母親為什麽突然變得吝嗇與殘酷起來？二是如何應對生命內部異軍突起的 “自我意識”與“個體需要”。他們很可能更不明白，為什麽原本樸素的內心世界在一天天變得工於心計、欲壑難填。

解放周末：對於這樣的變化，不同民族和文明又是如何回應的？

劉士林：世界上最古老的四大文明產生了四種回應的方式。一是全盤否定“對象”，如古埃及的“來世論”，認為這個世界是完全不真實的。二是徹底消解人這個“主體”，如古印度的佛教哲學，認為生命的本質是“空”。三是希臘類型，它將人與自然的關係完全對立起來，人由原始的情感主體逐漸發展為冷靜的理性主體，人與大自然的關係也越來越疏遠和緊張。第四種是中國類型，這是一種詩性智慧的反應，它一方面盡力消解生命內部逐漸展開的“感性”與“理性”的對立，另一方面又通過限制主體的欲望以盡可能減少人與自然的對立。

可以說，這是一種找回詩性智慧或重建原始和諧的努力，它在肯定個體意識與需要的同時，又不願割裂原始人群遺留的血緣親情；在不得不征服自然以換取生活資料的同時，又希望能保持與大自然固有的親密與和諧關係，這種模式的特點是在肯定自身的同時又限制自身，在改造自然的同時又希望不要“傷筋動骨”。以後的中國文化，盡管層次繁多、旁逸斜出，但都以詩性智慧為根底，所以說，中國文化是從“詩性智慧”中轉換生成的一種文化形態，本質上是詩性文化。

在古代，詩性文化不僅是審美的，也是我們民族的最高生活哲學

解放周末：回顧歷史，中國曾是一個詩歌高度發達的國度，詩性文化在中國文化和中國人的生活方式中又是如何表現的？

劉士林：如果是一個德國人遭遇了挫折，我想他首先想到的應該是音樂，正如恩格斯所說，在音樂中德國是“一切民族之王”。而一個中國古代書生要是科場失意，他往往用詩歌來排遣解憂。中國古人之所以總是本能地、不假思索地求助於詩歌，是因為他們最深層的文化結構是詩性文化。為了窺探到中國文化的詩性本質，我曾從文化人類學角度考察過“詩”的文化本源。

解放周末：在其中您看到了什麽？

劉士林：由於古代詩歌理論不發達，“詩”的真正意思一直是個謎。在甲骨文裏我們沒有看到“詩”字，只有一個相近的“寺”字，後來很多人都認同了“詩者，寺人之言”，也就是說，“詩”就是“寺人”說的話。

解放周末：這個“寺”的本義何在？

劉士林：對甲骨文裏的“寺”，在當代主要有兩種解釋。一種以人類學家葉舒憲為代表，他把“寺”解釋為類似於後代的“宦官”，進而從“性文化”、“生殖崇拜”的角度解釋詩。我則更傾向於從“食文化”角度理解詩。

具體說來，甲骨文中的“寺”在字形上從“手”和“足”，“手”和“足”在上古是主要的度量工具和標準，“手”是分配食物(即生活資料)的量器，“足”是丈量土地(即生產資料)的工具。當然，這“手”和“足”也不是一般人的，而是特指部落酋長或首領的，這些掌握分配權力的人就叫做“寺人”。由此出發，我把“寺”解釋為中國最古老的食物和土地分配體制，而“寺人”在分配時以載歌載舞的形式說唱，所以他們的唱詞，就是最初的詩。

解放周末：與物質生產相關的“寺”又怎麽變成後來的審美的“詩”？

劉士林：根據我的研究，至少經歷了三次大的轉變。一是殷周之變。從商人的“重鬼神”的宗教性歌舞到周人的“重現實”的儀式性歌舞，“詩”由此貼近人間和實用。二是周秦之變。經歷了春秋戰國的“禮崩樂壞”和秦始皇“焚書坑儒”後，周代復雜的“用樂”制度流散，導致“音樂”和“詩歌”分家，“詩”從具有明確政治功用的“樂舞”中獨立。三是魏晉之變。到了魏晉時代，詩歌主要不再承擔倫理教化作用，抒情與審美功能分化出來，與現代的詩歌越來越接近。


（劉士林《時代需要「詩性文化」》 2012年03月16日10:32 來源：解放日報 林穎 / 受訪者劉士林：上海交通大學媒體與設計學院教授，主要從事美學、中國詩學、當代文化研究。）

陈明发〈从“意识流”谈起〉

“意识流”理论易懂难精。

除了伍尔夫的著作，阅读弗拉基米尔·纳博科夫的《说吧，记忆：自传追述》也带给我很大的乐趣。此书部分地采纳了意识流。

意识流最有名的小说之一《尤利西斯》，买了许久一直没好好读，很对不起乔伊思。另一部意识流大书普鲁斯特的《追忆逝水年华》，我偷工减料地在一些选集中，当散文篇章读过一小部分，说起来很不成样子。

但在哲学方面。柏格森（1927年诺贝尔文学奖得主）对我影响很大，因为他，我上溯维柯（“诗性智慧”历史发展观），下访克里斯蒂瓦（“诗性语言”革命），思想起来心里比较踏实些。

“意识流”得益于19世纪心理学家威廉·詹姆斯的学说，但后来被归入“意识流”的文学家，明显也采纳了20世纪佛洛伊德、荣格、拉康诸子的精神分析理论。

对中国意识流文学作品我不熟悉，我近年相对喜欢的小说家如李佩甫（《无边无际的早晨》等）、冯苓植（《与死共舞—“鞭杆”的故事》等）的创作。二人把意识流与“微魔幻”做了令人期许的混融。

我个人的心智之旅，许多年来依靠着存在主义先驱海德格尔的哲学，近年有柏格森诸子加持，期待文创路上有新领悟。再读李佩甫和冯苓植等中文作家的努力结果，诗性实践在汉字文创中无疑是可能的。（19.12.2023）

There, she writes: “So, where are we? What is the current state of the art? Sadly, the current research on multisensory environments appearing in journals such as The Senses & Society does not appear to be impacting artists and architects participating in the Chicago Biennial. Nor are the discoveries in neuroscience offering new information about how the brain relates to the physical environment.” (Malnar, 2017, p. 153).19 At the same time, however, the adverts for at least one new residential development in Barcelona promising residents the benefits of “Sensory living” (The New York Times International Edition in 2019, August 31–Septem ber 1, p. 13), suggests that at least some architects/de signers are starting to realize the benefits of engaging their clients’/customers’ senses. The advert promised that the newly purchased apartment would “provoke their senses”.

Ultimately, it is to be hoped that as the growing awareness of the multisensory nature of human perception continues to spread beyond the academic community, those working in the field of architectural design practice will increasingly start to incorporate the multisensory perspective into their work; and, by so doing, promote the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our social, cognitive, and emotional well-being.

(Source: Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind by Charles Spence; in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2020) 5:46 Keywords: Multisensory perception, Architecture, The senses, Crossmodal correspondences)

Related:

地方感性

愛懇雲端藝廊：設計故事館

Conclusions

While it would seem unrealistic that the dominance, or hegemony (Levin, 1993), of the visual will be overturned any time soon, that does not mean that we should not do our best to challenge it. As critic David Michael Levin puts it: “I think it is appropriate to challenge the hegemony of vision– the ocular-centrism of our culture.

And I think we need to examine very critically the character of vision that predominates today in our world. We urgently need a diagnosis of the psychosocial path ology of everyday seeing– and a critical understanding of ourselves as visionary beings.” (Levin, 1993, p. 205).

While not specifically talking about architecture, what we can all do is to adopt a more multisensory perspective and be more sensitive to the way in which the senses interact, be it in architecture or in any other as pect of our everyday experiences.

By designing experiences that congruently engage more of the senses we may be better able to enhance the quality of life while at the same time also creating more immersive, engaging, and memorable multisensory experiences (Bloomer & Moore, 1977; Gallace & Spence, 2014; Garg, 2019; Spence, 2021; Ward, 2014). Stein and Meredith (1993, p. xi), two of the foremost multisensory
neuroscientists of the last quarter century, summarized this idea when they suggesting in the preface to their in fluential volume The merging of the senses that: “The in tegration of inputs from different sensory modalities not only transforms some of their individual characteristics, but does so in ways that can enhance the quality of life.

Integrated sensory inputs produce far richer experiences than would be predicted from their simple coexistence or the linear sum of their individual products.” There is growing interest across many fields of endeavour in design that moves beyond this one dominant, or perhaps even overpowering, sense (Lupton & Lipps, 2018). The aim is increasingly to design for experience rather than merely for appearance. At the same time, however, it is also important to note that progress has been slow in translating the insights from the academic field of multisensory research to the world of architec
tural design practice, as noted by licensed architect Joy Monice Malnar when writing about her disappointment with the entries at the 2015 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

One is addressed to the eyes, the other to the ears.” (Varga,  1996,p.114).Moreover, inhis laterwork(e.g.,Polytopes),  Xenakis pursued the idea of creating a total dissociation be tween visual and aural perception in large abstract sound and light installations (Sterken, 2007, p. 33).

 At several points throughout his book Pérez-Gómez (2016), stresses the importance of “synaesthesia” to architecture, without, unfortunately, ever really quite defining what he means by the term. All one finds are quotes such as the following: “primordial synesthetic perception”,  p. 11;  “perception is primordially  synesthetic”, p. 20; “synaesthesia as the primary modality  of human perception”, p. 71. Pérez-Gómez (2016, p.  149) draws heavily on Merleau-Ponty’s (1962, p. 235) Phenomenology of Perception, quoting lines such as:

 “The senses translate each other without any need of an interpreter, they are mutually comprehensible without the intervention of any idea.” A few pages later he cites Heidegger “truths as correspondence” (Pérez-Gómez,  2016, p. 162). This does, though, sound more like a de scription of the ubiquitous crossmodal correspondences  (Marks, 1978; Spence, 2011) than necessarily fitting with  contemporary definitions of synaesthesia, though the distinction between the two phenomena admittedly remains fiercely contested (e.g., Deroy & Spence, 2013; Sathian & Ramachandran, 2020). Abath (2017) has done a great job of highlighting the confusion linked to Merleau-Ponty’s incoherent use of the term synaesthesia, that has, in turn, gone on to “infect” the writings of other architectural theorists, such as Pérez-Gómez (2016).

Talking of synaesthetic design may then be something  of a misnomer (Spence, 2015), the fundamental idea here is to base one’s design decisions on the sometimes surprising connections between the senses that we all share, such as, for example, between high-pitched sounds and small, light, fast-moving objects (e.g.,  Spence, 2011, 2012a). It is important to highlight the fact  that while these crossmodal correspondences are often confused with synaesthesia, they actually constitute a superficially similar, but fundamentally quite different empirical phenomenon (see Deroy & Spence, 2013).

We have already come across a number of examples of crossmodal correspondences being incorporated,  knowingly or otherwise, in design decisions. Just think about the use of temperature-hue correspondences  (Tsushima et al., 2020; see Spence, 2020a, for a review).

The lightness-elevation mapping (crossmodal correspondence) might also prove useful from a design perspective (Sunaga, Park, & Spence, 2016). And colour taste and sound-taste correspondences have already been incorporated into the design of multisensory experiential spaces (e.g., Spence et al., 2014; see also Adams &  Doucé, 2017; Adams & Vanrie, 2018). Once one accepts  the importance of crossmodal correspondences to environmental design, then this represents an additional level  at which sensory atmospheric cues may be judged as  congruent (e.g., see Spence et al., 2014). One of the important questions that remains for future research,  though, is to determine whether there may be a priority of one kind of cross modal congruency over others when they are manipulated simultaneously.

Does it, I wonder, make sense to suggest that we have such priors concerning the unification of environmental/atmospheric cues? Or might it be, perhaps, that in a context in which we are regularly exposed to incongruent environmental/atmospheric multisensory cues- just think of how music is played from loudspeakers without any associated visual referent- that out priors concerning whether to integrate what we see, hear, smell, and feel will necessarily be related, in any meaningful sense, may well be reduced substantially.

See Badde Navarro, and Landy (2020) and Gau and Noppeney  (2016) on the role of context in the strength of the  common-source priors multisensory binding.

Hence, no matter whether one wants to create a tranquil space (Pheasant, Horoshenkov, Watts, & Barret, 2008)or one that arouses (Mattila & Wirtz, 2001), the senses interact as they do in various other configurations and situations (e.g., Jahncke, Eriksson, & Naula, 2015; Jiang,  Masullo, & Maffei, 2016). There are, in fact, numerous examples where the senses have been shown to interact in  the experience and rating of urban environments (e.g., Ba &Kang,2019; Van Renterghem & Botteldooren, 2016).

Crossmodal correspondences in architectural design practice The field of synaesthetic design has grown rapidly in  recent years (e.g., Haverkamp, 2014; Merter, 2017;  Spence, 2012b). According to architectural historian, Alberto Pérez-Gómez, mentioned earlier, the Philips Pavilion designed by Le Corbusier for the 1958 Brussels world’s fair (Fig. 10) attempted to deliver a multisensory experience, or atmosphere by means of “forced” synaesthesia (Pérez-Gómez, 2016,p.19).18

The interior audiovisual environment was mostly designed by Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis (see Sterken, 2007). From those descriptions that have survived there were many  coloured lights and projections and a looping soundscape that was responsive to people’s  ovement through the  space (Lootsma, 1998; Muecke & Zach, 2007). 

18 Though Pérez-Gómez (2016, p. 65) seems to be using a rather unconventional definition of synaesthesia, as a little later in his otherwise excellent work, he defines perceptual synaesthesia as “the integrated sensory modalities”, Pérez-Gómez (2016, p. 65). The  majority of cognitive neuroscientists would, I presume, take this as a  definition of multisensory perception, rather than synaesthesia. Synaesthesia, note, is typically defined as the automatic elicitation  of an idiosyncratic concurrent, not normally experienced, in response  to the presence of an inducing stimulus (Grossenbacher & Lovelace,  2001).

True to his oculocentric approach, mentioned at the start of this piece, Le Corbusier apparently concentrated  on the visual aspects of the “Poème Electronique”, the multimedia show that was projected inside the pavilion.

Meanwhile, his site manager, Iannis Xenakis created “Concret PH”- the soundscape, broadcast over 300 loudspeakers, that accompanied it. It is, though, unclear how much connection there actually was between the auditory and visual components of this multimedia presentation. The notion of parallel, but unconnected, stimulation to eye and ear comes through in Xenakis’ quote that: “we are capable of speaking two languages at the same time.

Ultimately, therefore, while the congruency of atmos pheric/environmental cues can be defined in various ways, and while incongruency is normally negatively valenced (because it is hard to process),17 issues of (in)congruency may often simply not be an issue for the occupants of specific environments. This may either be because the latter simply do not pay attention to the at
mospheric/environmental cues (and hence do not register their incongruency) and/or because they have no reason to believe that the stimuli should be combined in the first place.16

The value of connecting with nature in architectural design practice was stressed by an advertorial for an arctic hideaway that suggests that: “True luxury today is connecting with nature and feeling that your senses work again” as appeared in an article in Blue Wings magazine (December 2019, p. 38). 17

It should, though, be remembered, that sometimes incongruency may be precisely what is wanted. Just take the following quote regarding the crossmodal contrast of thermal heat combined with
visual coolness from Japan as but one example: “In the summer the householder likes to hang a picture of a waterfall, a mountain stream, or similar view in the Tokonama and enjoy in its contemplation a feeling of coolness.” (Tetsuro, 1955, p. 16).

Sensory dominance

One common feature of configurations of multisensory stimuli that are in some sense incongruent is sensory dominance. And very often, under laboratory conditions, this tends to be vision that dominates (e.g., Hutmacher, 2019; Meijer et al., 2019; Posner et al., 1976). Under conditions of multisensory conflict, the normally more reliable sense sometimes completely dominates the
experience of the other senses, as when wine experts can be tricked into thinking that they are drinking red or rosé wine simply by adding some red food dye to white wine (Wang & Spence, 2019). Similarly, people’s assess ment of building materials has also been shown to be dominated by the visual rather than by the feel (Wastiels, Schifferstein, Wouters, & Heylighen, 2013; see also Karana, 2010).

At the same time, however, while we are largely visually dominant, the other senses can also sometimes drive our behaviour. For instance, according to an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal, many people will apparently refuse to check in to a hotel if there is funny smell in the lobby (Pacelle, 1992). Such admittedly anecdotal observations, were they to be backed up by robust empirical data, would then support the notion that olfactory atmospheric cues can, at least under
certain conditions, also dominate in terms of determining our approach-avoidance behaviour. Mean
while, a growing number of diners have also reported how they will sometimes leave a restaurant if the noise is too loud (see Spence, 2014, for a review; Wagner, 2018), resonating with the quote from Blesser and Salter (2007) that we came across a little earlier.

One other potentially important issue to bear in mind here concerns the “assumption of unity”, or
coupling/binding priors that constitute an important factor modulating the extent of crossmodal binding in the case of multisensory object/event perception, according to the literature on the currently popular Bayesian causal inference (see Chen & Spence, 2017; Rohe, Ehlis,&Noppeney, 2019, for reviews). Coupling priors can be thought of as the internalized long-term statistics of the environment (e.g., Girshick, Landy, & Simoncelli, 2011).

It was stylistic congruency that was manipulated in a couple of experiments, conducted 14At the same time, however, one might consider how marble, one of the most highly prized building materials is in some sense incongruent, given the rich textured patterning of the veined appearance of the surface is typically perfectly smooth to the touch. both online and in the laboratory by Siefkes and Arielli (2015).

These researchers had their participants expli citly concentrate on and evaluate the style of the buildings shown in one of two architectural styles (baroque or modern- a short video showing five baroque build ings; there were also a short video, focusing on five mod ern buildings instead). Their results revealed that the buildings were rated as looking more balanced, more co herent, and to a certain degree, more complete,15 when viewed while listening to music that was congruent (e.g., baroque architecture with baroque music- specifically Georg Philipp Telemann’s, Concerto Grosso in D major, TWV 54:D3 (1716)) rather than incongruent (e.g., bar oque architecture with Philip Glass track from the soundtrack to the movie Koyaanisqatsi).

Before moving on, though, it is worth noting that in this study, as in many of the other studies reported in this section, there is a possibility that the design of the experiments themselves may have resulted in the partici pants concerned paying rather more attention to the at mospheric/environmental cues (and possibly also their congruency) than is normally likely to be the case when, as was mentioned earlier, the architecture itself fades into the background.

Ecological validity may, in other words, have been compromised to a certain degree. One of the other examples of incongruency that one often comes across is linked to the growing interest in biophilic design. As Pallasmaa (1996, p. 41) notes: “A walk through a forest is invigorating and healing due to 15These were the anchors on three of the bipolar semantic differential scales used in this study.

the constant interaction of all sense modalities; Bachelard speaks of ‘the polyphony of the senses’. The eye collaborates with the body and the other senses. One’s sense of reality is strengthened and articulated by this constant interaction. Architecture is essentially an extension of nature into the man-made realm …”16 No wonder, then, that many designers have been exploring the benefits of bringing elements of nature into interior spaces in order to boost the occupants’ mood and aid relaxation (Spence, 2021).

However, one has to ask whether the benefits of adding the sounds of a tropical rainforest to a space such as the shopping area of Glasgow airport, say (Treasure, 2007), really outweigh the cognitive dissonance likely elicited by hearing such sounds in such an incongruous setting? Similarly, a jungle soundscape was incorporated into the children’s section of Harrods London Department store a few years ago (Harrods’ Toy Kingdom- The Sound Agency | Sound Branding” https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVUUG6VvFKQ).

Nature soundscapes have also been introduced into Audi car salesrooms, not to mention BP petrol station toilet facilities (Bashford, 2010;Treasure, 2007). It is worth noting here that given the important role that congruency has been shown to play at the level of multisensory object/ event perception, there is currently a stark paucity of research that has systematically investigated the relevance/ importance of congruency at the level of multisensory ambient, or environmental, cues. As the quotes earlier in this section make clear, it is something to which some architects are undoubtedly sensitive, and on which they already have an opinion. Yet the relevant underpinning research still needs to be conducted.

Sensory congruency In their book, Spaces speak, are you listening?, Blesser and Salter draw the reader’s attention to the importance of audiovisual congruency in architectural design. They write that: “Aural architecture, with its own beauty, aes thetics, and symbolism, parallels visual architecture. Vis ual and aural meanings often align and reinforce each other. For example, the visual vastness of a cathedral communicates through the eyes, while its enveloping re verberation communicates through the ears.” (Blesser & Salter, 2007, p. 3). However, they also draw attention to the incongruency that one experiences sometimes: “Al though we expect the visual and aural experience of a space to be mutually supportive, this is not always the case. Consider dining at an expensive restaurant whose decorations evoke a sense of relaxed and pampered ele gance, but whose reverberating clatter produces stress, anxiety, isolation, and psychological tension, undermin ing the possibility of easy social exchange.

The visual and aural attributes produce a conflicting response.” (Blesser & Salter, 2007, p. 3). Regardless of whether atmospheric/environmental sen sory cues are integrated or not, one general principle underpinning our response to multisensory combina tions of environmental cues is that those combinations of stimuli that are “congruent” (whatever that term means in this context) will tend to be processed more fluently, and hence be liked more, than those combina tions that are deemed incongruent, and hence will often prove more difficult, and effortful, to process (Reber, 2012; Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004; Reber,
Winkielman, & Schwartz, 1998; Winkielman, Schwarz, Fazendeiro, & Reber, 2003; Winkielman, Ziembowicz, & Nowak, 2015).14 Indeed, it was the putative sensory incongruency between a relaxing slow-tempo music and arousing citrus scent that was put forward as a possible explanation for why Morrin and Chebat (2005) found that adding scent and sound in the setting of the shop ping mall reduced unplanned purchases as compared to either of the unisensory interventions amongst almost 800 shoppers in one North American Mall (see Fig. 9). Congruency can, of course, be defined at multiple levels. For instance, as we have seen already in this sec tion, sensory cues may be more or less congruent in terms of their arousal/relaxation potential (e.g., Hom burg, Imschloss, & Kühnl, 2012; Mattila & Wirtz, 2001). Mahvash (2007, pp. 56–57) talks about the use of con gruent cues to convey the notion of coolness: “… the Persian garden with its patterns of light and shadow, reflecting pools, gurgling fountains, scents of flowers and fruits, and gentle cool breezes 'offers an amazing rich ness of variety of sensory experiences which all serve to reinforce the pervasive sense of coolness'.” However, dif ferent sensory inputs may also be deemed congruent or not in terms of their artistic style (see Hasenfus, Martin dale, & Birnbaum, 1983; Muecke & Zach, 2007; cf. Her sey, 2000, pp. 37–41).

Once again, participants were asked about how safe it felt, about perceived social presence, and about their willingness to purchase a monthly metro pass. Even under these some what contrived experimental conditions, the presence of an ambient soundscape once again increased perceived safety as well as the participants’ self-reported intention to purchase a season ticket.

It was, though, the sound of people singing Alleluia that proved most effective in terms of enhancing perceived safety amongst those watching the videos.13 It is, however, worth bearing in mind here that many of the key results reported in this study were only borderline significant.

As such, adequately-powered repli cation would be a good idea before too much weight is given to these intriguing findings. Recently, Ba and Kang (2019) documented crossmodal interactions between ambient sound and smell in a laboratory study that was designed to capture the sensory cues that might be encountered in a typical urban environment.

These researchers decided to pair the sounds of birds, conversation, and traffic, with the smells of flowers (lilac, osmanthus), coffee, or bread, at one of three levels (low, medium, or high) in each modality. A complex array of in teractions was observed, with increasing stimulus intensity sometimes enhancing the participants’ comfort ratings, while sometimes leading to a negative response instead. While Ba and Kang’s results defy any simple synopsis, given the complex pattern of results reported, their find ings nevertheless clearly suggest that sound and scent interact in terms of influencing people’s evaluation of urban design.

The colour of the ambient lighting in an indoor envir onment has also been shown to influence the perceived ambient temperature and thermal comfort of an envir onment (e.g., Candas & Dufour, 2005; Tsushima, et al., 2020; Winzen, Albers, & Marggraf-Micheel, 2014). For instance, in one representative study, Winzen and col leagues reported that illuminating a simulated aircraft cabin in warm yellow vs. cool blue-coloured lighting 12This response is very different from the aesthetic disappointment, or even disgust, felt by the man once hypothetically described by the philosopher Immanuel Kant who was very much enjoying listening to a nightingale’s song until realizing that he was listening to a mechanical imitation instead (Kant, 2000). 13

The owner of the car park did not like the sound of this particular sonic intervention, meaning that the researchers were unable to try it out in the field. exerted a significant influence over people’s self-reported thermal comfort. The participants rated the environment as feeling significantly warmer under the warm (as com pared to the cool) lighting colour. One can only really make sense of such findings from a multisensory per spective (see Spence, 2020a, for a review). Taken together, then, the results of the representative selection of studies reported in this section demonstrate that our perception of, and/or response to, multisensory environments are undoubtedly influenced by the com bined influence of environmental/atmospheric cues in different sensory modalities.

So, in contrast to the quote from Mattila and Wirtz (2001) that we came across a few pages ago, there is now a growing body of empirical research out there demonstrating that atmospheric cues presented in different sensory modalities, such as music, scents, and visual stimuli combine to influence how alerting, or pleasant, a particular environment, or stimulus (such as, for example, a work of art), is rated as being (e.g., Banks, Ng, & Jones-Gotman, 2012; Battacharya & Lindsen, 2016).

These researchers examined the effects of an office make-over when a company moved to a new office building. The employees in the new office were given individual control of the temperature, lighting, air quality, and acoustic conditions where they were work ing.

Productivity increased by approximately 15% in the new building. When the individual control of the ambi ent multisensory environment was disabled in the new building, performance fell by around 2% instead. Trying to balance the influence of each of the senses is one of the aims of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa, whose name we have come across at several points already in this text.

As Steven Holl notes in the preface to Pallas maa’s The eyes of the skin: “I have experienced the archi tecture of Juhani Pallasmaa, … The way spaces feel, the sound and smell of these places, has equal weight to the Fig. 8 The Ira Keller Fountain, Portland Oregon. According to Pallasmaa (2011), p. 596) this is “An architecture for all the senses including the kinaesthetic and olfactory senses.”

Once again, the auditory element is provided by the sound of falling water way things look.” (Pallasmaa, 1996, p. 7). One example of multisensory architectural design to which Juhani Pal lasmaa draws attention in several of his writings is the Ira Keller Fountain, Portland Oregon (see Fig. 8). On the multisensory integration of atmospheric/ environmental cues To date, only a relatively small number of studies have directly studied the influence of combined ambient/at mospheric cues on people’s perception, feelings, and/or behaviour. Mattila and Wirtz (2001) conducted one of the first sensory marketing studies to be published in this area.

These researchers manipulated the olfactory environment (no scent, a low-arousal scent (lavender), or a high-arousal scent (grapefruit)) while simultan eously manipulating the presence of music (no music, low-arousal music, or high-arousal music). When the scent and music were congruent in terms of their arousal potential, the customers rated the store envir onment more positively, exhibited higher levels of ap proach and impulse-buying behaviour, and expressed more satisfaction.

There is, though, always a very real danger of sensory overload if the combined multisen sory input becomes too stimulating (see Malhotra, 1984; Simmel, 1995). Meanwhile, in another representative field study, Sayin et al. (2015) investigated the impact of presenting ambi ent soundscapes in an underground car park in Paris. In particular, they assessed the effects of introducing west ern European birdsong or classical instrumental music by Albinoni to the three normally silent stairwells used by members of the general public when exiting the car park. A total of 77 drivers were asked about their feel ings on their way out.

Birdsong was found to work best in terms of enhancing the perceived safety of the situation- in this case by around 6%. This despite the fact that all of those who were quizzed realized that the sounds that they had heard were coming from loud speakers.12 In an accompanying series of laboratory studies, Sayin et al.’s participants were shown a 60-s first-person perspective video that had been taken in the same Paris car park, or else a short video of someone walking through a metro station in Istanbul.

At the outset, when starting to consider the multisensory perception of architecture, it is worth noting that it is rarely something that we attend to. Indeed, as Benjamin (1968, p. 239) once noted: “Architecture has always represented the proto type of a work of art the reception of which is consum mated in a state of distraction.”

To the extent that such a view is correct, one can say that multisensory architec ture is rarely foregrounded in our attention/experience. Juhani Pallasma, meanwhile, has suggested that: “An architectural experience silences all external noise; it focuses attention on one’s very existence.” (Pallasmaa, 1994, p. 31).

Once again, the suggestion here would appear to be that attention is directed away from the building and toward the individual and their place in the world. Given that, on an everyday basis, architecture is typically not foregrounded in our attention/experience, one might legitimately wonder as to whether the multisensory integration of atmospheric/environmental cues takes place, given that they are so often unattended.

According to the laboratory research that has been published on this question to date, the evidence would appear to suggest that while the multisensory integration of unattended cues relating to an object or event certainly can occur, it is by no means guaranteed to do so (see Spence & Frings, 2020, for a review). Perhaps the more fundamental question here, though, is whether we need to attend to ambient/environmental sensory cues for them to influence us. However, the research that has been published to date would appear to suggest that very often environmental cues influence us even when we are not consciously aware of, or thinking about them. 

One particularly striking example of this was reported by researchers who manipulated whether French or German music was played in a supermarket (North, et al., 1997, 1999). The results showed that the majority of the wine purchased was French when French music was played, with this reversing to a majority of German wines being sold when German music was played.

The even more striking aspect of these results was the fact that the majority of those interviewed after coming away from the tills denied that the background music had any influence over the choices they made. A number of studies have also shown that scents that we are unaware of, either because they are presented just below the perceptual threshold or because we have become functionally anosmic to their constant presence, can nevertheless still influence us (Li, Moallem, Paller, & Gottfried, 2007).

Similarly, there is also a suggestion that inaudible infrasound waves (i.e., < 20 Hz) may also affect people without their necessarily being aware of their presence (Weichenberger et al., 2017). Meanwhile, in terms of visual annoyance, it has been reported that flickering LED lights that look no different to the naked eye can nevertheless trigger a significantly greater number of headaches that non-flickering lights (e.g., see Wilkins, 2017; Wilkins, Nimmo-Smith, Slater, & Bedocs, 1989).

Once again, therefore, this suggests that ambient sensory phenomena do not necessarily need to be perceptible in order to affect us, adversely or otherwise. On the benefits of multisensory design:

bringing it all together One demonstration of just how dramatic the benefits of designing for multiple senses can be was reported by Kroner, Stark-Martin, and Willemain (1992) in a tech nical report.

Indeed, those who take up the challenge of designing for the multisensory mind might well take a tip from one commentator, writing in Adver tising Age when talking about product innovation who suggested that: “… the most successful new products ap peal on both rational and emotional levels to as many senses as possible.” (Neff, 2000, p. 22).

Architectural de sign practice, I suggest, would be well-advised to strive for much the same in order to optimally stimulate the multisensory mind. Although not the primary interest of the present re view, it is perhaps also worth noting in passing, how a very similar debate on the importance of designing for the non-visual senses has been playing out amongst those interested specifically in landscape design/architec ture (Lynch & Hack, 1984; Mahvash, 2007; Treib, 1995).

The garden is a multisensory space and as Mark Treib wrote once in an essay entitled “Must landscape mean?”: “Today might be a good time to once more examine the garden in relation to the senses.” Designing for the multisensory mind: architectural design for all the senses The architect must act as a composer that orches trates space into a synchronization for function and beauty through the senses– and how the human body engages space is of prime importance.

As the human body moves, sees, smells, touches, hears and even tastes within a space– the architecture comes to life. The rhythm of an architecture can be felt by occu pants as a result of the architect’s composition– or arrangement of all the sensorial qualities of space. By arranging spatial sensorial features, an architect can lead occupants through the functional and aes thetic rhythms of a created place. Architectural building for all the senses can serve to move occu pants– elevating their experience. (quote from a blogpost by Lehman, 2009).

One of the most exciting developments in cognitive neuroscience in recent decades has been the growing realization that perception/experience is far more multi sensory than anyone had realized (e.g., Bruno & Pavani, 2018; Calvert et al., 2004; Levent & Pascual-Leone, 2014; Stein, 2012). That is, what we hear and smell, and what we think about the experience, is often influenced by what we see, and vice versa (Calvert et al., 2004; Stein, 2012). The senses talk to, and hence influence, one an other all the time, though we often remain unaware of these cross-sensory interactions and influences.

In fact, wherever neuroscientists look in the human brain, activity appears to be modulated by what is going on in more than one sense, leading, increasingly, to talk of the mul tisensory mind (Ghazanfar & Schroeder, 2006; Talsma, 2015). The key question here must therefore be what implications this growing realization of the ubiquity of multisensory cross-talk has for the field of architectural design practice?

The problem is that, as yet, there has been relatively little research directed at the question of how atmospheric/environmental multisensory cues actually inter act. Mattila and Wirtz (2001, pp. 273–274) drew attention to this lacuna some years ago when writing that: “Past studies have examined the effects of individ ual pleasant stimuli such as music, color or scent on consumer behavior, but have failed to examine how these stimuli might interact.”

The suggestion here that “colours in general … often evoke … [a] taste” seemingly linking to the widespread literature on the crossmodal 11. Indeed, one might wonder whether the latter quote refers more to oral stereoagnosis (Jacobs, Serhal, & van Steenberghe, 1998), than specifically to gustation (see also Waterman Jr., 1917, for the suggestion that the tongue can be more revealing than the hand). correspondences that have increasingly been docu mented between colour and basic tastes (see Spence et al., 2015, for a review).

However, rather than describ ing this in terms of architecture that one can taste, one might more fruitfully refer to the growing literature on crossmodal correspondences instead (see below for more on this theme). When, in his book Architecture and the brain, Eber hard (2007, p. 47) talks about what the sense of taste has to do with architecture, he suggests that: “You may not literally taste the materials in a building, but the design of a restaurant can have an impact on your ‘conditioned response’ to the taste of the food.” Environmental multi sensory effects on tasting is undoubtedly an area that has grown markedly in interest in recent years (e.g., see Spence, 2020c, for a review).

It is though worth noting that just as for the olfactory case, some atmospheric ef fects on tasting may be more cognitively-mediated (e.g., associated with the priming of notions of luxury/ex pense, or lack thereof) while others may be more direct, as when changing the colour (see Oberfeld, Hecht, Allendorf, & Wickelmaier, 2009; Spence, Velasco, & Knoeferle, 2014; Torrico et al., 2020) or brightness (Gal et al., 2007; Xu & LaBroo, 2014) of the ambient lightingchanges taste/flavour perception. “An architecture of the seven senses”? So far in this section, we have briefly reviewed the uni sensory contributions of architectural design organized around each of the five main senses (vision audition, touch, smell, and taste).

However, seemingly not content with the traditional five, Pallasmaa (1994) goes further in the title of one of his early articles entitled “An architec ture of the seven senses.” While the text itself is not altogether clear, or explicit, on this point, the skeleton and muscles would appear to be the extra senses that Pallasmaa has in mind here. Indeed, the embodied re sponse of people to architecture is definitely something that has captured the imagination, not to mention in trigued, a number of architectural theorists in recent years (e.g., see Bloomer & Moore, 1977; Pallasmaa, 2011; Pérez-Gómez, 2016). The vestibular sense is also worthy of mention here (see Gulden & Grüsser, 1998; Indovina et al., 2005). Anyone who has tried out one of the VR simulations of walking along the outside ledge of a tall building will have had the feeling of vertigo.

Call it medicinal urbanism.” (Hosey, 2013). Effects on people’s mood resulting from exposure to ambient scent have been reported in some by no means all studies (Glass &Heuberger, 2016; Glass, Lingg, & Heuberger, 2014; Haehner et al., 2017;Weber&Heuberger, 2008). It re mains somewhat uncertain though whether the beneficial effects of aromatherapy scents can be explained by prim ing effects, based on associative learning, as in the case of the clean citrus scents mentioned above (see Herz, 2009), versus via a more direct (i.e., less cognitively mediated) physiological route (cf. Harada, Kashiwadani, Kanmura, & Kuwaki, 2018).

The olfactory scentscapes, and scent maps of cities, that have been discussed by various researchers (see Fig. 6) have also helped to draw people’s attention to the often rich olfactory landscapes offered by many urban spaces (e.g., https://sensorymaps.com/; Bucknell, 2018; Henshaw, 2014; Henshaw et al., 2018; Lipps, 2018; Lupton & Lipps, 2018; Margolies, 2006).

The notion of the healing garden has also seen something of a resurgence in recent years, and the benefits now, as historically, are likely to revolve, at least in part, around the healing, or restorative effect of the smell of flowers and plants (e.g., Pearson, 1991; see also Ottoson & Grahn, 2005). One building that is often mentioned in this regard, namely in terms of its olfactory design   credentials, is the Silicon House by architects, SelgasCano, situated on the outskirts of Madrid (https://www.archi tectmagazine.com/project-gallery/silicon-house-6143).

This house is set in what has been described as “a garden of smells”, which emphasize the olfactory, while also stressing the tactile elements of the design. Hence, while the olfactory aspects of architectural design practice have long been ignored, there are at least signs of a revival of interest in stimulating this sense through both architectural and urban design practice.

Architectural taste The British writer and artist Adrian Stokes once wrote of the “oral invitation of Veronese marble” (Stokes, 1978, p. 316). And while I must admit that I have never felt the urge to lick a brick, Pallasmaa (1996, p. 59) vividly recounts the urge that he once experienced to explore /connect with architecture using his tongue. He writes that: “Many years ago when visiting the DL James Residence in Carmel, California, designed by Charles and Henry Greene, I felt compelled to kneel and touch the delicately shining white marble threshold of the front door with my tongue.

The sensuous materials and skilfully crafted details of Carlo Scarpa’s architecture as well as the sensuous colours of Luis Barragan’s houses frequently evoke oral experiences. Deliciously coloured surfaces of stucco lustro, a highly polished colour or wood surfaces also present themselves to the appreci ation of the tongue.”

Perhaps aware of many readers’ presumed scepticism on the theme of the gustatory contribution to architecture,11 Pallasmaa writes elsewhere that: “The suggestions that the sense of taste would have a role in the appreciation of architecture may sound preposterous. However, polished and coloured stone as well as colours in general, and finely crafted wood details, for instance, often evoke an awareness of mouth and taste. Carlo Scarpa’s architectural details frequently evoke sensation of taste.” (Pallasmaa, 2011, p. 595).

Some years later, Jim Drobnik introduced the latter phrase in order to highlight the fact that too many spaces are seemingly deliberately designed to have no smell, nor to leave any lasting olfactory trace, either.8

6. Writer Tanizaki (2001), in his essay on aesthetics In Praise of Shadows, also draws attention to the close interplay that exists, or better said, once existed, between architectural design and food/ plateware design in traditional Japanese culture.

7. Intriguingly, Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1991, p. 416) describes the white cube as an apparatus for “single-sense epiphanies”.

8. This despite Baudelaire’s line that the smell of a room is “the soul of the apartment” (quoted in Corbin, 1986, p. 169)

And thinking back to my memories of visiting my own grandfather, long since deceased, on his fairground wagon in Bradford, it was undoubtedly the intense smell of “derv” (English slang for diesel-engine road vehicle), the liquid diesel oil that was used for trucks at the time, that I can still remember better than anything else. The residents of buildings tend to adapt to the positive and neutral smells in the buildings we inhabit.

This is evidenced by the fact that we are typically only aware of the smell of our own home, what some call building odour, or BO for short, when we return after a long trip away (Dalton & Wysocki, 1996; McCooey, 2008). Sick building syndrome and the problem of poor olfactory design Improving indoor air quality might well also provide an effective means of helping to alleviate some of the symptoms of sick building syndrome (SBS) that were mentioned earlier (Guieysse et al., 2008).

It is certainly striking how many large outbreaks of this still mysterious condition reported in the 1980s were linked to the presence of an unfamiliar smell in closed office buildings with little natural ventilation (Wargocki, Wyon, Baik, Clausen, & Fanger, 1999; Wargocki, Wyon, Sundell, Clausen, & Fanger, 2000). For instance, in June 1986, more that 12% of the workforce of 2500 people working at the Harry S. Truman State Office Building in Missouri came down with the symptoms of SBS over a 3-day period (Donnell Jr. et al., 1989).

The symptoms presented by some of the workers (including dizziness and difficulty in breathing) were so severe they had to be rushed to the local hospital for emergency treatment. And while a thorough examination of the building subsequently failed to reveal the presence of any particular toxic airborne pollutants that might have been responsible for the outbreak, in the majority of cases, it turned out that the symptoms of SBS were preceded by the perception of unusual odours and inadequate airflow in the building.

There, she points to examples such as the hearth, the sauna, and Roman and Japanese baths as archetypes of thermal delight about which rituals have developed, the shared experience reinforcing social bonds of affection and ceremony (see also Lupton, 2002; Papale et al., 2016). At this point, one might also want to mention the much-admired Therme Vals Spa by Peter Zumthor, in Switzerland with their use of different temperatures of both water and touchable surfaces (Ryan, 1997, though see also Mairs, 2017).

The tactile element is, in other words, fundamental to the total (multisensory) experi ence of architectural design. This is true no matter whether the materiality is touched directly or not (i.e., merely seen, inferred, or imagined). So, for example, here one might only think about how looking at a cheap fake marble or wood veneer can make one feel, to realize that touch in often not required to assess material qual ity, or the lack thereof (see also Karana, 2010).

An architecture of the chemical senses Talking of an architecture of scent, or of taste (these two of the so-called chemical senses), might seem like a step too far. That said, one does come across titles such as Eating Architecture (Horwitz & Singley, 2004) and An Architecture of Smell (McCarthy, 1996; see also Barbara & Perliss, 2006).6 Unfortunately, however, all too often, consideration of the olfactory in architectural design practice has focused on the elimination of negative odours. When thinking about the mundane experience of odours in buildings, what immediately comes to mind includes the smell of wood (i.e., building materials), dust, mould, cleaning products, and flowers.

As Eberhard (2007, p. 47) puts it: “We all have our favorite smells in a building, as well as ones that are considered noxious. A cedar closet in the bedroom is an easy example of a good smell. The terrible smell of a house that was rav aged by fire or floods is seared in the memory of those who have endured one of these disasters.”

This is perhaps no coincidence, given that it tends to be the bad odours, rather than the neutral or positive ones, that have generally proved most effective in immersing us in an experience (Baus & Bouchard, 2017; see also Aggle ton & Waskett, 1999).

Research by Schifferstein, Talke, and Oudshoorn (2011) investigated whether the nightlife experience could be enhanced by the use of pleasant fra grance to mask the stale odour after the indoor smoking ban was introduced a few years ago.

Once again, notice how the focus here is on the elimination of the negative stale odours rather than necessarily the introduction of the positive (the latter merely being introduced in order to mask the former). Jim Drohnik captures the idea of olfactory absence when talking about not just the “white cube” mentality but the “anosmic cube” (Drobnick, 2005). The former phrase was famously coined by O’Doherty (1999, 2009) in order to describe the then-popular practice of display ing art in gallery spaces that were devoid of colour or any other form of visual distraction. 7

Designing for “the eyes of the skin”

The tactile element of architecture is often ignored. In fact, very often, the first point of physical contact with a building typically occurs when we enter or leave. Or, as Pallasmaa (1994, p. 33) once evocatively put it: “The door handle is the handshake of the building”.

However, once inside a building, it is worth remembering that we will also typically make contact with flooring (Tonetto, Klanovicz, & Spence, 2014), hand rails (Spence, 2020d), elevator buttons, furniture, and the like (though this is, of course, likely to change somewhat in the era of pan demia). As Richard Sennett, author of Flesh and Stone, laments in his critical take on the sensory order of mod ernity: “sensory deprivation which seems to curse most modern buildings; the dullness, the monotony, and the tactile sterility which afflicts the urban environment” (Sennett, 1994, p. 15).

The absence of tactile interest is also something that Witold Rybczynski author of The Look of Architecture acknowledges when writing that: “Although architecture is often defined in terms of abstractions such as space, light and volume, build ings are above all physical artifacts. The experience of architecture is palpable: the grain of wood, the veined surface of marble, the cold precision of steel, the tex tured pattern of brick.” (Rybczynski, 2001, p. 89).

No tice here how Rybczynski mentions both texture and temperature, two of the key attributes of tactile sensa tion(see also Henderson, 1939). Temperature change, and change in the flooring material (tatami matting or cedarwood), is also something that the Tom mu seum for the blind in Tokyo also plays with deliber ately (Classen, 1998, p. 150; Vorreiter, 1989;Wagner, 1989). There is also a braille poen on the knob of the exit door too.

The careful use of material can evoke tactility as the viewer (or occupant) imagines or mentally simulates what it would feel like to reach out and touch or caress an intriguing surface (Sigsworth, 2019; see also Lupton, 2002). Juhani Pallasmaa, who has perhaps written more than anyone else on the theme of the tactile, or haptic in architecture, writes that “Natural materials- stone, brick and wood- allow the gaze to penetrate their sur faces and they enable us to become convinced of the veracity of matter …

But the materials of today- sheets of glass, enamelled metal and synthetic materials present their unyielding surfaces to the eye without conveying anything of their material essence or age.” (Pallasmaa, 1994,p.29). Lisa Heschong, architect, and partner of architectural research firm Heschong Mahone Group, has written ex tensively on the theme of thermal (as opposed to tex tural) aspects of architectural design in her book Thermal Delight in Architecture (Heschong, 1979).

Intriguingly, subjective restoration was significantly higher amongst those who thought that they were listening to the nature sounds than in those who thought that they were listening to industrial noise instead. As might have been expected, the results of the control group, fell somewhere in between.

Paley Park in New York has often been put forward as a particularly elegant solution to the problem of negating unwanted traffic noise in the context of urban design (e.g., Carroll, 1967; Prochnik, 2009). In 1967, the empty lot resulting from the demolition of the Stork Club on 53rd Street was transformed into a small public park (a so called pocket park). The space was developed by Zion and Breen.

In this case, the acoustic space, think only of the sounds, or better said noise, of the city, is effectively masked by the presence of a waterfall at the far end of the lot (see Fig. 5). What is more, the free-standing chairs allow the visitor to move closer to the waterfall should they feel the need to drown out a little more of the urban noise.

The greenery growing thickly along the side walls also likely helps to absorb the noise of the city. Music plays an important role in our experience of the built environment- think here only of the Muzak of de cades gone by (Lanza, 2004). This is as true of the guest’s hotel experience (e.g., when entering the lobby) as it is elsewhere (e.g., in a shopping centre or bar, say).5

The sound that greets customers in the lobby is apparently very important to Ian Schrager, the Brooklyn-born entrepreneur who created fabled nightclub Studio 54 in New York. In recent years, he has been working with Marriott to launch The EDITION hotels in a number of major cities, including London and New York. Music plays a key role in the Schrager experience.

As the entrepreneur puts it: “The sound of a hotel lobby is often dictated by monotonous, vapid lounge muzak– a zombie-like drone of new jazz and polite house, with the sole purpose of whiling away the waiting time between check-in and check-out.” As might have been expected, the music in the lobbies of The EDITION hotels is carefully curated (Eriksen, 2014, p. 27).

However, the thumping noise of the music from the nightclub/bar that is often also an integral part of the experience offered by these hip venues means that meticulous architectural design is also required in order to limit the spread of unwanted noise through the rest of the building (e.g., so as not to disturb the sleep of those who may be resting in the rooms upstairs). Note here that there are also some increasingly sophisticated solutions- including sound-absorbing panels, as well as active noise cancellation systems- to dampen unwanted sound in open spaces such as restaurants and offices (Clynes, 2012).

5Here, one might also consider the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing brand. For a number of years, the chain also managed to craft a distinctive dance sound to match the dark nightclub-like appearance of their interiors.

One might consider here whether Lee’s comments can be scaled up to describe how we move through the city. Does the visually striking building shown in Fig.4, for instance, really promote joyfulness and a carefree travel through the urban environment.
It seems doubtful, given the evidence suggesting that viewing angular shapes, even briefly, has been shown to trigger a fear response in the amygdala, the part of the brain that is involved in emotion (e.g., LeDoux, 2003). Meanwhile, Liu, Bogicevic, and Mattila (2018)have noted how the round versus angular nature of the servi cescape also influences the consumer response in service encounters. The height of the ceiling has also been shown to exert an influence over our approach-avoidance responses, and perhaps even our style of thinking (Baird, Cassidy, & Kurr, 1978; Meyers-Levy & Zhu, 2007; Vartanian et al., 2015).

However, here it should also be born in mind that the visual perception of space is significantly influenced by colour and lighting (Lam, 1992; Manav, Kutlu, & Küçükdoğu, 2010; Oberfeld, Hecht, & Gamer, 2010; von Castell, Hecht, & Oberfeld, 2018). Given many such psy chological observations, it should perhaps come as no surprise to find that links between cognitive neurosci ence and architecture have grown rapidly in recent years (Choo, Nasar, Nikrahei, & Walther, 2017; Eberhard, 2007; Mallgrave, 2011; Robinson & Pallasmaa, 2015). At the same time, however,

it is also worth remembering that it has primarily been people’s response to examples or styles of architecture that have been presented visu ally (via a monitor), with the participant lying horizontal, that have been studied to date, given the confines of the brain-scanning environment (though see also Papale, Chiesi, Rampinini, Pietrini, & Ricciardi, 2016).3 3Relevant here, Mitchell (2005) has suggested that there are, in fact, no uniquely visual media.

At the same time, however, it is important to realize that it is not just our visual cortex that re sponds to architecture. For, as Frances Anderton writes in The Architectural Review: “We appreciate a place not just by its impact on our visual cortex but by the way in which it sounds, it feels and smells. Some of these sensual experiences elide, for instance our full understanding of wood is often achieved by a perception of its smell, its texture (which can be ap preciated by both looking and feeling) and by the way in which it modulates the acoustics of the space.” (Anderton, 1991, p. 27).

The multisensory appreciation of quality here linking to a growing body of research on multisensory shitsukan perception shitsukan, the Japaneseword for “a sense of material quality” or “material perception” (see Fujisaki, 2020; Komatsu & Goda, 2018; Spence, 2020b). The following sub-sections summarize some of the key findings on how the non-visual sensory attributes of the built and urban environment affect us, when considered individually.

The sound of space: are you listening? What a space sounds like is undoubtedly important (Bavis ter, Lawrence, & Gage, 2018; McLuhan, 1961; Porteous & Mastin, 1985;Thompson,1999). Sounds can, after all, pro vide subtle cues as to the identity or proportions of a space, even hinting at its function (Blesser & Salter, 2007;Eber hard, 2007; Robart & Rosenblum, 2005). As Pallasmaa (1994,p.31) notes:“Every building or space has its charac teristic sound of intimacy or monumentality, rejection or invitation, hospitality or hostility.”

Meanwhile, Howes (2014) writes of the sensory monotony of the bungalow filled suburbs and of the corporeal experience of sky scrapers as their presence looms up before those on the sidewalk below. At the same time, however, there is also a sense in which it is the gaze of the inhabitants of those tall buildings who are offered the view that is prioritized over the other senses.

However, very often the approach as, in fact, evidenced by Malnar and Vodvarka (2004) has been to work one sense at a time. Until recently, that is, one finds exactly the same kind of sense-by-sense (or unisensory) approach in the worlds of interior design (Bailly Dunne & Sears, 1998), advertising (Lucas & Britt, 1950), marketing (Hultén, Broweus, & Dijk, 2009; Krishna, 2013; Lind strom, 2005), and atmospherics (see Bille & Sørensen, 2018, on architectural atmospherics; and Kotler, 1974, on the theme of store atmospherics).

Recently, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of the non-visual senses to various fields of design (Haverkamp, 2014; Lupton & Lipps, 2018; Malnar & Vodvarka, 2004). As yet, however, there has not been sufficient recognition of the extent to which the senses interact. As Wil liams (1980, p. 5) noted some 40years ago: “Aside from meeting common standards of performance, architects do little creatively with acoustical, thermal, olfactory, and tactile sensory responses.” As we will see later, it is not clear that much has changed since.

The look of architecture There are a number of ways in which visual perception science can be linked to architectural design practice. For instance, think only of the tricks played on the eyes by the trapezoidal balconies on the famous The Future apartment building in Manhattan (see Fig. 2). They
appear to slant downward when viewed from one side while appearing to slope upward instead, if viewed from the other. The causes of such a visual illusion can, at the very least, be meaningfully explained in terms of visual perception research (Bruno & Pavani, 2018).


Cognitive neuroscientists have recently demonstrated that we have an innate preference for visual curvature, be it in internal space (Vartanian et al., 2013), or for the fur niture that is found within that space (Dazkir & Read, 2012; see also Lee, 2018; Thömmes & Hübner, 2018). We typically rate curvilinear forms as being more approach able than rectilinear ones (see Fig. 3). Angular forms, espe cially when pointing downward/toward us, may well be perceived as threatening, and hence are somewhat more likely to trigger an avoidance response (Salgado-Montejo, Salgado, Alvarado, & Spence, 2017).

As Ingrid Lee, former design director at IDEO New York put it in her book, Joyful: The surprising power of ordinary things to create extra ordinary happiness: “Angular objects, even if they’re not directly in your path as you move through your home, have an unconscious effect on your emotions. They may look chic and sophisticated, but they inhibit our playful impulses. Round shapes do just the opposite. A circular or elliptical coffee table changes a living room from a space for sedate, restrained interaction to a lively center for conversation and impromptu games” (Lee, 2018,p.142).

Given that those of us living in urban environments, which as we have seen is now the majority of us, spend more than 95% of our lives indoors (Ott & Roberts, 1998), architects would therefore seem to bear at least some responsibility for ensuring that the multisensory attributes of the built environment work together to de liver an experience that positively stimulates the senses, and, by so doing, facilitates our well-being, rather than hinders it (see also Pérez-Gómez, 2016, on this theme).

Crucially, however, a growing body of cognitive neuro science research now demonstrates that while we are often unaware of, or at least pay little conscious attention to the subtle sensory cues that may be conveyed by a space (e.g., Forster & Spence, 2018), that certainly does not mean that they do not affect us.

In fact, the sensory qualities or attributes of the environment have long been known to affect our health and well-being in environments as diverse as the hospital and the home, and from the office to the gym (e.g., Spence, 2002, 2003, 2021; Spence & Keller, 2019). What is more, according to the research that has been published to date, environmental multisensory stimulation can potentially affect us at the social, emotional, and cognitive levels.

It can be argued, therefore, that we all need to pay rather more attention to our senses and the way in which they are being stimulated than we do at present (see also Pérez-Gómez, 2016, on this theme). You can call it a mindful approach to the senses (Kabat-Zinn, 2005),2 though my preferred terminology, coined in an industry report published almost 20years ago, is “sensism” (see Spence, 2002).

Sensism provides a key to greater well being by considering the senses holistically, as well as how they interact, and incorporating that understanding into our everyday lives. The approach also builds on the growing evidence of the nature effect (Williams, 2017) and the fact that we appear to benefit from, not to men tion actually desire, the kinds of environments in which our species evolved.

As support for the latter claim, consider only how it has recently emerged that most people set their central heating to a fairly uniform 17–23°C, meaning that the average indoor temperature and humidity most closely matches the mild outdoor conditions of west central Kenya or the Ethiopian highlands (i.e., the place where human life is first thought to have evolved), better than anywhere else (Just, Nichols, & Dunn, 2019; Whipple, 2019).

Architectural design for each of the senses It is certainly not the case that architects have uniformly ignored the non-visual senses (e.g., see Howes, 2005, 2014; McLuhan, 1961; Pallasmaa, 1994, 2011; Ragaven dira, 2017).

For instance, in their 2004 book on Sensory design, Malnar and Vodvarka talk about challenging
visual dominance in architectural design practice by giving a more equal weighting to all of the senses (Malnar & Vodvarka, 2004; see also Mau, 2019). 

2 Or, as Tuan (1977, p. 18) once put it: “an object or place achieves concrete reality when our experience of it is total, that is, through all the senses as well as with the active and reflective mind” a more equal weighting to all of the senses (Malnar & Vodvarka, 2004; see also Mau, 2019).

Indeed, many years ago, the famous modernist Swiss architect Le Corbusier (1948) made the intriguing suggestion that architectural forms “work physiologically upon our senses.” Inspired by early work with the semantic differential technique, researchers would often attempt to assess the approach avoidance, active-passive, and dominant-submissive qualities of a building or urban space. This approach was based on the pleasure, arousal, and dominance (PAD) model that has long been dominant in the field. However, it is important to stress that in much of their research, the environmental psychologists took a separ ate sense-by-sense approach (e.g., Zardini, 2005).

The majority of researchers have tended to focus their empirical investigations on studying the impact of changing the stimulation presented to just one sense at a time. More often than not, in fact, they would focus on a single sensory attribute, such as, for example, investi gating the consequences of changing the colour (hue) of the lighting or walls (e.g., Bellizzi, et al., 1983; Bellizzi & Hite, 1992; Costa, Frumento, Nese, & Predieri, 2018; Crowley, 1993), or else just modulating the brightness of the ambient lighting (e.g., Gal, Wheeler, & Shiv, 2007; Xu & LaBroo, 2014).

Such a unisensory (and, in some cases, unidimensional) approach undoubtedly makes sense inasmuch as it may help to simplify the problem of studying how design affects us (Malnar & Vodvarka, 2004). What is more, such an approach is also entirely in tune with the modular approach to mind that was so popular in the fields of psychology and cognitive neuro science in the closing decades of the twentieth century (e.g., Barlow & Mollon, 1982; Fodor, 1983). At the same time, however, it can be argued that this sense-by-sense approach neglects the fundamentally multisensory na ture of mind, and the many interactions that have been shown to take place between the senses.

The visually dominant approach to research in the field of environmental psychology also means that far less attention has been given over to studying the impact of the auditory (e.g., Blesser & Salter, 2007; Kang et al., 2016; Schafer, 1977; Southworth, 1969; Thompson, 1999), tactile, somatosensory or embodied (e.g., Heschong, 1979; Pallasmaa, 1996; Pérez-Gómez, 2016), or even the olfactory qualities of the built environment (e.g., Bucknell, 2018; Drobnick, 2002, 2005; Henshaw, McLean, Medway, Perkins, & Warnaby, 2018) than on the impact of the visual. Furthermore, until very re cently, little consideration has been given by the envir onmental psychologists to the question of how the senses interact, one with another, in terms of their influ ence on an individual.

This neglect is particularly striking given that the natural environment, the built environment, and the atmosphere of a space are nothing if not multisensory (e.g., Bille & Sørensen, 2018). In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that our response to the environments, in which we find ourselves, be they built or natural, is always going to be the result of the combined influence of all the senses that are being stimulated, no matter whether we are aware of their influence or not (this is a point to which we will return later).

However, while such a suggestion might well be appropriate in Mexico, where Barragán’s work is to be found, many of us (especially those living in northern latitudes in the dark winter months) need as much natural light as we can obtain to maintain our psychological well-being. That said, Barragán is not alone in his appreciation of darkness and shadow. Some years ago, Japanese writer Junichirō Tanizaki also praised the aesthetic appeal of shadow and dark ness inthenativearchitectureof hishomecountry in his extended essay on aesthetics, In praise of shadows (Tanizaki, 2001).

One of the problems with the extensive use of win dows in northern climates is related to poor heat reten tion, an issue that is becoming all the more prominent in the era of sustainable design and global warming. One solution to this particular problem that has been put for ward by a number of technology-minded researchers is simply to replace windows by the use of large screens that relay a view of nature for those who, for whatever reason, have to work in windowless offices (Kahn Jr. et al., 2008).

However, the limited research that has been conducted on this topic to date suggests that the benefi cial effects of being seated near to the window in an of fice building cannot easily be captured by seating workers next to such video-screens instead. Similarly, the failure to fully consider the auditory as pects of architectural design may help to explain some part of the global health crisis associated with noise pol lution interfering with our sleep, health, and well-being (Owen, 2019).

The neglect of architecture’s fundamental role in helping to maintain our well-being is a central theme in Pérez-Gómez’s (2016) influential book Attunement: Architectural meaning after the crisis of modern science. Pérez-Gómez is the director of the History and Theory of Architecture Program at McGill University in Canada. Along similar lines, geographer J. Douglas Por teous had already noted some years earlier that: “Not withstanding the holistic nature of environmental experience, few researchers have attempted to interpret it in a very holistic [or multisensory] manner.” (Porteous, 1990, p. 201).

Finally, here, it is perhaps also worth noting that there are even some researchers who have wanted to make a connection between the global obesity crisis and the obesogenic environments that so many of us inhabit (Lieberman, 2006). The poor diet of multisensory stimulation that we experience living a primary in door life has also been linked to the growing sleep crisis apparently facing so many people in society today (Walker, 2018).

Designing for the modular mind Researchers working in the field of environmental psychology have long stressed the impact that the sensory features of the built environment have on us (e.g., Mehrabian & Russell, 1974, for an influential early volume detailing this approach).

At the same time, however, this review also highlights how the contemporary focus on synaesthetic design in architecture (see Pérez-Gómez, 2016) needs to be reframed in terms of the crossmodal correspondences (see Spence, 2011, for a review), at least if the most is to be made of multisensory interactions and synergies that affect us all. Later, I want to highlight how accounts of multisensory interactions in architecture in terms of synaesthesia tend to confuse matters, rather than to clarify them.

Accounting for our growing understanding of crossmodal interactions (specifically the emerging field of crossmodal correspondences research) and multisen sory integration will help to explain how it is that our senses conjointly contribute to delivering our multisen sory (and not just visual) experience of space. One other important issue that will be discussed later is the role played by our awareness of the multisensory atmosphere of the indoor environments in which we spend so much of our time.

Looking to the future, the hope is that architectural design practice will increasingly incorporate our growing understanding of the human senses, and how they influence one another. Such a multisensory approach will hopefully lead to the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our so cial, cognitive, and emotional development, rather than hindering it, as has too often been the case previously.

Before going any further, though, it is worth highlighting a number of the negative outcomes for our well-being that have been linked to the sensory aspects of the environments in which we spend so much of our time.

Negative health consequences of neglecting multisensory stimulation

It has been suggested that the rise in sick building syndrome (SBS) in recent decades (Love, 2018) can be put down to neglect of the olfactory aspect of the interior environments where city dwellers have been estimated to spend 95% of their lives (e.g., Ott & Roberts, 1998; Velux YouGov Report, 2018; Wargocki, 2001).

Indeed, as of 2010, more people around the globe lived in cities than lived in rural areas (see UN-Habitat, 2010 and United Nations Department of Economic and Social Af fairs, 2018).

One might also be tempted to ask what responsibility, if any, architects bear for the high incidence of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) that has been documented in northern latitudes (Cox, 2017; Heerwagen, 1990; Rosenthal, 2019; Rosenthal et al., 1984).

To give a sense of the problem of “light hunger” (as Heerwagen, 1990, refers to it), Terman (1989) claimed that as many as 2 million people in Manhattan alone experience seasonal affective and behavioural changes severe enough to require some form of additional light stimulation during the winter months.

According to Pallasmaa (1994, p. 34), Luis Barragán, the self-taught Mexican architect famed for his geometric use of bright colour (Gregory, 2016) felt that most contemporary houses would be more pleasant with only half their window surface.

编註：联觉（英语：Synesthesia），又译为共感觉、通感或联感，是一种感觉现象，指其中一种感觉或认知途径的刺激，导致第二种感觉或认知途径的非自愿经历。 联觉感知的意识因人而异。 在一种普遍的联觉形式中，被称为“字位→颜色联觉”或“颜色-字素联觉”，当中字母及数字被认为具固有颜色。

Figure 1 schematically illustrates the hierarchy of attentional capture by each of the senses as envisioned by Morton Heilig, the inventor of the Sensorama, the world’s first multisensory virtual reality apparatus (Hei lig, 1962), when writing about the multisensory future of cinema in an article first published in 1955 (see Heilig, 1992).

Nevertheless, while commentators from many different disciplines would seem to agree on vision’s current pre-eminence, one cannot help but wonder what has been lost as a result of the visual dominance that one sees wherever one looks in the world of architecture (“see” and “look” being especially apposite terms here). While the hegemony of the visual (see Levin, 1993) is a phenomenon that appears across most aspects of our daily lives, the very ubiquity of this phenomenon cer tainly does not mean that the dominance of the visual should not be questioned (e.g., Dunn, 2017; Hutmacher, 2019).

For, as Finnish architect and theoretician Pallas maa (2011, p. 595) notes: “Spaces, places, and buildings are undoubtedly encountered as multisensory lived experiences. Instead of registering architecture merely as visual images, we scan our settings by the ears, skin, nose, and tongue.”

Elsewhere, he writes that: “Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world, and this mediation takes place through the senses” (Pallasmaa, 1996, p. 50; see also Böhme, 2013). We will return later to question the visual dominance

account, highlighting how our experience of space, as of anything else, is much more multisensory than most people realize. Review outline While architectural practice has traditionally been domi nated by the eye/sight, a growing number of architects and designers have, in recent decades, started to con sider the role played by the other senses, namely sound, touch (including proprioception, kinesthesis, and the vestibular sense), smell, and, on rare occasions, even taste.

It is, then, clearly important that we move beyond the merely visual (not to mention modular) focus in architecture that has been identified in the writings of Juhani Pallasmaa and others, to consider the contribu tion that is made by each of the other senses (e.g., Eber hard, 2007; Malnar & Vodvarka, 2004). Reviewing this literature constitutes the subject matter of the next sec tion.

However, beyond that, it is also crucial to consider the ways in which the senses interact too. As will be stressed later, to date there has been relatively little recognition of the growing understanding of the multisen sory nature of the human mind that has emerged from the field of cognitive neuroscience research in recent de cades (e.g., Calvert, Spence, & Stein, 2004; Stein, 2012).

The principal aim of this review is therefore to provide a summary of the role of the human senses in architec tural design practice, both when considered individually and, more importantly, when the senses are studied col lectively.

For it is only by recognizing the fundamentally multisensory nature of perception that one can really hope to explain a number of surprising crossmodal environ mental or atmospheric interactions, such as between light ing colour and thermal comfort (Spence, 2020a) or between sound and the perceived safety of public spaces (Sayin, Krishna, Ardelet, Decré, & Goudey, 2015), that have been reported in recent years.

Introduction

We are visually dominant creatures (Hutmacher, 2019; Levin, 1993; Posner,Nissen, & Klein,1976).
That is, we all mostly tend to think, reason, and imagine visually.

As Finnish architect Pallasmaa (1996) noted almost a quarter of a century ago in his influential work The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the Senses, architects have traditionally been no different in this regard, designing primarily for the eye of the beholder (Bille & Sørensen, 2018; Pallasmaa, 1996, 2011; Rybczynski, 2001; Williams, 1980).

Elsewhere, Pallasmaa (1994, p. 29) writes that: “Thearchitectureofour time is turning into the retinal art of the eye. Architecture at large has become an art of the printed image fixed by the hurried eye of the camera.”

The famous Swiss architect Le Corbusier (1991, p. 83) went even further in terms of his unapologetically oculocentric outlook, writing that: “Iexist in life only if I can see”, going on to state that: “IamandI remain an impenitent visual—everything is in the visual” and “one needs to see clearly in order to understand”.

Commenting on the current situation, Canadian designer Bruce Mau put it thus: “We have allowed two of our sensory domains—sight and sound—to dominate our design imagination. In fact, when it comes to the culture of architecture and design, we create and produce almost exclusively for one sense—the visual.” (Mau, 2018, p. 20; see also Blesser & Salter, 2007).

Such visual dominance makes sense or, at the very least, can be explained or accounted for neuroscientifi cally (Hutmacher, 2019; Meijer, Veselič, Calafiore, & Noppeney, 2019). After all, it turns out that far more of our brains are given over to the processing of what we see than to dealing with the information from any of our other senses (Gallace, Ngo, Sulaitis, & Spence, 2012).

For instance, according to Felleman and Van Essen (1991), more than half of the cortex is engaged in the processing of visual information (see also Eberhard, 2007, p. 49; Palmer, 1999, p. 24; though note that others believe that the figure is closer to one third). This figure compares to something like just 12% of the cortex primarily dedicated to touch, around 3% to hearing, and less than 1% given over to the processing of the chemical senses of smell and taste Information 1.


1 It is, though, worth highlighting the fact that the denigration of the sense of smell in humans, something that is, for example, also found in older volumes on advertising (Lucas & Britt, 1950), turns out to be based on somewhat questionable foundations.


For, as noted by McGann (2017) in the pages of Science, the downplaying of olfaction can actually be traced back to early French neuroanatomist Paul Broca wanting to make more space in the frontal parts of the brain (i.e., the frontal lobes) for free will in the 1880s. In order to do so, he apparently needed to reduce the size of the olfactory cortex accordingly. theoris ts such as Zimmerman (1989) arrived at a similar hierarchy, albeit with a somewhat different weighting for each of the five main senses.

In particular, Zimmermann estimated a channel capacity (in bits/s) of 107 for vision, 106 for touch, 105 for hearing and olfaction, and 103 for taste (gustation).

Looking to the future, the hope is that architectural design practice will increasingly incorporate our growing  understanding of the human senses, and how they influence one another. Such a multisensory approach will hopefully lead to the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our social, cognitive, and  emotional development, rather than hindering it, as has too often been the case previously.

Significance statement

Architecture exerts a profound influence over our well being, given that the majority of the world’s population liv ing in urban areas spend something like 95% of their time indoors. However, the majority of architecture is designed for the eye of the beholder, and tends to neglect the non visual senses of hearing, smell, touch, and even taste.

This neglect may be partially to blame for a number of problems faced by many in society today including everything from sick-building syndrome (SBS) to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), not to mention the growing problem of noise pollution.

However, in order to design buildings and environ ments that promote our health and well-being, it is necessary not only to consider the impact of the various senses on a building’s inhabitants, but also to be aware of the way in which sensory atmospheric/environmental cues interact. Multisensory perception research provides relevant insights concerning the rules governing sensory integration in the perception of objects and events.

This review extends that approach to the understanding of how multisensory environments and atmospheres affect us, in part depending on how we cognitively interpret, and/or attribute, their sources. It is argued that the confusing notion of synaes thetic design should be replaced by an approach to multi sensory congruency that is based on the emerging literature on crossmodal correspondences instead.

Ultimately, the hope is that such a multisensory approach, in transitioning from the laboratory to the real world application domain of architectural design practice, will lead on to the development of buildings and urban spaces that do a better job of promoting our social, cognitive, and emotional development, rather than hindering it, as has too often been the case previously.


(Source: Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind by  Charles Spence;  in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2020) 5:46 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00243-4 Keywords: Multisensory perception, Architecture, The senses, Crossmodal correspondences；Correspondence: charles.spence@psy.ox.ac.uk Department of Experimental Psychology, Crossmodal Research Laboratory, University of Oxford, Anna Watts Building, Oxford OX2 6GG, UK )

Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind

Abstract

Traditionally, architectural practice has been dominated by the eye/sight. In recent decades, though, architects and designers have increasingly started to consider the other senses, namely sound, touch (including proprioception,  kinesthesis, and the vestibular sense), smell, and on rare occasions, even taste in their work.

As yet, there has been little  recognition of the growing understanding of the multisensory nature of the human mind that has emerged from the field of cognitive neuroscience research. This review therefore provides a summary of the role of the human senses in architectural design practice, both when considered individually and, more importantly, when studied collectively.

For it is only by recognizing the fundamentally multisensory nature of perception that one can really hope to explain a number of surprising crossmodal environmental or atmospheric interactions, such as between lighting colour and thermal  comfort and between sound and the perceived safety of public space.

At the same time, however, the contemporary focus on synaesthetic design needs to be reframed in terms of the crossmodal correspondences and multisensory  integration, at least if the most is to be made of multisensory interactions and synergies that have been uncovered in  recent years. （Con't Below）


(Source: Senses of place: architectural design for the multisensory mind by Charles Spence; in Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2020) 5:46 Keywords: Multisensory perception, Architecture, The senses, Crossmodal correspondences)

（續上）五、書寫的肉身：「無器官身體」波特萊爾在〈人間以外的地方〉說：「人生是一家醫院，那兒的每個病人都被想換床的慾望所佔有。這個病人願意在火爐對面受苦，那個卻認為他在窗戶旁邊病就會好。我覺得在我不在場的地方老是會感到好些，這個遷居問題就是我不斷地和我的心靈討論的問題。」（《憂鬱》，152-3）

透過醫院這個隱喻，生病的詩人宛如大病初癒般的啟發，以不斷遷居的行動慾望來實踐漫遊，甚至在同一地點（旅館或醫院）也不停地移動。 為了自救，漫遊是一種必然的行動慾望，里斯本、荷蘭或巴達維亞，「無論什麼地方！只要不在這個世界上！」

突顯這個漫遊身體不受任何地方 羈絆，被想移動的強烈慾望支撐著，而不是單純想旅行的慾望而已。 波特萊爾漫遊式書寫的初始姿態是脫逃性質的，為了逃離依功能劃分的資本主義，而以一種紈袴子或藝術家從容閒適的外表，來反抗制度， 所呈現的是一個特立獨行的身體，不斷沉浸於環境所給予的現實感中， 促使詩人正視自身的限制，所產生的是必然的反身性、必然地逃跑，因大量的流動性驅動了逃跑的路線與向外連結的慾望，詩人也不斷在變向、不斷變形、位移（déplacement），強調脫逃的過程與路線，作為書寫創造運動之所本。

在巨大城市如迷宮般的裝置中不斷移動，詩人的城市漫遊與書寫已變成相同的動作。而這個漫遊姿態剔除了本質主義色彩，並沒有任何實體作為基礎的堅實存在（猶如身體進行不移動的旅行）。在某一方面，這種姿態與德勒茲與瓜達裡所謂的「無器官身體」39 十分接近。

39 德勒茲與瓜達裡藉用這個「無器官身體」來進行他們的解域化實踐（déterritorialisation）。「無器官身體」不是一個身體形象，不等同於沒有器官的身體，它是一個成型和變型、分解和重組身體的過程，這種身體，因為沒有羈絆，沒有組織，因而可以四處流走，亦可反覆地重組。用德勒茲的話語來說，它是遊牧與流動的存在，它是「根莖式」的，四處蔓延與滲透。


從此來看，無器官身體有正面及負面涵義，可以泛指任何宗教、道德、意識形態、資本或人物，本身不事生產，卻可控制人的行為。《千山台》一書第六章〈如何成為無器官身體〉，甚至呼籲人們去創造屬於自己的無器官身體。參考Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux, 1. Introduction: rhizome; 6. Comment sefaire un corps sans organes? (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1980), pp. 9-37, 185-204.

它是一個非形式、非組織性的不穩固身體，不受任何生物性事實所主宰，在不斷與 現代社會發生關係的過程中，這個散亂、零碎、靈活、可變的姿態，與漫遊主體一般，不斷處於流動與變向（devenir）的姿態。事實上，這個姿態不是封閉的有機體，沒有定義與從屬關係，不受權力箝製，它是主動的，為一種慾望之流所灌注，但這個慾望跳離傳統精神分析，不是因 匱乏而生的缺陷，這個慾望是一個生產的機器，它不是形式的統一，而是不斷流動的，永遠在生產、在逃逸、在衝破、在連結。

猶如波特萊爾筆下詩與慾望的迷宮中，詩歌已然太接近慾望，折回到純粹詩意的驅動， 通過修辭的文藻，嘗試捕捉（關住）那個受到慾望唆使慫恿的心靈訴說， 猶如那個來自於詩歌、同時又表現某種超越詩歌的自由意象，將語言置於解域化的方向中。

在〈高翔〉（«Elévation»，《惡之華》，51-2）一詩中，詩人與他的心靈逕行分裂，在分裂的過程中，他對他的心靈以「你」相稱並用祈使句的口吻。詩人自己「我」與任何影射身體的字詞幾乎不存在。

此處，祈使句所指的既是一種自律也是一種自我觀察（「去吧」、「飛吧」），將身體視為一種負擔、一種羈絆。其實在希臘哲學（柏拉圖）與基督教傳統中，身體早被視為一種牢籠，死亡之後靈魂遂與留於塵世中的身體進行分 離。波特萊爾重拾此一傳統，藉由詩中「泳者」與「鳥」的譬喻，將脫去身體的心靈，與速度、流動性以及自由產生關聯。但在這個去身體的解放中，心靈所沉迷的卻又是某種「無法形容的男性快感」，一種非常真實的肉慾。

這個對比矛盾修辭（paradoxe）同時表現出一種抽象與具體的愉悅，代表著詩人所追尋的「理想」是身體與心靈進行最原始與最快樂的結合？抑或這個身體為慾望之流，不斷變形、變向？在此詩中，肉慾所開啟的狂喜，幾乎與某種神秘經驗貼近，甚至超越詩人對「理想」的想望，尤其詩中最後一個反轉，出現了那個最反詩意的字：「東西」，在語言與啞口無言之間存在著某種吊詭，將我們帶回到那個破解世界之謎的詩人身邊，他象徵性的視野，只能透過從不替自己說話的「東西」（«des choses muettes»）來發聲。

心靈的激情與所謂的「真實」如何互相指涉？其間關係糾纏，唯有詩人得以進行比擬。是詩的語言讓我們如此理解真實，抑或真實如斯不可理喻而我們只有用詩的機制才能靠近它，穿透它的表層？（齊嵩齡，2015，《身體如表現：波特萊爾的步態式書寫》，《中央大學人文學報》第五十九期 2015年4月頁71-120中央大學文學院，淡江大學英美語言文化學系助理教授[yslc7@mail.tku.edu.tw]）

文本轉譯知覺：策劃空間的多向度異變

策劃視野的引導、路徑的假設、空間的分隔等皆基於形式組織的理性規劃與感性體悟，而游牧理論下對展覽空間的邊界設定在當代極高效信息傳播的語境下不斷受到碰撞，物質與觀念雙重維度上的界限被打破。

（一）邊界重置：桎梏流變的感官空間

1.視覺延展

策劃空間的呈現一貫致力於側重視覺作用於體驗的表達，而負責紐約現代藝術博物館殘疾人長期項目的卡裡·麥吉質疑了視覺中心主義，博物館自20世紀70年代開始邀請盲人參觀展覽，後拓展至可直接觸摸畫作，展覽對視障的關懷並不同於傳統美術館以展覽預錄制聲音描述的形式呈現展覽，而是以藝術家向導描述現場聲音為對應人群提供強連接、逼近現實的體驗。展覽中藝術作品的概念框架在更探索性、試驗性的多感官體驗間來回游走，偏袒視覺的感官等級制度崩塌，展覽不僅傳達了一種策展需要破開視覺空間屏障的觀念與邏輯導向，同時探索了無障礙行動的闡釋和轉譯方式，拓展了策展實踐思考無障礙的方式。

2.聽覺解碼

聲音是聯結人與世界的基本交流媒介之一，當代聲景設計以人的聲音機能為核心，創造性地將聲環境、聲信息和聲技術融合成新的媒介。當代策展性手法通過新興媒介對體驗的引導探索聲音可超越的維度，2021年於於木木美術館由難波祐子主策劃的「阪本龍一：觀音·聽時」展覽以敏銳的情緒洞察力打磨聽覺的呈現，其中的《你的時間》將空曠場所兩側並排放置音響與LED面板，鋼琴跟隨地震數據彈奏其因為海浪沖擊而異變的音律，人類定義的鋼琴原音所謂符號定義因自然活動被消除，聲音意味的游離與搖擺在被刻意打造的沉浸場域中被感知。

3.嗅覺祛魅

長期以來，受到嗅覺本身複雜性質的局限，以視聽為主要內容的藝術史中很少出現嗅覺的身影，嗅覺的表達潛能處於被忽視的狀態。當代嗅覺策展正以大量的實踐作品中累積而逐步形成自身的話語場域，但嗅覺藝術的豐碩成果並非是一蹴而就的，它經歷了長久的冷落和漸進的嘗試。2012年策展人Chandler Burr受紐約藝術與設計博物館所委托策劃的「The art of scent香氛藝術」消除了視覺材料的所有參考而僅留下承載氣味的香龕、被懸掛的容器，並給予體驗者比較與討論的嗅覺體驗的游牧場所，以一向被忽視的、私人的嗅覺體驗借由公開交流的主動權調動想象，擺脫被規訓的參展體驗形式而以反向的知覺路徑對當代策展的可能性進行突破。

中心隱匿：多維重塑的觀念敘事——能動的策展性突破展覽的邊界、挑戰規范式空間、超越媒介與感官體驗，使得展覽能夠作為發聲、社交、賦權場拋出問題、催生意義。

（盧錦程·德勒茲「游牧空間」理論下當代策展性手法與觀展空間的關係；[原載：中國民族博覽2023年6期]）

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地方感性

愛懇雲端藝廊：設計故事館

[彩繪玻璃]

有一面彩繪玻璃窗，從上到下只被一個人物形象所佔滿，那人的模樣跟紙牌上的大王相似；他就在上面頂天立地地站著，教堂的拱頂成了他的華蓋。……其中有一面窗像長條的棋盤，由百十塊長方形的小玻璃拼成，主調是藍色的，像當年供查理六世用來解悶的一幅大紙牌。

[古老的建築]

這座建築可以說佔據了四維空間——第四維就是時間，它像一艘船揚帆在世紀的長河中航行，駛過一柱又一柱，一廳又一廳，它所贏得、所超越的似乎不僅僅是多少公尺，而是一個朝代又一個朝代，它是勝利者。

[拱門]

重重疊疊哥特式的、風姿綽約的拱門，一個挨一個地擋著，讓外人一眼看不到樓梯，好比一群千嬌百媚的大姐姐，笑吟吟地擋住了身後土裡土氣、哭哭啼啼、衣衫寒酸的小弟弟。

[拱頂]

幽暗的拱頂下，天花板上鼓起一道道粗壯的筋脈，像一隻巨大的蝙蝠張開的翼膜。

[教堂牆上的植物]

然而在教堂和非教堂之間，卻有一道我的思想始終不能逾越的界限。盡管盧瓦索夫人的窗前有幾棵倒掛金鐘，習慣於不知趣地縱容耷拉著腦袋的樹葉到處亂躥，那上面的花朵開到一定時候，總迫不及待地要把自己的紅得發紫的面孔貼到教堂陰沉的牆上去涼快涼快，我覺得倒掛金鐘並不因此而沾上靈氣；在花朵和它們所投靠的陰沉的牆面之間，我的肉眼雖看不到半點間隙，但是在我的心目中，卻存在著一個不可逾越的深淵。

（摘自：《追憶似水年華》[法語：À la recherche du temps perdu，英语：In Search of Lost Time: The Prisoner and the Fugitive]，[法国]馬塞爾·普魯斯特 [Marcel Proust ，1871年—1922年] 的作品，出版時間：1913–1927，共7卷）

[火車聲]

包圍著我的，是列車各種運動那令人鎮靜的活動。這各種運動伴著我，如果我沒有睡意。他們會主動過來和我聊聊，它們的聲響像搖籃曲那樣催我入眠。……好像我在一瞬間得以化身為某種魚類在大海中安睡，睡意朦朧中被水流和浪濤蕩來蕩去，或者化成一隻鷹，仰臥在暴風雨這唯一的支柱上。

[旅行：想出各種生活畫面]

由於種種原因，人們為自己設想的圖景是永遠不會成為現實的……人們構想出各種生活畫面，小至在日落中品嚐鱸魚，為此一個深居簡出的人會決心乘一趟火車，大至渴望某天晚上乘坐一輛豪華馬車停在一個高傲的女出納面前讓她大吃一驚，為此一個不擇手段的人會謀財害命，或者巴不得親人死掉好獨吞遺產，這要看他是膽大包天還是懶惰成性，是不達目的決不罷休還是停留在醞釀計劃的第一步，總之，不管構想什麼樣的畫面，為了實現這一畫面所采取的行動——旅行、結婚、犯罪等等，會使我們起深刻的變化，以致我們在自己成為旅客、丈夫、罪犯、孤獨者（後者為獲得榮譽而開始工作，但工作又使她對榮譽的渴望變得淡泊）之前構想的畫面不再重現，我們也許連想都不去想了。再說，縱然我們下定決心不肯徒勞無益，也有可能日落景象未達到預想的效果，或者到那時我們因感到寒冷而寧願在火爐邊喝湯而不想在露天品鱸魚，也可能我們的馬車絲毫未打動女出納的心，她出於別種原因本來對我們十分敬重，而我們陡然擺闊反倒引起了她的猜疑。

[火車鳴笛]

我聽到火車鳴笛的聲音，忽遠忽近，就像林中鳥兒的囀鳴，標明距離的遠近。汽笛聲中，我仿佛看見一片空曠的田野，匆匆的旅人趕往附近的車站；他走過的小路將在他的心頭留下難以磨滅的回憶，因為陌生的環境、不尋常的舉止、不久前的交談，以及在這靜謐之夜仍縈繞在他耳畔的異鄉燈下的話別，還有回家後即將享受到的溫暖，這一切使他心緒激蕩。

[火車站]

火車站幾乎不屬於城市的組成部分，但是包含著城市人格的真諦。這聖拉扎爾車站，在開了膛破了肚的城市高處，展開廣闊無垠而極不和諧的天空，戲劇性的威脅成團成堆地聚集，使天空顯得沉重……在這樣的天空下，只會完成某一可怕而又莊嚴的行動，諸如坐火車動身或豎起十字架。

[適應：醒來之後和人說話]

……說出這些話，而不是我這個處於剛剛醒來狀態的睡眠者正在繼續思考的那些話，這樣做要求我拿出平衡的力量，就像有人從一列行進的火車上跳下來，沿途跑上一段時間，最終得以站穩，沒有跌倒。他奔跑一段時間是因為他離開的是一個高速運轉的環境，與靜止的環境不同，他的腳一時難以適應。

（摘自：《追憶似水年華》[法語：À la recherche du temps perdu，英语：In Search of Lost Time: The Prisoner and the Fugitive]，[法国]馬塞爾·普魯斯特 [Marcel Proust ，1871年—1922年] 的作品，出版時間：1913–1927，共7卷）

(Con't) Stanza means ‘room’, ‘station’ or ‘stopping place’ and refers to blocks of black separated by white on the page. These are rooms we pass between surrounded by outside. Stanzas found their way into written poetry through the act of memoriz ing verse. Rooms, or stopping places, are memorized and filled with words that would be activated by an imagined walk through the rooms. While stanzas are clearly places to stop – they are also clearly linked by movement. Movement also occurs within the stanzas as we follow the lines of text. The word ‘verse’ comes from the practice of tilling the soil – agriculture – the root of ‘culture’. It is rooted in the Latin versus, meaning a ‘furrow’ or a ‘turning of the plow’. As the farmer (or farm worker) tills the soil they come to an edge, turn around, then make their way back, pacing out the day. Verse can thus be found in ‘reverse’. These two ideas – stanza – as a block of bounded space and verse as an action – a form of practice that brings those blocks alive and reminds us that they are only there because of move ment – these two ideas describe something of the geography of the poem as the interplay of fixity and flux of being and becoming.

Poetry is often referred to as freezing time. In fact, many kinds of representation are said to freeze time (and thus, in some circles, representation has become deeply suspect) (Anderson and Harrison 2010). In poetry’s case, this could not be further from the truth. Poetry, to me, is a mobile form related to walking and, indeed, ploughing and reversing. This sense of mobile journeying in the poem is part of the topological understanding of the poem on the page.

Perec knew this: I write: I inhabit my sheet of paper, I invest it, I travel across it, I incite blanks, spaces (jumps in the meaning, discontinuities, transitions, changes of key) (Perec 1997, 3) with place starts from a recognition of an original encounter which is “singular and situated”. The more the poem can reflect this situated singularity the more faithful it will be to the place that lies beyond it. But it would be wrong to think of the ‘concrete unity’ of place as a pure, bounded entity with no relation to a world (even an abstract world) beyond it. Places always point to a world beyond them, and so do poems.

One way in which the place of the poem opens up to its outside is through metaphor. Metaphor is another component of poetics that has a spatial root in travel. Metaphor comes from the Greek metaphorá (μεταφορά ) for ‘transfer’ or ‘carryover’.

In modern Athens, the vehicles of mass transportation are called metaphorai. To go to work or come home, one takes a “metaphor” – a bus or a train. Stories could also take this noble name: every day, they traverse and organize places; they select and link them together; they make sentences and itineraries out of them. They are spatial trajectories (de Certeau 1984, 115).

Metaphors perform two operations simultaneously – they say a equals band, at the same time, a does not equal b. Just saying a is the same as b is not metaphorical.

For a metaphor to be a metaphor a has to also be different from b. The more different they are the more powerful the metaphor. This is true as long a and b are not so different that they are not, in fact, similar in any way.

Poems speak to things which lie outside the poem. Clearly the poem has a referential function – like all language. It is about something. But even if we include the things the poem directly names on the inside of the poem, there is yet another set of things that are not directly named but instead gestured towards. In this way the poem opens up to the world. We have seen how one of the features of place is the way in which it gathers things.

A place is a unique assemblage. The things that constitute a place often appear to us as specific to that place even if they have, in fact, travelled from else where. Things form a particular topography of place at the same time as their jour neys link the inside of a place to elsewhere. Poetry is one way in which we stop and wonder at the specificity of the way things appear to us in place.

Poetry involves being attentive to things and the way I which they are gathered. Poetry is an ‘encounter with the world’. No matter the changes in Heidegger’s philosophical vocabulary, a key point around which his thinking constantly turns is the idea that thinking arises, and can only arise, out of our original encounter with the world – an encounter that is always singular and situated, in which we encounter ourselves as well as the world, and in which what first appears is not something abstract or fragmented, but rather the things themselves, as things, in their con crete unity (Malpas 2012b, 14).

This insistence on the specificity of ‘things themselves’ is one way we can think about poetic attention. A poetic concern ground that appears relatively static. This movement, in a poem, is expressed with direction words such as “over” or “in” or “towards”. Topopoetics challenges some of the assumptions of the figure/ground equation. As place is most often equated with ground it tends to have a degree of deadness associated with it. It seems less important.

Topopoetics draws our attention to the opposite – the active presence of place in the poem. Another key term in cognitive poetics is “image schema” which refers to “loca tive expressions of place” (Stockwell 2002, 16). Stockwell gives the examples of “JOURNEY, CONTAINER, CONDUIT, UP/DOWN, FRONT/BACK, OVER/ UNDER, INTO/OUT OF”. Terms of mobility catch our attention and urge us to continue reading – static elements are frankly boring and we quickly forget them. The difference between the moving elements and static elements produces literary and cognitive effects. But even before any particular word is written or read we have the poem – the lines that form a shape in space. As we read left to right and top to bottom against the white space a figure forms over ground. A passage is enacted. Stuff happens.

Poems are made out of arrangements of type and blank space – figure and ground in a physical, pre-verbal sense. I am not sure what the cognitive content of this patterning is but it is surely important to poetry – even before the specifics of actual words and their meanings. This is the start of the geography of the poem. There are two spatial metaphors at work in the basic language of poetry that point towards the way a poem is an act of dwelling: these are the words ‘stanza’ and ‘verse’.

Something has to appear for space to emerge. Georges Perec makes this clear: This is how space begins, with words only, signs traced on the blank page. To describe space: to name it, to trace it, like those portolano-makers who saturated the coastlines with the names of harbours, the names of capes, the names of inlets, until in the end the land was only separated from the sea by a continuous ribbon of text (Perec 1997, 13).

Perec’s book, Species of Spaces is a catalogue of spaces and places with chapters devoted to “The Apartment”, “The Street” and “The Town” for instance. The first chapter, though, is “The Page”. The page is immediately equivalent to spaces we may more easily think of as the world beyond the page.

The page and its markings are not removed from, and about, the world – they are of the world. In this chapter Perec outlines the nature of a topopoetics in simple terms. Writing, particularly writing poems, is the production of space and place.

It is a cartographic act that combines senses of home and journey. The process of writing creates coordinates – a top and a bottom, left and right, beginning and end. In amongst the words are pauses and hesitations. There is a poetic topological correspondence between the poem and the place it is about. In Peter Stockwell’s account of ‘cognitive poetics’ a key idea is the notion of f igure/ground – the notion that some things appear to be more important, more fluid, more foregrounded while others remain as background and setting (and thus seem ingly less important) (Stockwell 2002).

The first is figure and the second is ground. The figure is prominent and the ground is not. This occurs most obviously in the way characters are more important than the places they are in in novels. Description is often about ground and action involves figures. Figures often move across a

We make our places by doing them –by beating the bounds rather than drawing a line in the sand. Beyond that place of movement is the white of silence. But even that space is being shaped, if only as the negative image of the poem. 4 Inside and Outside One way of thinking about place is to think of it as a singular thing – specific, par ticular, bounded and separate.

The very idea of place is bound up with uniqueness and a sense of division from what lies beyond it. But places are actually connected into networks and flows – they have an extrovert side (Massey 1997). This paradoxi cal sense of separation and connectedness is noted by Malpas.

One of the features of place is the way in which it establishes relations of inside and out side – relations that are directly tied to the essential connection between place and boundary or limit. To be located is to be within, to be somehow enclosed, but in a way that at the same time opens up, that makes possible.

Already this indicates some of the directions in which any thinking of place must move – toward ideas of opening and closing, of concealing and revealing, or focus and horizon, of finitude and “transcendence,” of limit and possibility, of mutual relationality and coconstitution (Malpas 2012b, 2). This feature of place is one that translates into the topos of the poem. Poems too open and close, conceal and reveal. (Con't  below)

The painter may paint blankness, applying white paint perhaps but rarely leaves the canvas untouched. But there are also similarities between the blank space of the painter and the poet. One similarity is suggested by Gilles Deleuze in his meditation on Francis Bacon. Here he suggests that the blank canvas that con fronts the painter is not blank at all but invested with every painting ever done before. In fact, it would be a mistake to think that the painter works on a white and virgin surface. The entire surface is already invested virtually with all kinds of clichés, which the painter will have to break with (Deleuze 2005, 11). The image Deleuze gives us is of a painter confronted with the whole tradition of painting right there on the blank space which is no longer blank. This is the same for a poet who has to face the page/screen with the knowledge of all the poems that have gone before. There are all the ballads and sonnets, the free verse and the sesti nas, Caedmon’s Hymn, the long lines of Whitman, the dashes of Dickenson, iambic pentameter, half rhyme, sprung rhythm, spondees, syllabic experiments, language poetry and limericks – all of these pre-figure the first letter written or typed. The space is not blank but dizzyingly full. Returning to Deleuze: It is a mistake to think that the painter works on a white surface. The figurative belief fol lows from this mistake. If the painter were before a white surface, he – or she – could reproduce on it an external object functioning as a model. The painter has many things in his head, or around him, or in his studio. Now everything he has in his head or around him is already in the canvas, more or less virtually, more or less actually, before he begins his work. They are all present in the canvas as so many images, actual or virtual, so that the painter does not have to cover a blank surface, but rather would have to empty it out, clear it, clean it. (Deleuze 2005, 87).

The space of the poet, like that of the artist’s is a space to fill with what gets defined by the words or a seething endless presence of everything that has been written before. Once there is a poem on the page then an act of dwelling has occurred that brings space and place into being. If we move beyond the blankness of the empty page/ screen then we begin to see all the other ways in which space works for the poem. Take any poem, copy it, and apply a thick black marker to the lines of text. You end up with a black shape and a white shape. Space works as margins, as gaps, as signi f iers of intent when the poet does anything other than left align the lines. Naturally this use of space is most pronounced in forms of experimental poetry in the modern ist tradition: concrete poetry, Mallarme’s radical departures from the left margin, the projective verse of the Black Mountain School or the contemporary experimen tation with ‘erasure’. But space and place do their work too in traditional forms. The popularity of the sonnet is partly attributable to the perfect way it sits on the page, announcing itself as a poem. 3 Stasis and Flux The topos of the poem results from its play of ink and the absence of ink.

Culture brings nature into perspective and makes it make sense in much the way the marks of the poem make the blank space make sense. Stevens’ jar performs similar functions to Heidegger’s bridge. The poem does the same thing – bringing space into being.

Silence is the acoustic space in which the poem makes its large echoes. If you want to test this write a single word on a blank sheet of paper and stare at it: note the superior attendance to the word the silence insists upon, and how it soon starts to draw out the word’s ramifying sense-

potential, its etymological story, its strange acoustic signature, its calligraphic mark; you are reading a word as poetry (Paterson 2007, 63). Here, British poet Don Paterson suggests that the self-aware special-ness of the poem is created by its being surrounded by blankness, which he equates with silence. There is a merging of sight and sound – pure blankness and silence. The sense of sound is the only sense which has a unique word for absence.

While silence is the absence of sound there is no word for the absence of smell or taste for instance (we have to resort to terms like ‘tasteless’). Perhaps it is for this reason that blank space is compared to silence. It also reminds us of the origins of poetry in spoken forms. The blankness is not just something to be filled but an active component in

the creation of the poem. The blank page is the friend of the poet allowing an infinite variety of form in the simple sense of shape. When the single word appears on the blank sheet the word-as-poem and the space around it are simultaneously brought into being. In this sense, one does not precede the other.

Paterson describes the act of poetry as an emergence out of silence and space. This is not quite right. This assumes the pre-existence of a blankness and silence within which the words emerge.

Perhaps, instead, the blankness is produced by the creative act. The blankness emerges with the noise. There are similarities between the poet’s relationship to blank space and the painter’s relationship to the canvas. They are clearly not the same thing.

In most painting the canvas is covered. The first thing many traditional painters do is cover a canvas with paint and then start to work on the detail. The canvas is obliterated. The poet, on the other hand, cannot fill up the space he or she is confronted with. The poem needs to play with the space and allow the blankness to be part of the process. Don Paterson puts it this way: Our formal patterning most often supplies a powerful typographical advertisement.

What it advertises most conspicuously is that the poem has not taken up the whole page, and con siders itself somewhat important. The white space around the poem then becomes a potent symbol of the poem’s significant intent (Paterson 2007, 62). The space around the poem once written advertises the poem’s importance as special words. (Con't Below)

Poems of place are not simply poems about places, rather they are a species of place with a special relationship to what it is to be in (external) place. Included in this is a recognition that poems (as places) have a material existence as a gathering of words (literally ink) on the page which takes a particular spatial form.

Topopoetics means closing the gap between the material form of the poem (topos in the sense of rhetorics) and the earthly world of place (topos as place). It means attending to the presence of place within the poem. To do this the rest of the essay considers the role of blank space, the tension between shape/form and movement and the relationship between the inside and outside of the poem. 2

Blank Space/Full Space Before, there was nothing, or almost nothing; afterwards, there isn’t much, a few signs, but which are enough for there to be a top and a bottom, a beginning and an end, a right and a left, a recto and a verso (Perec 1997, 10). My interest here is in the combined impact of two meanings of topos – as correct form and as place – on understanding poetic approaches to and renditions of place. The act of building and dwelling that is a poem starts with a blank white space. By writing poems we gather that space and give it form.

True – it already has edges and texture (it is, in Perec’s terms “almost nothing”) but words (as place) bring space into existence. The space becomes margins and gaps between words – even holes within letters. This relationship between poem and place and the space that takes shape around it is one of the defining elements of poetry. Glyn Maxwell, in On Poetry, ruminates on blank space and silence in poetry. Regard the space, the ice plain, the dizzying light. That past, that future.

Already it isn’t nothing. At the very least it’s your enemy, and that’s an awful lot. Poets work with two materials, one’s black and one’s white. Call them sound and silence, life and death, hot and cold, love and loss…. … Call it this and that, whatever it is this time, just don’t make the mistake of thinking the white sheet is nothing. It’s nothing for your novelist, your journalist, your blogger. For those folk it’s a tabular rasa, a giving surface. For the poet it is half of everything. If you don’t know how to use it you are writing prose. If you write poems that you might call free and I might call unpatterned then skillful, intelligent use of the whiteness is all that you’ve got (Maxwell 2012, 11). Poems are patterns made from space and which make space. Even before a word is read you can see a poem’s shape – the black against the white in Maxwell’s terms.

This is one of the most pleasing things about poetry and it serves no function at all in a novel or most other forms of writing. Writing a poem is a little form of place creation that configures blankness. This resonates with Wallace Stevens’ ‘Anecdote of the Jar’: I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Here the roundness of the jar (roundness is repeated throughout the poem in ‘round’, ‘around’ and ‘surround’) orders the “slovenly wilderness” around it – it orders and regulates a kind of blankness (the ‘almost-nothing’ of wilderness) in a contrived and designed way.

In Aristotle’s rhetoric it is important to choose the right kind of topos for the argument at hand, just as it is important to select the right form for a particular poet. It draws our attention to the importance of (among other things) the shape on the page. The richer meaning of topos emerged more fully formed in the writing of Martin Heidegger and has recently been elaborated by the philosopher, Jeff Malpas (Heidegger 1971; Malpas 1999, 2012a).

Here topos is mobilized through the idea of the topological to indicate the primary nature of place for being. To put it bluntly, to be is to be in place – to be here/there. The connection between poetry and the idea of place as the site of being is right there at the outset as Heidegger’s insistence on being as being-in-place originated from an encounter with the poetry of Hölderlin (Malpas 2006; Elden 1999).

Heidegger’s topological thought includes two key concepts – Dasein and dwelling. Dasein means (approximately) ‘being there’. It combines Heidegger’s career- long enquiry into the nature of being with a recognition that being is always placed – that existence is thoroughly intertwined with place.

The way that we make a home in the world is referred to as dwelling. The way in which you are and I am, the manner in which we humans are on the earth, is Buan, dwelling.

To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell (Heidegger 1971, 145). How, exactly, people enact this dwelling (or fail to enact it) becomes a central object for philosophy in Heidegger’s later texts.3 In an important series of late essays Heidegger invokes poetry as a form of dwell ing. He goes so far as to suggest that it is an ideal form of building and dwelling. Poetic creation, which lets us dwell, is a kind of building.

Thus we confront a double demand: for one thing, we are to think of what is called man’s existence by way of the nature of dwelling; for another, we are to think of the nature of poetry as a letting-dwell, as a – perhaps even the – distinctive kind of building. If we search out the nature of poetry according to this viewpoint, then we arrive at the nature of dwelling (Heidegger 1971, 213).

This observation (linking poetry to its root meaning of ‘making’) gets right to the heart of the constitution of topopoetics. Poetry, as Heidegger observes, is a kind of building and thus a particularly important kind of dwelling. This building-as- dwelling, however, is more than the practical stuff of constructing in the correct way – it is, in Heidegger’s view, about the essential character of being-in-the world – being in, and with, place. 

1 For a discussion of topos, see Rapp 2010: 7.1.

2 Aristotle Topics 163b28.32.

3 Heidegger was a member of the Nazi Party, a membership he later denounced. There is no doubt that these ideas of dwelling were easily incorporated into a Nazi ideology of proper authentic (Aryan) dwelling counterposed to an inauthentic (Jewish, gay, Romany) form of (non) dwelling. Following Malpas I do not believe that this necessarily means that his ideas are irrecoverably infected.

An engagement with the philosophical basis of topos adds to our original definition of place (above) as a gathering of things, practices and meanings in a particular location. While place is all of these things this definition fails to underline the basic significance of being placed to being-in-the-world. A topopoetic account is one which recognizes the specificity of the nearness of things in place and at the same time focuses our attention on the way in which the poem is itself a form of building and dwelling.

With the banks, the bridge brings to the stream the one and the other expanse of the landscape lying behind them. It brings stream and bank and land into each other’s neighborhood. The bridge gathers the earth as landscape around the stream (Heidegger 1971, 150).

Heidegger’s bridge brings a place and a surrounding landscape into being. In so doing, it also produces space. The bridge as a place does not just connect pre- existing spaces or operate within a pre-existing space – it brings space into being.

In this sense, place comes before space. This is a reversal of the more frequent suggestion that places exist in space and that space comes before place. Heidegger is clearly making a different argument from Merleau-Ponty.

Nevertheless, what unites the two passages is an insistence on the way spaces are brought into being in relation to platial bodies and structures as active agents. Place comes first. One final preliminary point about place before moving on to a discussion of topopoetics. One of the defining qualities of place, across disciplines, has been the way in which places bring things together.

They are seen as syncretic mixtures of elements of multiple domains. Different scholars use different terms to describe this fact. Philosophers following Heidegger write of places as sites of gathering (Casey 1996). The geographer Robert Sack uses the metaphor of a loom to describe places as products of the process of weaving (Sack 2003).

Writers informed by the philoso phy of Gilles Deleuze and Manual Delanda refer to this process as assemblage (DeLanda 2006; Dovey 2010). Things mingle in places and places are constantly being made through gathering/weaving/ assembling and constantly being pulled apart. Among the things that are gathered in place are objects (materialities), mean ings (narratives, stories, memories etc.) and practices.

Philosopher Edward Casey puts this as well as anyone. Minimally, places gather things in their midst– where ‘things’ connote various animate and inanimate entities. Places also gather experiences and histories, even languages and thoughts. Think only of what it means to go back to a place you know, finding it full of memories and expectations, old things and new things, the familiar and the strange, and much more besides. What else is capable of this massively diversified holding action? (Casey 1996, 24)

1 Towards topopoetics

In the remainder of this essay I mobilize some of what has preceded in relation to thinking about poetry. I argue for poems as places (as well as about places) that can be interpreted spatially. The term topopoetics originates from the term topos as developed by Malpas and Casey in their readings of Heidegger and others (Casey 1998; Malpas 2012b).

Topo comes from topos (τόπος), the Greek for ‘place’. This is combined with poetics, which comes from poiesis (ποίησις), the Ancient Greek term for ‘making’. Topopoetics is thus ‘place-making’. The particular lineage I am invoking for topos derives from the philosophy of Aristotle. Importantly, for our purposes, topos appears in both accounts of how the world comes into being and as a figure in rhetoric. In rhetoric a topos is a “particular argumentative form or pattern” from which particular arguments can be derived.1

It is very much like a form in poetry – a sonnet or a villanelle. It has a particular shape. This rhetorical view of topos is linked to the world through the art of memorizing long lists by locating things on a list in particular places. “For just as in the art of remembering, the mere mention of the places instantly makes us recall the things, so these will make us more apt at deductions through looking to these defined premises in order of enumeration.” 2

It has become commonplace to see place as arising from space. In this sense space comes ‘first’. If space is an undifferentiated field – an abstract categorical axis of existence in the Kantian sense, then place has to occur in space. Places here are spatial moments, or points in space on which experience and meaning are layered.

Place comes after space. Space is a fundamental fact of the reality of the universe while place is what humans make out of it. The philosopher Jeff Malpas sees this as a relegation of place to the increasing importance of space in thought following the Renaissance: “The ‘rise’ of space is thus accompanied, one might say, by the ‘decline’ of place.

Indeed, in much contemporary thought, place often appears either as subjective overlay on the reality of materialized spatiality (place is space plus human value of ‘meaning’ …) or else as merely an arbitrary designated posi tion in a spatial field” (Malpas n.d.).

This way of thinking is turned on its head by philosophers of the phenomeno logical tradition following Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty who see spaces being formed out of the reality of place.

Place, here, becomes fundamental and primary while space is what follows once places come into existence as a kind of relation between places. In The Phenomenology of Perception Maurice Merleau-Ponty locates consciousness and intentionality not in the head but in the body.

How does the body relate to space? The most obvious way of articulating this is to think of the body as located (like place) in space where space is an external and continuous field in which the body exists and which the body has to navigate.

This is a body in Cartesian space that exists as an object. Merleau-Ponty rejects this view and argues instead for a ‘body-subject’ that exists in lived space – space which unfolds through the existence of the body rather than providing a precondition for the body. The human body produces certain kinds of orientation such as inside and outside, up and down, front and back and left and right that continually produce space rather than simply inhabit it.

As Merleau-Ponty put it: We must therefore avoid saying that our body is in space, or in time. It inhabits space and time … In so far as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and time are not, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless number of relations synthesized by my consciousness, and into which it draws my body.

I am not in space and time, nor do I conceive space and time; I belong to them, my body combines with them and includes them (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 161). Merleau-Ponty, then, insists that the bodily space is primary to external Cartesian space. Bodies are not simply in an already existing space – rather space is produced by the body.

A similar logic is at work in Heidegger’s account of the work done by building a bridge over a river. The bridge swings over the stream “with ease and power.” It does not just connect banks that are already there. The banks emerge as banks only as the bridge crosses the stream. The bridge designedly causes them to lie across from each other. One side is set off against the other by the bridge. Nor do the banks stretch along the stream as indifferent border strips of the dry land.

Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem by Tim Cresswell

Abstract: This essay focuses on the theme of poetry and place – a project I have called Topopoetics. It introduces the idea of topopoetics drawing on the work of Aristotle, Heidegger and more recent philosophies of place, dwelling and poetics.

The point is not to cover the familiar ground of ‘sense-of-place’ in poetry but rather to explore how the poem is a kind of place and the way in which poems create space and place through their very presence on the page, through the interactions of full space and blank space, stasis and flux, and inside and outside.

What can poetry tell us about space and place? Conversely, what can thinking about space and place tell us about poetry? These are the questions that motivate this essay. My aim is to both answer them and to reveal how spatial and platial thinking can inform forms of interpretation beyond the interpretation of space and place in the geographical world.

I develop a topopoetics – a project that sees poems as places and spaces. The distinction between space and place that is most often made is one in which space is seen as limitless, empty, divisible and subject to mathematical forms of understanding while place is seen as bounded, full, unique and subject to forms of interpretive understanding.

Place has been most frequently described as a meaning ful segment of space – as mere ‘location’ in space overlaid with things such as meaning, subjectivity, emotion and affect (Tuan 1977; Buttimer and Seamon 1980; Relph 1976; Cresswell 2014).

The definitions of space have become more sophisti cated thanks to interventions from critical theory and philosophy which have taken space out of the realm of the abstract and absolute in an attempt to reveal the work ings of space in the production of society (Soja 1989; Lefebvre 1991; Massey 2005).

At the same time work on place has added layers of power on the one hand (Cresswell 1996; Massey 1997) and a deeper philosophical role in human existence on the other (Casey 1998; Malpas 1999). There is not space here to rehearse all of the twists and turns in these debates. One aspect that is worth lingering on is the ques tion of which comes first, space or place? (Con't)

解讀·李商隱《錦瑟》

這首詩歷來註釋不一，莫衷一是。或以為是悼亡之作，或以為是愛國之篇或以為是自比文才之論，或以為是抒寫思念侍兒錦瑟。但以為是悼亡死者為最多。有人認為，開首以瑟弦五十折半為二十五，隱指亡婦華年二十五歲。這話未免有嫌牽強。

但是，首聯哀悼早逝卻是真實。頷聯以莊子亡妻鼓盆而歌和期效望帝化成子規而啼血，間接地描寫了人生的悲歡離合。頸聯以鮫人泣珠和良玉生煙的典故，隱約地描摹了世間風情迷離恍惚，可望而不可至。最後抒寫生前情愛漫不經心，死後追憶已經惘然的難以排遣的情緒。

宋劉攽《貢父詩話》云：「《錦瑟》詩，人莫曉其意，或謂是令狐楚家青衣也。」《苕溪漁隱叢話》前集卷二十二引黃朝英《緗素雜記》曰：「義山《錦瑟》詩云……山谷道人讀此詩，殊不解其意，後以問東坡。東坡云：『此出《古今樂志》，云：錦瑟之為器也，其弦五十，其柱如之。其聲也適、怨、清、和。』案李詩『莊生……』，適也；『望帝……』，怨也；『滄海……』，清也；『藍田……』，和也。一篇之中，曲盡其意。

史稱其瑰邁奇古，信然。」元好問《論詩絕句》云：「望帝春心托杜鵑，佳人錦瑟怨華年。詩家總愛西昆好，獨恨無人作鄭箋」；以上詠「青衣」（豔情）說乃小說家言；詠錦瑟說頗得宋人贊同。明人胡應麟於此二說皆疑之。

其後說者紛紜，大抵有「自傷生平」（清何焯、汪師韓、薛雪、宋翔鳳）說、「悼亡」（清朱鶴齡、朱彝尊、何焯、馮浩、程夢星、姚培謙、近人張采田、孟森等）說、「政治寄托」（清杜詔，近人張采田、岑仲勉等）說、「詩序」（清何焯、王應奎、）說、「寄托不明」（清屈復、近人梁啟超）說、「自寓創作」（錢鐘書）說等。

其中持「悼亡」或「自傷」說者較多。然「悼亡」實際上也是「自傷」的內涵之一，故「自傷」說似更圓通。茲引劉、余《集解》以備參讀：

「自傷身世之說，較為切實合理。……首聯謂見此五十弦之錦瑟，聞其弦弦所發之悲音，不禁悵然而憶己之華年往事。……頷腹二聯，即『思華年』而寫回憶中之華年往事，……『莊生』句系狀瑟聲之如夢似幻，令人迷惘，用意在『夢』字『迷』字。而此種境界亦即以象征詩人身世之如夢似幻，惘然若迷。……『望帝』句系寫瑟聲之淒迷哀怨，如泣鵑啼血，著意在『春心』字、『托』字。『春心』本指愛情之向往追求，常用以喻指對理想之追求。……『望帝』句殆謂己之壯心雄圖及傷時憂國、感傷身世之情均托之哀怨淒斷之詩歌，如望帝之化鵑以自抒哀怨也。杜鵑即作者之詩魂。……『滄海』句寫瑟聲之清寥悲苦……正含滄海遺珠之意。……『藍田』句似寫瑟聲之縹緲朦朧……或以喻己所向往追求者，皆望之若有，近之則無。……要之，頷、腹二聯並非具體敘述其華年往事，而系借瑟聲之迷幻、哀怨、清寥、縹緲以概括抒寫其華年所歷之種種人生遭際、人生境界、人生感受。……末聯含義明白……謂上述失意哀傷情事豈待今日追憶方不勝悵恨，即在當時亦惘然若失矣。」