Phenomenology and its Problematic Representation

1. Introduction
We all experience architecure and our built environment in a different way. Because of this, we can
acknowledge that a place, or a certain built environment is a partially subjective experience, in which
also feelings, emotions and sometimes spiritual experiences are important. These subjective
experiences play a major role in the field of sociology, psychology etc... Yet in the architectural
discourse, we tend not to dare to support on the subjective experience of space to operate.
In architectural thinking and representation we often abstract, we abstract scientifically and rationally in
trying to understand and read our environment. We can see that the rational approach is influenced
by current techniques derived from functionalist thinking but also imposed by the current efficiencybased society. Le Corbusier can be seen as a contradictionary figure in this, as he, on the one end,
with the design of the Church at Ronchamp acknowledged the experience of place to be complex
and subjective, he also diminished the notion of place in his earlier major urban plans as the Ville
radieuse to a rational and mathematical entity. Diminishing the notion of place to a mathematical
and rational entity is not an invention of functionalist masters, since the introduction of the
perspective, a mathemathical approach to understand and represent our environment, has played a
mayor role in our western society.
If we consider a place, we use all our senses and our movement to experience it fully. A place, as
Christian Norberg Schulz argues in Genius Loci : towards a phenomenology of architecture is a
qualitative total phenomenon which we cannot reduce to any of its properties... . Yet, the visual
phenomenon is considered the most important to the current architectural discourse . We can
understand that the purely visual capture, as a photograph, is for architecture a technique to abstract
and to represent the reality. If we asses for example diverse architectural magazines, we find that the
representation of architecture is often nothing more than mere visual representation, often even,
disposed of any form of life.
An interesting example for representation, is done by Christian Norberg . In this example the author
shows how the poem A Winter Evening by George Trakl is capable of representing the different
aspects of the notion of place that a simple photograph doesnt seem te be able to do. It is one of the
examples that shows that only representing the visual aspect of a place might not be sufficint to
grasp it in all its complexities. The current architectural discourse however, seems to be representing
places often as an image, as an static visual entity. By doing this, we simplify our own view on reality
and thus our built environment.

2. Representation
The discourse of phenomenology is a critic to the image driven culture, by rebuilding the direct relation
between man and things, through all senses. However, communication became an issue in the
discussion of phenomenology. One cannot express his individual feeling which is embodied in his
being without a media. This brought the problem of representation.
The discussion on phenomenology, or on material culture in general, is likely to float on the surface,
puzzling around poetic uncertain words, and expressive images. The chain missing is the
representation method, the media between the subject and the object. If the visual dominated
representation is challenged, what should be the way of communicating?

In the book The Projective Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries, Robin Evans illustrated the
different ways of representing a design object. The three poles were perspective, orthographic
projection, and imagination, and the connections showed different cognitive processes.
Orthographic projection, seen as an objective representation, refers to plan and section in architecture.
Plan indicates the natural relation between building and the place. For instance, in the Baths in Porto
by Alvaro Siza, the plan is in simple line drawing, but shows the relation with the landscape, the sea
and the rocks. Although the plan is rather abstract, we can almost feel the humidity of the sea, and the
roughness of rocks. Time, place, and atmosphere are embodied in the plan. As for section, it implies
height, light, and sometimes the surface of the interior. The Toledo Cathedral shows how the affect
was staged though section, rendering an imagery of heaven by skylight and sculptures.
Perspective is a more intuitional method of representation. It consists most renderings, collages and
other images that creates a sense of being present. One tendency of perspective is getting as real as
possible, to recall the senses in reality. With the emerging phytography and digital image production, it
is much easier to make a super real image. Instead of rendering an illusion of being present, most
realistic images remain flat pictures, flooded in the overload visual materials.

3. Against image representation

In the lecture seven personal observation, Peter Zumthor talked about one task he gave to his
students. The course is called the house without a form
Each of the student will write a program, choose a person with whom they share an emotional relation
to be the client, choose a concrete site where the student have strong feeling for. Then they will
present the project without plans, sections or models.
The students will describe the building by sounds, smells, verbal description and image from other
fields which is completely different from the main stream presentation. He introduced two projects he
remembered, and he said it is possible to tell a design and the atmosphere without drawing and
model. It is quite interesting (I really want to see some results but unfortunately I couldnt find any).
Since first the culture is still image driven, second the client, not the user is a very important role in
producing the architecture, it is necessary to question that how possible the architect can convince his
client in this way. Anyway, it is a method not only changes the way of presenting but also the way of
designing. It is self-centered, pure emotional design, putting efforts on all the senses equally. Zumthor
called the creation from this method emotional space.
In the same lecture he also claim that he wish to build the building first and then make the measure
drawing for the building. That is the reason he always build large and materialized models. For him, it
is more important to present the experience, not only the image.

4. Verbal communication
We should be aware that drawings always lack some sort of representation of our projects. But the
representation of our projects should at least try to communicate the idea that we have for the building.
It is important to understand how the efforts we make in representing our building can make the lack of
the real thing obvious enough, so that the drawing will not be the substitute for the real thing.
Our way of representing the project can only become effective if we first of all understand that there
are insufficiencies and that there is always something missing, that the thing we represent is not the
final thing. Starting with the awareness of these limitations, we could allow ourselves thinking of
possibilities that could generate an interpretation on how these drawings could be experienced.

Our promises within these drawings that represent our projects could maybe contain certain ambitions
towards the outcome of what the building could eventually be like. Ventilating our ambitions with the
work could get people curious and let them imagine on the reality themselves. So what is important
here is that we should not let the architectural representation become the object of interest, because
when this happens the longing for the real will presumably vanish.
Next to the awareness of the limits on the architectural drawing, the verbal communication of our
projects also include incapacities and inadequacies. But when we are aware of these limitations in
verbal communication as well as in visual communication, then we could allow ourselves and the
readers to generate their own experience.
What is interesting here is off course the choice of words that guide the reader through the text and let
them think about space in their very own way. This imaginative part is what you as the reader come up
with yourself, sort of reading in between the lines.
Especially the use of suggestive and emotional words could enhance this effect and leave room for
the reader to have their own interpretation on the matter. As an example on this writing I would like to
refer to Peter Zumthors book on Atmospheres. He writes about composure and seduction. Through
his writing he makes you aware of architecture having something to do with the way it involves
movement. About you moving through the building and making your own choices on where you want
to be. He mentions that we are all aware of architecture being a spatial art, but that it also is a
temporal art. This meaning that architecture is not limited to a single second and that we can only
experience architecture through time and movement.
In his thermal baths he felt that it was incredibly important to induce a sense of freedom of movement,
so that people could sit, stand, saunter or use the space as a milieu for strolling.
It lies within our power as architects to make people to let go, the art of seduction, in a way that you
could enter a space and begin to feel you could stay there for a while and maybe clear your mind or
think of some place elsewhere.

Quote from Peter Zumthor: Id be standing there, and might just stay a while, but then something
would be drawing me round the corner it was the way the light falls, over here, over there:
and so I saunter on and I must say I find that a great source of pleasure.
(Zumthor, 2006)

This rather abstract way of writing, not being precise on what would draw your attention, but leaving
room for the reader to think of this something in their own way gives you the ability to let your own
imagination flow.
In some sort of way this writing about space makes me want to complete the story by actually being
there myself. It makes me want to understand and discover the spatiality of the building.
But how can these ways in verbal communication represent our projects in a well-defined way? And
what about the awareness of pictures framing this single second in time? How can we connect this
suggestive story, this abstract representation of words to the renderings and photograph, these slices
in time, in a way that they enhance each other and strengthen our representation of the real?

Quote Peter Zumthor: Gebaute architektur hat ihern Ort in der concreten Welt. Dort hat sie ihere
Prsenz. Dort spricht sie fr sich.
(Zumthor, 1985)

So built architecture has its place in the specific world. There, it has its presence. There, it speaks by
itself. And I would like to add to this. There it speaks with us. There we may be touched.
How do we trigger peoples imagination and make them want to experience our ideas in a way that
they become part of what is yet to come?

Zumthor, P. (1985). Partituren und Bilder. Architektonische Arbeiten aus dem Atelier Peter Zumthor.
In K. d. A. A. Luzern (Ed.).
Zumthor, P. (2006). Atmospheres: Architectural environments - surrounding objects. Basel:
Birkhuser.