Week One Summary: ‘The Eyes of the Skin’

In the now classic architectural textbook, The Eyes of the skin, Juhani Pallasmaa (2005) points out that for centuries architecture has been dominated by what is seen while the other senses have been neglected. According to Pallasmaa (2005) the built environment helps us to structure and understand the world we live in. It also helps us understand the concepts of permanence and change and the culture and time we live in. Places and spaces play an inherent part in our memories, they become part of who we are, what we identify with and where we feel we belong. He argues that one of the key tasks of architecture is to bring together people and places and this happens through the stimulation of all the senses not just visually. He quotes architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who using the human characteristic of integrity, applied it to buildings, and urged architects to defend the quality of integrity in their buildings.