Question of Perception

Sunday, 14 October 2007 03:31

HOLL Steven, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Alberto Perez-Gomez.
Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, 3rd edition.
English/Japanese. - Binding: Paper - Pages: 160 pp Published

This is the third printing of the classic A+U 1994 special edition covering the work of Holl, Pallasmaa, and, Perez-Gomez, titled Questions of Perception. Their three individual essays presented in the book, are thematically linked; each one tries to explain the role man's perception plays in architecture and also explores phenomenal accounts. In their original introduction, the authors write: "The endless cultural limitations and contradictions inherent in artistic work, revealed with impeccable clarity and logic by the critics' deconstructive theory, are ultimately of limited use for the generation of architecture. The architect must take a position, one that necessarily has ethical consequences, and for which words, a theoretical discourse is nevertheless indispensable. The architect's work exists silently, in the public realm, and is therefore, unavoidable, an affirmation. This is perhaps a dilemma, one that makes architectural practice in the late twentieth century difficult, yet fascinating. Unlike the critic and the philosopher, the architect must embrace the contradictions between perception and logic, the slippage between architectural intention and realization, and the unpredictability of the future's judgement upon the acting present, and "resolve" or confuse these aporias through his/her personal imagination. This book represents a humble attempt to articulate words and images with this generative intention in mind" .