Experiencing Architecture by Steen Eiler Rasmussen

       From animal species to human beings, creatures all seem to be born with the instinct to create a shelter for themselves. Just like what almost every kid did. When I was a child, I always wanted to make my own secret place. I used a rug draped over two chairs to make my personal tent in the corner of the living room or make the room under my desk into a cave or something. Every kid seems to really enjoy doing such things. That is often the simple beginning for us to experience architecture. As time goes on, we experience architecture more and more in our daily life, but we seldom think about the architecture itself. Why is a building designed this way and what is the purpose of this design? Architect and author Steen Eiler Rasmussen answers these questions in his book Experiencing Architecture. He reminds us to be aware of some principal things, elements and characters of architecture and also tries lots of different and interesting ways to make us realize and experience what architecture exactly is.

       He, the author, describes that a good architect is just like a perfect host who provides every comfort and need for his guests so that living with him is a happy experience. It’s similar when we are designing a building, like the host wants to provide his guests the best; we are trying to make our designs work successfully. That’s why we have to recognize the connection of the relationship between human beings and architecture itself.

       In his book, Rasmussen talks about the relationship between human beings and architecture. As I read the book, I think intuition plays an important role when we experience architecture. Rasmussen cites lots of examples from little tennis balls to road paving to show how different color, different surface, different weight and materials influence our feelings. Applying those themes to architecture, the softness and hardness, heaviness and lightness and the surface character of materials from the coarsest to the finest not only change the form of a building but our entire feeling of it. For instance, Architects make their buildings seem to have more weight by adding organic details and make weights of a construction magically disappear by employing smooth concrete surfaces to it and with light color, just like those huge roofs and eaves supported by fairly thin pillars in our college. I can’t imagine how heavy would it look like if their surface were made by granite, which would make you really feel crushed under the weight of it.

       Through the chapters, Rasmussen shows that in different eras, architects have used different materials to build their dream buildings. I found out that when the era changes from one to the other, not only the employment of materials and the form of architecture changes, but also the thoughts of architects are different. For example, one of the interesting transitions in architecture that the author mentions about is the change of conception from “solids” to “cavities”. The concept of solids and cavities is a bit abstract. The difference between them is just like the difference between convexity and concavity. The Gothic architecture is the former because it concentrates on adding convex details like sculptures and vertical elements. But when architects were decorating a Gothic building, they started thinking about making the niches larger and larger. As a result, the concept of “cavity” came out, and it resulted in the Renaissance architecture. The Renaissance form doesn’t focus on the conception of solids. It’s more like curving a cave. There is more focus on creating vast rooms in it and horizontal forms, not like a Gothic building dominates the city.

       As the author mentions in the book, architecture should not be explained, it must be experienced. Reading this book, I learned not only the difference between architecture but also the transition in architecture from one era to another. Through the chapters, I experience more details in architecture such as the applying of golden section and the applying of curves. There’re a lot of interesting chapters in this book. As a result, I’m really happy to experience and apply the author’s thoughts in my life.  


image from: astore.amazon.co.uk