Designing Movement, Modulating Mood

Sarah Robinson

doi:10.14361/dak-2021-0209

Abstract

This article illustrates how the isomorphism between bodily form and emotional expression is manifest in architectural experience through applying research findings in the fields of cognitive science, phenomenology, and psychology to practical examples in the work of Aldo van Eyck, Alvar Aalto, Rosan Bosch, Herman Hertzberger, Steen Eiler-Rasmussen, and Gaston Bachelard. Beginning with the micro-scale movement in facial expressions to larger scale patterns of collective movement and mood, this work understands architecture in its activeverbal form, as a patterning force capable of modulating rhythms and resonances at individual and societal scales of interaction.

Highlights

This article illustrates how the isomorphism between bodily form and emotional expression is manifest in architectural experience through applying research findings in the fields of cognitive science, phenomenology, and psychology to practical examples in the work of Aldo van Eyck, Alvar Aalto, Rosan Bosch, Herman Hertzberger, Steen Eiler-Rasmussen, and Gaston Bachelard
When the psychologist Paul Ekman and his colleagues studied the facial expressions of these basic emotions, they discovered that each one is linked with a distinct facial expression that was remarkably congruent across widely diverse cultures (Ekman 1993)
While the face is the bodily region sui generis of this isomorphism between emotion and gesture, this congruency has been shown to be consistent in bodily postures

Summary

Introduction

This article illustrates how the isomorphism between bodily form and emotional expression is manifest in architectural experience through applying research findings in the fields of cognitive science, phenomenology, and psychology to practical examples in the work of Aldo van Eyck, Alvar Aalto, Rosan Bosch, Herman Hertzberger, Steen Eiler-Rasmussen, and Gaston Bachelard. In creating the concrete situations of daily life, we mold the posture, invite gestures, and orchestrate the movement of countless bodies. Smiling, whispering, skipping, and laughing express happiness, intimacy, and joy – they loop back to generate those particular emotions and feelings.

Results

Conclusion