EMOTIONALISM

IN
ARCHITECTURE

SHALINI N DHARMARAJ /1ST YR-II SEMESTER /CONTEMPORARY THEORIES AND TRENDS

 EMOTIONALISM IN ARCHITECTURE

• Emotionalism is the artist or a craftsman way

of narrating the space or feeding the
emotions to the user by the emphasizing the
expressive qualities of spaces .

• Emphasizing particular emotion to convey

something to the user or the people in and “The human brain uses
around the building . emotion to assign
• Craftsman vivid communication of mood , meaning to the objects
feeling and ideas through space and relationships it
perceives. Emotion is
• A craft man can set a emotional quality , what fundamental to the
he wants the occupant to feel
brain’s creation of
• Example: providing glass pool in 20th floor not meaning, and there
mantory to make a user feel the space, but can be no meaning or
kind of guiding the user to feel the space significance without it.”
• Can set an emotion which needed for a space

• Example : creating serenity in library, creating

peace into the space , where the occupant
got segregated or isolated in the space
 HOW DO YOU DESIGN FOR HUMAN EMOTION WITH
YOUR ARCHITECTURE?

• first step is to design through the senses —

Emotion in architecture can using architectural qualities like materiality,
often be linked to how well light, and sound, you can create an
an architecture exudes a architectural journey where the narrative
“sense of place” where the pushes and pulls at different emotions. In other
emotion experienced of a words, you can tell a story with your work using
particular architecture can different architectural characteristics.
be shaped by its “sense of
place”. • Secondly, the grand gesture behind your
architecture can stand poetically to trigger
“Sense of place” can help an certain emotions in occupants. This initial
architecture take on a type of design concept can pull from aspects like
personality — and this metaphor, juxtaposition, or even new kinds of
personality can serve to beauty.
trigger emotion in its building
occupants because it • Emotion can be triggered if the design
connects with them. concept connects with occupants.

• Defining the expectation of the user or the

crafts man , what he wants the occupant to
feel or what feel the occupant need based on
the spaces
 BASIC MODEL OF EMOTIONS

• Concern: Every emotion hides a

concern , that is a more or less stable
preference for a certain state of world

• Based on the significance of the

stimulus , it is determined by an
appraised concern match or mismatch

• Stimulus that match our concern are

• A appraisal is the non intellectual , automatic appraised as beneficial and those that
evaluation of a significance of a stimulus for mismatch our concern as harmful
one personal well being

• It is personal significance of the product

Rather than the product itself Which causes • Stimulus : any perceived change has
the emotion . the potential to elicit an emotion.
• Smell of your perfume , remind me
• Appraisal mediate between products itself my childhood days in the beach
Which causes the emotion, different
individuals who appraise the same product in • Here the event is elicited the stimulus
different ways will feel the different emotions
EVALUATION THROUGH BASIC MODELS OF
EMOTIONS
Concern
• ( origin –primary concerns)

• Basic concern of human is probably

Best describe by the hierarchy of needs

- Refuge and prospect

- Trill
Refuge and prospect

• There is a degree from prospect to refuge,

• Prospect - The Wide Fenestration Open Up To A

Bright Lite Space Where There Is Greater dimension
Of Floor To Ceiling Dimension

• Refuge – the dark side of the room where the

raised floor level brings a lesser floor to ceiling
dimension which confine the space
Exploration
• A very basic concern seen from
evolutionary perspective is the need to
Explore

• Street of gothic cathedral , standing in

this dark
• Alley , we see a bright space ahead ,
promise of new information

• Make us to fantasize what kind of space

it will be , will it be a big open square or
with fountain

• The curiosity of The new information

which is waiting for us to discover
Enticement

• Human like to explore from dark to

light , and move from the dark refuge
to the prospect

• If the exploration gets inverse , if

people move from light to dark , then
it makes them to feel unsafe

• Example : dark to light: chain gate

stair from the north transept in the well
cathedra of somerset

• Light to the dark : the tracery at the

top of the arc of stair, with the
chapter house , directed the space
with light
• ( directional lighting )
Thrill
The word thrill is the key , it is a paradoxical word
It involves two emotion , fear and pleasure , that are
normally mutually exclusive , in the setting and all
voluntarily experienced settings that carry a similar
component of danger , thrill is the emotion we seek
and enjoy

Example : grand canyon in the US state of Arizona.,

the horse shoe shaped glass walkway protrudes 20
meter beyond the edge of the canyon and suspend
1200 meters above the canyon floor

Thrill is kind of survival instinct , where it turns to a

pleasure when human knows to handle the instinct
Stimuli
 - Hearing :
- sounds reflect in a space, and give
impression of its form and material ,
example steven Holl wrote on the
subject of sound” the live reflection of
echo and re-echo within the stone
cathedral increases our awareness
of the vastness and geometry,
material of the space

- The stimuli we perceive with our senses tell - Smell:

us all we need to know about a space - A particular smell make us
unknowingly re- enter a space
- the sense of sight is very dominant , other completely forgotten by the retinal
sense are under rated , hearing and smell memory : the nostrils awaken a
also can influence mood and create forgotten image and we are enticed
memories to enter a vivid day dream , the nose
make the eye remember
 • it can interpretate with the emotion where
Nearly all emotion can be induced or
provoked through the form of the building
• Example: Eero Saarinen airport , one of the
dramatic airline terminal , few straight lines ,
curving contour uncannily suggest a bird in
flight , the main lobby soaring and swooping
walls , its carefully modeled staircase , seating
area and many other features are a blend of
graceful sculpture form selected to suggest the
excitement of the trip

• The form were deliberately chosen in order to

emphasize an upward soaring quality of line ,
FORM • we wanted an uplift the building and all its
space and elements make up a total
Environment

• The whole building with all its details feel like it is

alive , the organic forms swell , stretch , press,
and push out.

• From the distance it looks like a bird that can fly

away any time
 • Architect mostly work with structural forms

MASS AND •
– the solids , but they can also work with
the empty space – the cavity between

VOID the solids , & consider the forming of the

space as the real meaning of
architecture .

• An example of designing the cavity is the

St. George church in laibelia

• “and we do not perceive everything as

either mass or void”
EXPRESSION OF FORM
• Soft: it always has the impression of something that
• Was kneaded and moulded

• Hard: in contrast to the sharp edged and clearcut

shape of the diamonds

• The English bridge made of

brick and express the
impression of something
that was kneaded and
molded , it has a very soft
expression

• Palazzo diamante in Rome

made with natural stone
express the sharp edge
clear cut diamond
EXPRESSION OF MATERIAL
• Impressions of hardness and softness , of
heaviness and lightness, are connected with
Surface character of materials

• The horizontal balconies and terrace of the FL

wright “ falling water” are in big contrast with
the vertical elements.

• The light colored smooth surfaces of the

concrete balconies seems much lighter then
the rough stone surface of the vertical elements
EXPRESSION OF MATERIAL
• A building can be made to appear heavier than it
actually is and it can also be made to appear lighter
than it is
• the upper part of the doga palace in Venice , for
example , appears light although it is solid ,
• This is achieved by the use of light colors in a checkered
pattern, another good example of material expression is
a clinker paved colonnade in Copenhagen,.

• The heavy granite column seems to sink into the softer

clinkers because of the expression of the material and it
also chips of the pattern of the clinkers
MOVEMENT
“ The Design Of Building , Which Must Be Stationery ,
Should Be Based On The movement That Will Flow
Through Them”
The organic staircase in the glass shop built for V.C
Morris guides you through the building . In the theme
vals of zumthor you are not guided and free to
explore the different bath and sauna’s there is not one
defined route , like in the glass shop, but many for
example from the central bath , four staircase lead
you out of the water to explore the rest of the
bathhouse
“light is of decisive important in experiencing
Architecture. The same room can be made to give
Case study of
very different special impressions by the simple
Holocaust museum
expedient of changing the size and location of its
openings ”
In Berlin
“in out time , light has turned into a mere quantitative
matter and the window has lost its significance as a
mediator between two worlds, between enclosed
and open , interiority and exteriority, private and
public , shadow and light
LIGHT
 BETWEEN
THE
LINES

THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN BERLIN BY DANIEL LIBESKIND

 • No music is beyond the second
act
• Prolonged unfinished musical
work
• He wrote the proposal of a
project in the musical score and
named it as “BETWEEN THE LINE”

• Walter Benjamin ands Moses began Aron is the only

guided him while designing the museum

• In this project ,there is a strong

play in emotion through varies
concerns and stimuli which
explain this as a emotionally
inducing structure
• No music is beyond the second act
• Prolonged unfinished musical work • Where the author narrate the
• He wrote the proposal of a project in the musical space to induce the sense of
score and named it as “BETWEEN THE LINE” sadness into the space
Light : the darkness in the space create the
sense of refugee and the revival space is bright
and act as prospect .

Material :non-oxidized zinc coating, rather than

titanium, allows the facade to age, change
color, and eventually accent the sliced
windows that are cut through the building's
surface
The smooth plain façade make sense that the
building doesn’t even exist in the context
( the history is existing yet the sadness gets
camouflaged with runs of life )

Form : a rigid box in the front and a thunder

shaped in the plan , it explain the harsh turn of
the people , and lead the space in different
direction
Exploration:

A long stairway where the beams pass

through and the passage and bind the old
museum and the modern one

Here the long stairway , create the interest of

Moving upward and explore and increase
the curiosity of “want come next “

Symbols

• The emotion ( tragedy of the jews) were

represented in elements like punctured
wall void , darkness , colour, steel cnc
cutted faces , lights , trees and through
the axis

• every space carries a unrevealing

darkness throughout he traveling of the
space

Movement :
There Are Three Major Axes In The Design
Which Take The People In Three Different
Direction Yet With Expression Of Grief All The
Direction