Gesture: A transsubjective tool to understand a work of architecture

Abstract

Interpreting pre-existing pieces of architecture is not only a poetical matter that concerns theorists and historians. It is an important hermeneutical issue with many practical repercussions, especially when there is a need to intervene in valuable or historical buildings; it is also pertinent in what regards the didactics of architecture.We propose that the interpretation of architecture in a transsubjective way derives from the analysis of the mechanisms of human perception. When looking at a painting, for instance, cyclic scanning patterns are spontaneously performed by people's eyes. These patterns are primarily dependent on the picture and are, therefore, repeated by different people. Architectural stimuli should induce a comparable response through the engagement of the whole body. The result should be a pattern of movements- particularly of eye gaze and walking trajectory-resembling a slow dance. We name this gesture. Our preliminary empirical results substantiate our hypothesis: there seems to be a typical, shared response to the architectural form, expressed in visual exploration, trajectory and cognitive appraisal.