The extended domicile—culture, embodied existence and the senses

Abstract

We extend our physical selfs, perceptual and cognitive realities as well as memories and imagination through countless technical inventions and conceptual systems. In his book The Extended Phenotype, the biologist Richard Dawkins, suggests that in the biological world such extensions are so important that, for instance, the dams and water regulation systems of the beaver should be included in the biological definition of the species of the beaver. Similarly, our countless constructions, structures, technical systems as well as intellectual discoveries, ought to be included in the definition of Homo Sapiens, but we still continue to see ourselves limited by our skin. Altogether, we tend to think of our environments in terms of isolated, definable objects and entities, rather than dynamic and constantly interactive and expanding systems. Architecture is likewise seen as material aestheticized structures that are external to us, rather than as part of our biological and mental constitution. However, our environments from intimate objects to rooms, buildings, cities, regions and all the way to the entire world and the universe, can also be regarded as part of our material, perceptual, and conceptual reality. Instead of being seen as material objects and buildings, architecture should be regarded as an active entity which very concretely mediates our relationships with the world through space and time. Human history, culture, and collective consciousness widen our world of thought and action beyond material boundaries. Through our structures, we, humans, turn limitless, shapeless and meaningless space into lived space with human meanings. We also regard architecture as an aesthetic expression of its architect, but Maurice Merleau-Ponty argues thought provokingly: “We come to see not the work of art, but the world according to the work”. Architecture has a crucial role in the constitution of the human world, both material and mental.