Quotes from Juhani Pallasmaa

The door handle is the handshake of the building.

The elements of architecture are not visual units or gestalt; they are encounters, confrontations that interact with memory.

The gradually growing hegemony of the eye seems to be parallel with the development of Western ego-consciousness and the gradually increasing separation of the self and the world; vision separates us from the world whereas the other senses unite us with it.

Architecture domesticates limitless space and enables us to inhabit it [...]

Modernist design at large has housed the intellect and the eye, but it has left the body and the other senses, as well as our memories, imagination and dreams, homeless.

Our bodies and movements are in constant interaction with the environment; the world and the self inform and redefine each other constantly. The percept of the body and the image of the world turn into one single continuous existential experience; there is no body separate from its domicile in space, and there is no space unrelated to the unconscious image of the perceiving self.

When experiencing a work of art, a curious exchange takes place; the work projects its aura, and we project our own emotions and precepts on the work. The melancholy in Michelangelo's architecture is fundamentally the viewer's sense of his/her own melancholy enticed by the authority of the work. Enigmatically, we encounter ourselves in the work.

It is pleasurable to press a door handle shining from the thousands of hands that have entered the door before us; the clean shimmer of ageless wear has turned into an image of welcome and hospitality. The door handle is the handshake of the building. The tactile sense connects us with time and tradition: through impressions of touch we shake the hands of countless generations.

Instead of an existentially grounded plastic and spatial experience, architecture has adopted the psychological strategy of advertising and instant persuasion; buildings have turned into image products detached from existential depth and sincerity.

The impact of the sense of vision on philosophy is well summed up by Peter Sloterdijk: 'The eyes are the organic prototype of philosophy. Their enigma is that they not only can see but are also able to see themselves seeing.

Bir sanat eseri, bilinçsiz olarak söyle?ilen bir ba?ka ki?i i?levi görür.

the poet speaks not only 'on the threshold of being', as Gaston Bachelard notes,43 but also on the threshold of language. Equally, the task of art and architecture in general is to reconstruct the experience of an undifferentiated interior world, in which we are not mere spectators, but to which we inseparably belong.

The inhumanity of contemporary architecture and cities can be understood as the consequence of the neglect of the body and the senses, and an imbalance in our sensory system.

The body knows and remembers. Architectural meaning derives from archaic responses and reactions remembered by the body and the senses.

vision separates us from the world whereas the other senses unite us with it

But the world of the eye is causing us to live increasingly in a perpetual present, flattened by speed and simultaneity. Visual images have become commodities, as Harvey points out: 'a rush of images from different spaces almost simultaneously, collapsing the world's spaces into a series of images on a television screen […] the image of places and spaces becomes as open to production and ephemeral use as any other [commodity].

arhitecture domesticates limitless space and enable us to inhabit it, but it should likewise domesticate endless time and enable us to inhabit the continum of time

Mimari imgelerde eyleme yönelik, eylemsel kar??la?ma an?na yönelik bir ima ya da bir amaç ve "i?lev vaadi" vard?r.

Dokunsall?k ve odaklanmam?? çevrel görme tam da ya?anm?? deneyimin özünü biçimlendirir. Odaklanm?? görme dünyayla kar??la?mam?z? sa?lar, çevrel görme ise bizi dünyan?n teniyle sarmalar.

Zaman?m?z?n duyusal a??r? yük alt?nda ezilen savunmac? ve odaklanmam?? bak???, belki gözün kontrol ve iktidara yönelik içsel arzusundan özgürle?mi? yeni görme ve dü?ünme alanlar? açabilir. Odak kayb? gözü tarihsel ataerkil tahakkümden kurtarabilir.

Sanatsal d??avurum, dünyan?n söz-öncesi anlamlar?yla, basitçe entelektüel olarak anla??lmaktan ziyade bedenle bütünle?mi? ve ya?anm?? anlamlarla, iç içedir.

Genel olarak sanat ve mimarl???n görevi de salt birer izleyici olmakla kalmay?p, ayr?lmazcas?na ait oldu?umuz farkl?la?mam?? bir iç dünya deneyimini yeniden kurmakt?r. Sanatsal yap?tlarda varolu?sal anlama yetisi tam da dünyayla kar??la?mam?zdan ve dünyada -olmakl???m?zdan do?ar- kavramsalla?t?r?lamaz ve anl?kla?t?r?lamaz.

Sanatç?lar?n ve mimarlar?n sözel ifadeleri genel olarak itibari de?erleriyle ele al?nmamal?d?r, zira ço?u zaman yüzeydeki bilinçli birer rasyonalizasyon ya da savunmadan ibarettirler ve pekala yap?ta bizzat dirimsel gücünü veren derin bilinçd??? niyetlerle keskin bir kar??tl?k bir kar??tl?k içinde olabilmektedirler.

Beden salt bir fiziksel varl?k de?ildir; bellekle ve dü?le, geçmi?le ve gelecekle zenginle?ir.