Metaphors In My Experience: Metaphor And Multi-Sensory Experiences

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INTERACTIVE ATMOSPHERE:
METAPHOR AND MULTI-SENSORY EXPERIENCES

Every experience of architecture is rooted in multi-sensory and embodied interaction with surroundings. Neuroscience studies show that all sensory modalities as well as linguistic paradigms are integrated in the sensory motor cortex of brain where mirror neurons are originated therein. Architectural metaphors, moreover, are contextually grounded and deeply rooted in existential experiences and embodied interactions with the built environment. Metaphors contribute in creating a subjective atmosphere in which strong meanings convey to beholders through the integration of multi-sensory experiences. Far from reductive abstraction that suppress human senses an atmosphere conveys meaning …show more content…

Metaphors were previously seen as rhetoric tools but today they have been proven to be firmly linked to our existential experiences. Based on George Lakoff and Mark Johnson studies linguistic metaphors are rooted in bodily engagement, primordial images and basic human experiences. What this means in that as we experience a new phenomenon we try to understand it in relation to our previous experiences.
Rudolf Arnheim has already provided us with an important clue in this regard by suggesting that the most effective architectural metaphors were in fact "Sensory Symbols," and that the most powerful ones were those embodied or grounded in the most elementary perceptual sensations, such as morning light streaming through a window. The reason for this, being that they refer to the basic human experiences on which all others depend. (As cited in Mallgrave, 2011, p. 175) …show more content…

Experiencing a space in its complete entirely could be taken through emissions of atmosphere, which is an immediate form of perception of environment and is recognized through perceptual sensibility. In fact understanding atmosphere is the most crucial for understanding architecture.
Yuhani Pallasmaa indicates ”The experience is multi-sensory in its very essence, but it also involves judgments beyond the five Aristotelian senses, such as the senses of orientation, gravity, balance, stability, motion, duration, continuity, scale and illumination. Indeed, the immediate judgment of the character of space calls for our entire embodied and existential sense, and it is perceived in a diffuse and peripheral manner rather than through precise and conscious observation. Moreover, this complex assessment projects a temporal process as it fuses perception, memory and imagination.” (Pallasmaa,

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