The Eyes of the Skin by Juhani Pallasmaa

Author:Juhani Pallasmaa [Pallasmaa, Juhani]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119941286
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2012-03-28T04:00:00+00:00

The Taste of Stone

In his writings, Adrian Stokes was particularly sensitive to the realms of tactile and oral sensations: ‘In employing smooth and rough as generic terms of architectural dichotomy I am better able to preserve both the oral and the tactile notions that underlie the visual. There is a hunger of the eyes, and doubtless there has been some permeation of the visual sense, as of touch, by the once all-embracing oral impulse.’117 Stokes writes also about the ‘oral invitation of Veronese marble’,118 and he quotes a letter of John Ruskin: ‘I should like to eat up this Verona touch by touch.’119

There is a subtle transference between tactile and taste experiences. Vision becomes transferred to taste as well; certain colours and delicate details evoke oral sensations. A delicately coloured polished stone surface is subliminally sensed by the tongue. Our sensory experience of the world originates in the interior sensation of the mouth, and the world tends to return to its oral origins. The most archaic origin of architectural space is in the cavity of the mouth.

Many years ago when visiting the DL James House in Carmel, California, designed by Charles and Henry Greene, I felt compelled to kneel and touch the delicately shining white marble threshold of the front door with my tongue. The sensuous materials and skilfully crafted details of Carlo Scarpa’s architecture as well as the sensuous colours of Luis Barragán’s houses frequently evoke oral experiences. Deliciously coloured surfaces of stucco lustro, a highly polished colour or wood surfaces also present themselves to the appreciation of the tongue.

Jun’ichir Tanizaki describes impressively the spatial qualities of the sense of taste, and the subtle interaction of the senses in the simple act of uncovering a bowl of soup:

With lacquerware there is a beauty in that moment between removing the lid and lifting the bowl to the mouth when one gazes at the still, silent liquid in the dark depths of the bowl, its colour hardly differing from the bowl itself. What lies within the darkness one cannot distinguish, but the palm senses the gentle movements of the liquid, vapor rises from within forming droplets on the rim, and a fragrance carried upon the vapour brings a delicate anticipation. […] A moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance.120

A fine architectural space opens up and presents itself with the same fullness of experience as Tanizaki’s bowl of soup. Architectural experience brings the world into a most intimate contact with the body.

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