Architectural Experience through Hearing

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Center for Iranian Architectural Studies Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

Background and objectives: Understanding and studying architectural experience in its entirety has attracted the attention of architects and researchers in phenomenology in recent decades. Some of the studies in this field concentrate on the embodied and multisensory nature of this experience and criticise the ‘ocular-centrism’ in architecture. A significant mode of our environmental perception, ‘auditory experience’ deserves to be recognised and scrutinised as a mode of architectural experience, against the common perception that architecture has often been understood as a thing which comes into ‘sight’. This paper intends to disclose the strong contribution of auditory experience in architectural experience, which has not so far been addressed in terms of connections between architectural and auditory phenomenology.
Materials and Methods: The paper as ‘inquiry-based’ research seeks the answer through logical reasoning. To that end, it focuses on ‘architectural experience’ and ‘auditory experience’. Firstly, the three aspects of architectural experience, namely, events, physicality, and atmosphere, are introduced. It is followed with introductions to the structural features of auditory experience: event-based-ness, temporality, spatiality, embodiment, meaningfulness, relationality, and characterfulness are described. Referring to the two aspects of architectural experience and structural features of auditory experience, and also posing two new concepts of ‘evident hearing’ and ‘latent hearing,’ the paper describes the contribution of the auditory in architectural experience.
Results and conclusion: To conclude, the paper establishes the incorporation and integrity of all aspects of architectural experience in the auditory space. This unification is made possible through the coherence, integrity, and atmosphericness of the auditory space, playing a key role in a thorough architectural experience. In this way, the auditory understanding of architecture through hearing is analogous to its understanding through vision.

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References

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History

  • Receive Date: 10 October 2021
  • Revise Date: 15 December 2021
  • Accept Date: 15 April 2023

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