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| Saint Basil's Cathedral Moscow, Russia famouswonders.com |
Hello Everyone:
It is a lovely Monday here in Los Angeles, California. Sorry to rub into all of you on the East Coast, buried under snow, but your truly is in a particularly sunny mood having received recent reminders from the universe that life is good.
Today we get back to one of blogger's favorite topics, architecture. Architecture is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses the humanities, fine arts, the sciences, and technical craft. Unlike the fine arts, i.e. painting and sculpture, architecture depends on human interaction with the built environment. There are buildings such as museums, places of worship, and libraries, that are intended as places of quiet contemplation. In her article for CityLab, titled "What Architecture is Doing to Your Brain," Emily Von Hoffman looks at places meant for contemplation and discusses how they may have real positive effects on mental health.
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| Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library Georgetown University repository.library.georgetown.edu |
Emily Von Hoffman writes, "At a particular moment during every tour of Georgetown University's campus, it becomes necessary for the student guide to acknowledge the singular blight in an otherwise idyllic environment." The blight Ms. Von Hoffman refers to is the Joseph Mark Lauinger Memorial Library, "...designed to be a modern abstraction of Healy Hall...." The tour guide showing Ms. Von Hoffman the Brutalist style library says this in an almost apologetic manner, allowing the group accompanying our reporter to draw their own conclusions. The majority of the student population on the Washington D.C. suburban campus agrees that library's imposition on the quad is "...nothing short of soul-crushing." However, a recent study conducted by architects and neuroscientists suggests that architecture does have affect on the human emotional state. "...though," adds Ms. Von Hoffman, "they choose to focus on the positive."
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| Salk Institute for Biological Studies Louis Kahn La Jolla, California en.wikipedia.org |
Ms. Von Hoffman interviewed Dr. Julio Bermudez, the principle researcher of the study which uses an fMRI to record the effects of architecture on the brain. The goal of Dr. Bermudez's team was the use of scientific method to transform "phenomenologies of our built environment" into neuroscientific data that architects and planners can design accordingly. The team's research focused on the question of how buildings and sites are designed to evoke contemplation. They postulated "that the presence of 'contemplative architecture' in one's environment may over time produce the same health benefits as traditional 'internally induced' medication, except with much less effort by the individual."
What makes a building or space contemplative? Contemplative architecture is composed of "...a series of design element that have been historically employed in religious settings:" Dr. Bermudez added, "it is logical to expect societies not only to notice [the link between built beauty and experience] over time, but to exploit it as much as possible in their places for holy purposes." Said design elements could have been used frequently in their intended places deep thought or discovery of the spiritual, personal, or perhaps of the scientific nature. Quoting Architectural Digest's article on The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, Ms. Von Hoffman writes,
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| 360° panorama of the Salk Institute Courtyard en.wikipedia.org |
The nonprofit research center...interweaves private and public spaces with a strikingly formal, inward-looking plan that echoes the format of a medieval cloister. Composed of strong-willed yet sensuous materials-travertine and reinforced concrete-ti possesses a hushed dignity that encourages contemplation.
Two six-story laboratory buildings from the north and south boundaries of the complex. Each shelters an inner row of angular semidetached office structures that face each other across a travertine courtyard. Bisecting it all is a channel of water that seems to pour into the Pacific below. The buildings, fashioned of concrete accented with teak, focus one's gaze on the horizon so "you are one with the ocean," observes admirer Jim Olson, a partner in the Seattle firm Olson Kundig Architects.
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| The Alhambra Granada, Spain telegraph.co.uk |
The researchers gathered a group of twelve architects and showed them photographs of contemplative and non-contemplative buildings; façade and interiors. The architects's brain activity was observed as they were asked to imagine themselves in the places they were shown. The subjects were white, male, and right-handed with no prior meditative experience. Why Ms. Von Hoffman found it necessary to mention this fact is beside the point, suffice it to say it produced rather undistinguishable effects. Blogger hazards a theory for this across-the-board uniformity as the result of the researchers wanting to filter out unrelated factors such as age, gender, or handedness. Although it would have made for a more interesting study. Additionally, the choice to use architects as test subjects was strategic-meant to increase the likelihood of achieving conclusive results. The team decided that architects would be the natural choice for test subjects because their training and experience would make them more aware of features a layperson would overlook.
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| Interior detail of The Alhambra en.wikipedia.org |
Dr. Bermudez conceded that he and his team "totally loaded the deck" by focusing on a group of architects who looked at pictures of the "most beautiful buildings mankind has ever produced." Among them were: La Alhambra, the Pantheon, Chartres Cathedral, the Salk Institute, and Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp. Responding to a critic, following his presentation at the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, Dr. Bermudez "explained that the goal of the pilot study is to reveal something interesting that warrants additional funding for an extension of the experiment using the general population." Perhaps if Dr. Bermudez and his team had a more diverse test group, the study would have produced better and more attention getting results.
Challenge laid out at the onset was measuring an experience few have considered. Using online surveys in Spanish and English, the team gathered statements on extraordinary architectural experiences with places that alter one's state of being. Importantly, the majority of the buildings or sites referred in the 2,982 testimonials were specifically designed with deep thought in mind: spiritual, aesthetic, religious, or symbolic. This lead researchers to conclude that "buildings may induce insightful, profound, and transformative contemplative states, [and] buildings designed to provoke contemplation seem to be succeeding." Further, religious buildings, some art galleries, monuments, homes, and museums such as: the Guggenheim Bilbao, the Louvre, and Fallingwater, can also serve as places of deep thought.
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| Guggenheim Bilbao Frank Gehry Bilbao, Spain en.wikipedia.org |
In advance of the skeptics proclaiming the subjectivity of these experiences, the research team expanded the question to incorporate established neuroscientific subfield of meditation, with some major differences. Germane studies have focused on innate produced states that can be easily replicated in a laboratory and on aesthetic evaluation-which takes place in the orbital frontal cortex. Emily Von Hoffman writes, "Bermudez and his team expected that architecturally induced contemplative states would be strong, non-evaluative aesthetic experiences-eliciting more activity in areas associated with emotion and pleasure, but less activity in the orbital frontal cortex."
The photographs of the buildings (external stimuli) also eliminated the self-regulation that goes on in the prefrontal cortex during traditional meditation. The test group was interviewed and their responses revealed that "peacefulness and relaxation, lessening of mind wandering, increasing of attention, and deepening of experience, were all common effects of viewing the photos-" another typical result was a minuscule element of aesthetic evaluation-a common occupational hazard.
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| The Pantheon interior monolithic.org |
The initial findings of the study demonstrated that the brain reacts differently when subjected to contemplative and non-contemplative spaces. The contemplative states are produced via "architectural aesthetics" not unlike that of traditional meditation in one respect, different in others, and "architectural design matters."
Emily Von Hoffman observes, "That las conclusion sounds anticlimactic after all this talk of lobes and cortices but it reinforces a growing trend in architecture and design as researchers are beginning to study how the built environment affects the people who live in it." The ANFA declared that "some observers have characterized what is happening in neuroscience as the most exciting frontier of human discovery since the Renaissance." Blogger supposes that Dr. Julio Bermudez's study has potentially good implications for institutional settings such as schools and hospitals. However, yours truly would have liked to have about the research team using a more diverse test group of non-architects. Perhaps if the study is expanded to the general population, yours truly might join the ANFA's excitement. For now, more study is necessary.
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