Re: [-empyre-] media architecture and cross-cultural influence

["James Way" <jarway@hotmail.com>]

Architecture is a visual art, at least in it origins - drawing, and it is 
the way most people, the blind and visually impaired being obvious 
exceptions, navigate their daily routes and actions. But really good 
architecture moves beyond only the visual to incorporate a relation to and a 
stimulation of the other senses, and this is when architecture is its most 
powerful. The orchestrating of landscape, which can cause variations in 
temperature, smell, sound: filtered light and shaded spaces, the smell of 
vegetation, the sound of leaves rustling. The use of materials to control 
temperature or impose a sense of weight and pressure on the body - the 
feeling of being in a cave, or a stone loggia, an arcade or wooden veranda. 
Materials used for their texture - smooth granite or rough concrete block, 
polished wood versus brick. Or the difference between being in a space where 
one can whisper to your partner versus where one must risk laryngitis. A 
room with a carpet versus hardwood floors versus concrete; they each have an 
acoustic property and a textural property, as well as a visual 
characteristic that greatly affects a quality of space.

One certainly must not suspend disbelief to encounter a work of art or a 
spatial experience. However, when presenting something outside the quotidian 
one would prefer viewers to approach it with a bit more consideration and 
engage it, especially in a gallery or museum. With performance, theater, 
cinema, concerts and some art works (deMaria's "Lightning Field" and some of 
Turrell's works) require a time commitment from the viewer before one can 
even see them so the author can expect a certain amount of attention and 
engagement.

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