28 Architectural foundations of phenomenology On the other hand, clearing-away occurs through making-room (Ein. rumen), Making-room denotes both granting and arranging. Making-room admits something. It prepares an openness in which things belong together and make dwelling possible. Making-room, as granting and arranging, isthe yielding of places. And a place gathers the things in their belonging together through opening a region. What is region? Heidegger seeks the meaning of region in its older form, that is ‘that-which-regions’ (die Gegnet), which names the free expanse. A region lets things rest in their resting in themselves This implies preservation. When things are left in their belonging together, they are preserved. Thus, Heidegger opposes current visions of art and space, because they seem to be thought out of the experience of place and region. In fact, things are themselves places and do not merely belong to a place. Sculpture embodies a place. Volume, as a demarcation of an inner as opposed to an outer, must be lost. Sculpture is not an occupying of space. It is the embodi- ment of space. Furthermore, Heidegger sees emptiness not as a failure, but rather as a bringing-forth. The verb ‘to empty’ (leeren) implies the word ‘collecting’ (Lesen). Thus, to empty a glass means to gather it such that it can contain something into its having been freed. Therefore, emptiness is not nothing. It invites something into its emptiness and is capable of gathering. At the end, Heidegger gives his unique opinion on sculpture: Sculpture: an embodying bringing-into-the-work of places, and with them a disclosing of regions of possible dwellings for man, possible tarrying of things surrounding and concerning man. Sculpture: the embodiment of the truth of Being in its work of instituting places. (Ibi 123) Now, if we substitute sculpture with architectural work in the last lines of the text, we may catch the essence of Heidegger’s thought: Architectural work: an embod: with them a disclosing of regi tarrying of things surroundin lying bringing-into-the-work of places, and ions of possible dwellings for man, possible ig and concerning man. Architectural work: the embodiment o} Arehibes f the truth of Being in its work of instituting places. Architectural foundations in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908~ nology with a particular focus on existence. He opposed the intelle 61) developed post-Husserlian phenome the primary experience of embodied human ‘ctualism of rationalism and idealism, on theArchitectural foundations of, phenomenology 29 one hand, and empitichin, behaviourian and experimental science, on the oul, through the phenomenology of our ‘heingsin-the-world?. In his view, the main advanee of phenomenology tis to have united extreme subjectivism and oxtveme objectivivny in itv notion of the world or of rationality’ (Merleau- Vonty 1620 xix) As an example, he docs not accept the behaviourist understanding of the body ax the mere sum of its parts, and instead presents av halistie approach based on Gestalt paychology, MerleauPonty begins hiv magnum opus Pbenomenology of Perception (162) with this simple questions ‘What is phenomenology?". He remarks that this question has remained unanswered. He regards phenomenology as the stucly’ of essences; the essence of perception, the essience of consciousness Phenomenology intends to put essences back into existence and tries to understand man and world in their facticity, For phenomenology ‘The world is always “already there” before reflection begins ~ as an inalienable pre- sences and all its efforts are concentrated upon re-achieving a direct and primitive contact with the world? (ibid.: vii). Thus, phenomenology tries to capture the essences in a pre-reflective condition, and prepares a direct contact with the world, Moreover, it offers us the means to perceive space, time, and the world ay we ‘live’ them, ‘It tries to give a direct description of our existence as it is, without taking account of its psychological origin and the causal exphination which the scientist, the historian or the sociologist may be able to provide! (ibid.). In this sense, as Langer states, ‘Instead of focusing on the conditions for the possibility of experience as various transcendental philosophies have done, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology aims to draw our attention to the always presupposed and actually present background of our actual experience! (Langer 1989: xvi). In Merleau-Ponty’s own words, ‘We shall find in ourselves, and nowhere else, the unity and true incaning of phenomenology’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: viii). This explicit statement shows that Merleau-Ponty intends to understand phenomenology ina way that is more compatible with his own needs and insight. In Merleau-Ponty’s opinion true philosophy is identical with phenome- nology, and phenomenology is ‘a disclosure of the world’ (ibid.: xx) that intends to reveal the mystery of the world, According to him, phenomenology is a return to the things themselves; that is, 10 that world which precedes knowledge and our reflective experience, and relies on our pre-reflexive experience, the world of perception, Consequently, Merleau-Ponty distances himself from the early Husserl, as Herbert Spiegelberg points out, For Merleau-Ponty phenomenological description is an attempt 10 go t the ‘things’ themselves, as a protest against science, but ‘in the sense of an objective study of the things and of their external causal relations, in favor of a return to the Lebenswelt, the world as met in lived experience in the sense of the later Huser!’ (Spiegelberg, 1982: $51). In this regard Merlea Ponty writes that ‘[rhe return to the things themselv differs absolutely {rom the idealistic return to consciousness... The world is here before any analysis Lean make of it, The real must be described, not constructed or30 Architectural foundations of phenomenology constituted’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: iv). He believes that we are world, and the subject is vowed to the world. Thus, Merleau-P phenomenology down from the level of pure consciousness into concrete life, to incarnate it in individual and social human existence, Besides, Merleau-Ponty shifts the centre of phenomenology from pure subjectivity to the world, the combination of extreme subjectivism and extreme objectivism, He ‘attempted to combine the subjectivity with the objective approach through something which might be called “bipolar phenomenology” (Spiegelberg 1982: 552). Merleau-Ponty gives an existential sense to the phenomenology of Husserl, and pays attention to our corporeal and histor. ical situatedness. The remainder of this chay of Merleau-Ponty, within the onty brings the world of pter lays out the central phenomenological ideas which convey an implication for architecture. Against science and for art Merleau-Ponty believes that science redu general’ and gives u be called back to ex: at the site or soil of ces everything to an ‘object in p living in things. To avoid this problem, ‘science must amine its relation with the world and look more closely f the opened world we experience’ (Moran 2000: 401). Merleau-Ponty understands phenomenology as a rejection of science, Science explains, while phenomenology intends to describe: ‘It is a matter of describing, not of explaining or analysing’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: viii). In his 1960 essay ‘Eye and Mind’ Merleau-Ponty elaborates his opinions on scientific thinking and the necessity of returning to concreteness as follows: Thinking ‘operationally’ has become a sort of absolute artificialism, such as we see in the ideology of cybernetics... If this kind of thinking were to extend its reign to man and history; if, pretending to ignore what we know of them through our own situations, it were to set out to construct man and history on the basis of a few abstract indices... then... we enter into...a sleep, or a nightmare, from which there is no awakening. Scientific thinking, a thinking which looks on from above, and thinks Of the object-in-general, must return to the ‘there is’ which underlies it; to the site, the soil of the sensible and opened world such as it is in out life and for our body....that actual body I call mine... Further, associated bodies must be brought forward along with my body... (Merleau-Ponty 1964, quoted in Langer 1989: xi) Merleau-Ponty believes that in art, there is an original and true attitude towards the world, and painters are able to capture things through a? innocent looking without representing them based on a presupposition. If fact, Merleau-Ponty was very interested in art, particularly painting:Architectural foundations of phenomenology 31 [Merleau-Ponty] saw painting as providing evidence of the primordial connection between body and world which could not be expressed in philosophical terms. A painting explores the manner our vision seizes on objects in the world in a more subtle way than any philosophy or psychology. (Moran 2000: 405) He considers Paul Cezanne a genuine phenomenologist of the primordial, visible world who ‘discovered lived perspective ~ not geometrical perspective — by remaining faithful to the phenomena’ (ibid.: 406). The lived perspective goes into the things themselves, reveals the voluminosity of the world, and captures phenomena as they appear to us. World and body image Merleau-Ponty opposes the Cartesian dualism of body and soul, which defines ‘the body as the sum of its parts with no interior, and the soul as a being wholly present to itself without distance... There are two senses, and two only, of the “exist”: one exists as a thing or else one exists as a conscious ness’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 198). According to him, the acceptance of dualism culminates in a position such that, the subject, the soul, con- sciousness, and culture are considered as primary aspects of existence, but the human body, the world, nature and other manifestations of the object are considered marginal, and in the service of the subject (Gordon and Tamari 2004). Merleau-Ponty considers this conclusion of dualism as basically irrelevant, since the experience of our own body shows that there is ‘an ambiguous mode of existing’: The body is not an object. For the same reason, my awareness of itis not a thought, that is to say, I cannot take it to pieces and reform it to make a clear idea. Its unity is always implicit and vague. " : (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 198) the world and the self are essentially inseparable, and the world and the body are deeply inter-woven. ‘Our insertion into the world is through the body with its motor and perceptual acts. The incarnate domain of relations between body and world is an “interworld”. The world confronts our bodies as flesh meeting with flesh’ (Moran 2000: 403). In this sense, it can be said that the body is immediately present to uss indeed, we ‘are’ our body, because we possess a ‘body image’ which includes our limbs as organs The body image provides me with a prevreflective knowledge of the location of my limbs, but this location is not a position i") o jective space, Rather, it is 2 location with reference to the way in which my lim ter into my projects; thus it is not ‘a spatiality of position but a spatiality o! Situation’ (Langer 1989: 40). Consequently,32. Architectural foundations of phenomenology dy is understood as the centre of one’s world; as the heart _ halon noe won wm vn the world as the heart is in the organisms it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a system’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 203). As. Moran states, Merleau- Ponty, like Husserl, distinguishes between the inanimate physical body (Kérper) and the living animate body (Leib), and thus indicates that ‘humans are indeed inserted into the world in a very specific, organic way, determined by the nature of our sensory and motor capacities to perceive the world in a specific way’ (Moran 2000: 423). Lived body and perspectival perception The aim of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception can be understood as bringing human perception as the manifestation of consciousness into one’s daily bodily engagement with the world. The world is not separable from our experience of the world; it is our experienced world. ‘We are caught up in the world and we do not succeed in extricating ourselves from it in order to achieve consciousness of the world’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 5). However, the experienced world is fundamentally related to our body; the body as an incarnate ‘lived body’, not as an object. Thus, when I walk around an object and see its various aspects in various views, ‘I could not grasp the unity of the object without the mediation of bodily experience’ (ibid.: 203). In other words, it is my body and its movement that provides the perception of the world, and unites the world to my bodily experience of it. Merleau-Ponty argues that when man moves around a cube, it is because of the successive stages of that experience that man conceives the cube with its six equal faces. Itis ‘by conceiving my body itself as a mobile object that | am able to interpret perceptual appearance and construct the cube as it truly is’ (ibid.). | Another outcome of Merleau-Ponty’s attention to concrete lived exper ience and embodiment is this point that our being-in-the-world is historical and temporal. We cannot stand apart from history and look at the things. In fact, there is not a ‘perspectiveless position’, seeing ‘from nowhere’, but perception is originally perspectival (ibid.: 67). In this guise, to see is alwayS seeing from somewhere, from a position. Body and space According to Me lerleau-Ponty, we do not tak we ‘inhabit’ it, we +. tr 's € Up space; it? it, M relate to it like a hand to an P space; we “inhabi ea ha instrument. ‘We must therefore avoid sayin& rote 33), Back: OF in time. Ie inhabits space and rime" (Merle in facta tbo In this sense space is nota container in which I am located: insohaecania eae live the space, and my body inhabits it. ate non fy Lheve a body through which I act in the world, space and ti® >for me,a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless numbe32. Architectural foundations of phenomenology ‘Therefore, the body is understood as the centre of one’s world; as the heart gives life to the organism, the body gives life to one’s world: ‘Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism; it keeps the visible spectacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a system’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 203). As Moran states, Merleau- Ponty, like Husserl, distinguishes between the inanimate physical body (Kérper) and the living animate body (Leib), and thus indicates that ‘humans are indeed inserted into the world in a very specific, organic way, determined by the nature of our sensory and motor capacities to perceive the world in a specific way’ (Moran 2000: 423). Lived body and perspectival perception The aim of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception can be understood as bringing human perception as the manifestation of consciousness into one’s daily bodily engagement with the world. The world is not separable from our experience of the world; it is our experienced world. ‘We are caught up in the world and we do not succeed in extricating ourselves from it in order to achieve consciousness of the world’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 5). However, the experienced world is fundamentally related to our body; the body as an incarnate ‘lived body’, not as an object. Thus, when I walk around an object, and see its various aspects in various views, ‘I could not grasp the unity of the object without the mediation of bodily experience’ (ibid.: 203). In other words, it is my body and its movement that provides the perception of the world, and unites the world to my bodily experience of it. Merleau-Ponty argues that when man moves around a cube, it is because of the successive stages of that experience that man conceives the cube with its six equal faces. Itis ‘by conceiving my body itself as a mobile object that I am able to interpret perceptual appearance and construct the cube as it truly is’ (ibid.). Another outcome of Merleau-Ponty’s attention to concrete lived exper ience and embodiment is this point that our being-in-the-world is historical and temporal. We cannot stand apart from history and look at the things. In fact, there is not a ‘perspectiveless position’, seeing ‘from nowhere’, but perception is originally perspectival (ibid.: 67). In this guise, to see is always seeing from somewhere, from a position. Body and space According to Merleau-Ponty, g to we do not take up space; we ‘inhabit’ it, we relate to it like a hand to an instrument. ‘We must therefore avoid sayin6 that our body is ‘in’ space, or in time. It inhabits space and time’ (Merleat” Ponty 1962: 139). In this sense space is not a container in which | am locat in fact, 1 am the space. I live the space, and my body inhabits it. Insofar as I have a body through which I act in the world, space and tim arenot, for me, a collection of adjacent points nor are they a limitless numbe"Architectural foundations of phenomenology 33 of relations synthesized by my consciousness, and into which i body; I belong to them, my body combines with them ey thers (ibid.: 140). It can be said that 1 am so combined with the world that am my world. For Merleau-Ponty, the body brings me into a spatial world in a special way. I discover things as left and right, tall and small, all on the basis of my orientation wherein my body occupies the ‘zero point’ (Moran 2000: 424). Therefore, our perception is essentially based on existential directions, ‘There is a determining of up and down, and in general of place, which precedes “perception” (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 285). This denotes, in fact, an exist- ential space: “We have said that space is existential; we might just as well have said that existence is spatial’ (ibid.: 293). Because of the existentiality of space, our body is the departing point for our encountering the world. arrive in a village for my holidays, happy to leave my work and my everyday surroundings. I settle in the village, and it becomes the centre of my life... Our body and our perception always summon us to take as, the centre of the world that environment with which they present us. But this environment is not necessarily that of our own life. I can ‘be some- where else’ while staying here. (Ibid.; 285-6) Perception and background According to Merleau-Ponty, perception is fundamentally related to texture and background. ‘The perceptual “something” is always in the middle of something else, it always forms part of a “field”. A really homogeneous area offering “nothing to be” cannot be given to “any perception” (Merleau- Ponty 1962: 4). Thus, the world consists in a field of correlated materials, not isolated objects. This red patch which I see on the carpet is red only in vetue ofa shadow which lies across it, its quality is apparent only in relation to the play o} light upon it, and hence as an element in a spatial configuration. Moreover the colour can be said to be there only if it occupies an area of a certain size, t00 small an area not being describable in these cerms, Finally this red would literally not be the same if it were nor the ‘woolly red’ of a carpet. (Ibid.: 4-5) rceiving something in its context, in its ‘din the way it exists in the world. In this perception occurs in a social and feelings, emotions, and thoughts In this sense, perception means pe! relationship to the surroundings, an‘ regard Eduard Fiihr explains that every spatial situation in which various meanings,| 34° Architectural foundations of phenomenology Participate. Therefore, a work of art, and also a work of architecture tis not a single thing, but fluidity (contrary to object) of a work process fulfilled cognitively, corporeally and socially, and is defined spatially and temporally (Fuhr 1998a: 67), We cannot imagine a pure, objective architecture, ind. pendent of a life-world and devoid of practical and cognitive appropriation, On the other hand, seeing something is essentially entering into the world of beings which display themselves to me, in a field or horizon. “To see is tg enter a universe of beings which “display themselves”. ..1In other words, to look at an object is to inhabit it, and from this habitation to grasp all things in terms of the aspect which they present to it” (Merleau-Ponty 1962; 68), The field of vision consists of all the things present in that field. Looking at a thing means perceiving it within a field of interrelated things, Every object is the mirror of all others. When I look at the lamp on my table, I attribute to it not only the qualities visible from where I am, but also those which the chimney, the walls, the table can ‘see’; but the back of my lamp is nothing but the face which it ‘shows’ to the chimney, Ican therefore see an object in so far as objects form a system or a world, and in so far as each one treats the others round it as spectators of its hidden aspects and as guarantee of the permanence of those aspects. (Ibid.) In brief, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception, as Langer puts ity intends to show that ‘perception is not imposition - whether of an objective datum on a passive subject or a subjective structure on an external object - but rather, pre-reflective communication (“dialogue”) between the perceived world and the perceiving body-subject’ (Langer 1989: 158).