The Ethical Imperative 323

The Body of Architecture and its Images

EVA PEREZ DE VEGA

The New School & Pratt Institute

Figure 1:
The technical reproduction of images has eviscerated
Vitruvian Man
something fundamentally corporeal to the appreciation of by Leonardo da
artwork and of the architecture that contains it. Prior to its Vinci
reproducibility, the experiencing of artwork required a full
body commitment, even when the artwork itself was two-
dimensional, it was experienced as three dimensional. One
would have to engage with the kinesthetic capacity of our
body to appreciate the work. By its very irreproducibility
artwork demanded of the viewer a commitment to engage
with it using all our senses and with motion.

This paper aims to be a philosophical inquiry into the char-

acter of the architectural space that makes viewing artwork
images possible. The shift in viewing modes, in the specta-
tor, and in the space, will be explored by zooming into three
moments in history with a punctual glance into the changing the breath will be found to be the same as the height, as in
conception of images, our bodily relationship to them, and the case of playing services which are perfectly square.”2
the space that contains them.
While the Vitruvian Man of the Renaissance is invariably
I. UNIFIED BODY illustrated as a standing figure, Vitruvius’ description clearly
In his treatise on Architecture, Vitruvius puts forth a vision of has the man lying down, “placed flat on his back”, in a more
architecture understood as a unified body ordered through abstract disposition. He is a man with no thickness, a two-
an appreciation of the human body as its regulating system, dimensional geometric figure used to illustrate proportion
based on the “optimal proportions” of the human body. His and symmetry. The fact that Vitruvius’ description had the
discussions on proportions for architecture in Book Three are man lying down indicates a direct correlation between the
dominated by the analogy with the perfectly proportioned idealized proportions of the human body and the regulating
male body, known mostly through the translation into an geometries of the floorplan. His purpose seems to be that of
image drawn by Leonardo da Vinci almost a millennium later, providing a planimetric organizing tool -a diagram- something
the Vitruvian Man.1 Interestingly, the new life that was given to be mapped on a floor plan for the correct layout of its pro-
to his text in the renaissance via illustrations often embodied portions. In a sense, the textual man described by Vitruvius
an agenda quite distinct from that of the roman architect. is more abstract and two-dimensional than the three-dimen-
sional standing image produced in the Renaissance. We don’t
Da Vinci’s drawing, and the subsequent versions which have know what the drawing would have been like had it been
been reproduced so exhaustingly, invariably show a standing drawn by Vitruvius himself, but we do know it would have
naked man actively illustrating the proportional relationship had a more direct relationship with a floor plan than with an
between the body and geometrical figures of a circle and a elevation.
square. It is an undeniably three-dimensional body. But it is
worth paying closer attention to Vitruvius’ original words: Curiously, what may be obscuring Vitruvius’s words is in
fact illuminating the humanistic concepts of images during
“For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and the Renaissance. Illustrating the Vitruvian man as standing
feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his instead of lying down is also a consequence of the invention
navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will of perspective, a technique of drawing that mimics human
touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. cone of vision elevating the human point of view to a privi-
And just as the human body use a circular outline, so to a leged position in artwork. With perspective, the subject’s
square figure maybe found from it. For if we measure the particular point of view becomes a central and dominant
distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, organizational of space, and thus the change of emphasis from
and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, floor plan to perspective seems a natural one, as does a tight
324 Neither Form nor Place: The Case for Space

Figure 2: Spaces for art in 4 stages: Full integration [19 Cent.]; Picture
Gallery [early 20th Cent.]; white box [20th Cent.]; Individual viewing With this separation between image and space, there is a dis-
tancing between the spectator and the image, giving way to
correspondence between the human body and architecture. the typology that is most taken for granted, the white cube.
For the Renaissance masters inspired by Vitruvius’ writings, Here the walls, ceilings, and floors are deprived of any color
the body was the unifying element between abstraction and beyond a neutral white or grey, resulting in complete dissocia-
built space. tion between the artwork and the space. As we arrive to the
white cube as an aesthetic device of modernity, it becomes
II. DISEMBODIED BODY more specifically about vision, and not the complete sensorial
experiencing which the architecturally integrated artwork of
THE EMERGENCE OF THE WHITE BOX SPACE FOR the sixteenth century demanded. This typology seems to be
IMAGES designed to have a specific ritualistic effect on the viewer; a
The architecturally integrated artwork of the sixteenth cen- sense of reverence towards the images on the wall and com-
tury, gave way to the “picture gallery” of the eighteenth plete negation of senses other than sight. There is something
century where artwork was used to adorn and enhance about its whiteness and “purity” that makes the spectator
interior spaces. Thus, while full integration was no longer behave in a particular way; there is a tendency to leave more
dominant, there was a reciprocal relationship between the distance between the viewer and the artwork, and very often
space and the image contained in it insofar as one is used to talking in a whisper as if it were a place of worship.
enhance the other: the picture adorned the spaces, the space
enabled the picture to be contemplated with a particular envi- THE EMERGENCE OF THE BLACK BOX FOR MOVING
ronment, or aura3 , around it. However, the relationship is no IMAGE
longer held by a tight fit as the two are no longer codepen- In a parallel with the “white box” for viewing artwork images,
dent on one another. There is a slight dissociation between the “black box” is still held as the paradigm for optimal view-
the space and the artwork: the artwork gets framed allowing ing of moving images. However, a brief look at the history of
for its easy transportation and relocation making the space this artform will show us that it took between twenty to thirty
that houses it become associated with temporality rather than years of evolution for this particular viewing style, to establish
permanence. Images and space for contemplation of images itself as the singular way of consuming moving images. In the
are no longer coupled together as in the case of the frescoes of 1920s there still was no single viewing style for film. The “cin-
the Renaissance or the mosaics of the middle ages in religious ema” was where the projector was: in a cafe’ or a temporary
and public places. And as a consequence, the space becomes empty garage, under a circus tent, at a fair, on an improvised
more two-dimensional. vaudeville stage. The picture house emerged as a paradoxical
space, in which very different and often opposing functions
The loss of dimensionality in the image and in the experience were brought together in a single space, causing the viewer to
of the image or artwork, that went hand in hand with a flat- be in a state of distraction while viewing the movie.
tening of the space that housed them. The rapid reproduction
of images at the beginning of the 20th century with photogra- Arriving at the dark identity-less black box space of most
phy, allowed for almost complete disassociation between the contemporary movie-houses took some time, and yet it has
artwork and the space where it is being shown. In losing the persisted. Still today we associate to the movie-going experi-
authenticity there is also a loss of what Walter Benjamin calls ence with: total darkness, separation from the outside world,
the “aura”; the connection that all images have when coupled immobility and silence, and being in a large communal space
to the space that houses them: with other strangers. There is an implicit and socially-agreed
upon understanding that as soon as images are projected on
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is the screen, there are certain behavioral norms to follow and
lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its a “right way” to experience a movie and behave during the
unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”4
The Ethical Imperative 325

Figure 3: Spaces for movies in 4 stages: Full integration [19 Cent.]; Picture III. FRAGMENTED BODY
house [early 20th Cent.]; black box [20th Cent.]; Individual viewing
ARCHITECTURAL SPACE AND CONTROL: KIESLER AND
projection of it, which includes cutting off our senses that are FREUD
not sight or hearing. How did this ritualistic behavior emerge? The assimilation of the Vitruvian theater was fervently ques-
tioned by architects, critics, and filmmakers of mid twentieth
Initially, in trying to find the optimal architectural typology for century who did not agree with using the theater as inspira-
projecting movies there was a push to assimilate the design of tion for the cinema. Frederick Kiesler pointed to some initial
the first movie houses in the nineteen twenties, to known the- practical reasons for this but emphasized the uniqueness of
ater typologies which derived from Renaissance conceptions the “place” for movies:
of the theater. These conceptions in turn were deeply influ-
enced by the writings of Vitruvius, again based on the optimal “the cinema is a play of surfaces, the theatre is a per-
proportions of the human body- the unified body conceived formance in space, and this difference has not yet been
through the universal Vitruvian man. The same geometries of translated concretely into any piece of architecture, nei-
a circle and a square rotating inside it around a central point, ther for the theater nor for the cinema.”10
are used in the diagram of theater design to subdivide and
organize the space.5 Renaissance conception of architectural Unnecessary theatrical elements began to drop away, and the
organization was departing from the idea of man as likened by assimilation that was taking place was not about it looking like
gods; religion was being replaced by the human body. It was a theater, but rather affording the same behaviors from the
the humanist unified body discussed earlier, that permeated spectator that the theater afforded. Kiesler felt that what was:
most aspects of life in this time period, and materialized in the “The most important quality of an auditorium for film was the
design of spaces for viewing artwork. ability to suggest concentrated attention” and, importantly,
allow the spectator to “lose himself in an infinite imaginary
In an attempt to bring the viewing styles of cinema and the- space.” This is an important point worth remarking on briefly,
ater closer together and to elicit equal attention, the first and placing into the context of the time which will require a
designs of the space for cinema in the early twentieth century short detour into Freudian thought.11
were inspired by Vitruvian notions that permeated the Italian
playhouses, which gave rise to the “vitruvian spectator”6 : There is a parallel between the movie house and Freudian
someone immersed in the experience of that which is unfold- psychoanalytic techniques: the consulting room of a psycho-
ing on the screen, respectful of the physical and communal analysts is a very tightly controlled space, set up to illicit a
environment that holds the event, without succumbing to certain kind of behavior and response in the patient. The abil-
unnecessary distractions. Thus, the physical environment ity to lose oneself into an infinite imaginary space, implies that
was designed to seem familiar, recall behavioral associations, the feeling of containment that a movie house might initially
and instill tight control over the behavior of the spectator. As engender, is replaced by a feeling of oneness when the spec-
Pedulla reminds us, there is an awareness of the psychological tator rests his eyes on the screen, putting him in a condition
effects that particular spatial designs can have over the user, to “lose himself”. This feeling of oneness is similar to Freud’s
and a: “general acknowledgement of the psychological ends of notion of oceanic feeling12 which refers to a state of oneness
architecture and its ability to control perception.” with the universe; one of the aims of psychoanalytic sessions.

A successful analytic session embarks in free association and

analytic interpretation in order to instigate transference and
regression. While all that visibly takes place in a session is the
verbal exchange of words13 environmental factors also play a
key role in triggering the regressive state. The space of analysis
326 Neither Form nor Place: The Case for Space

is no longer enough to just project a movie to entice people

to go to the movies. Cinema is poised to find itself a new kind
of space.

The appreciation of artwork today is multifaceted and frag-

mented. Our screens and access to information allow us to
have multiple scales of appreciation: we can look at the image
of an art piece by zooming into its pixels on a computer or
tablet, and also remotely experience the way in which the
piece is being displayed by literally panning the globe on our
screens to understand its context and physical location in the
world. This is a fragmentation emerges, not as an opposition
to unity, but as repetition of different scales of appreciation,
which overlap and juxtapose different information to create
a unity of the fragmented. Our appreciation of images is frag-
mented through repetition and difference yet we can achieve
Figure 4: Frederick Kiesler, Film Guild Cinema in New York City
a full understanding of the work of art through these multiple
is not just a passive context for treatment; it is an active par- scales available to us.
ticipant in the analysis. The room activates daydreaming while
protecting and sheltering the daydreamer, functioning as a However, there is still a persistent sensorial distance that
safe haven and shelter for the patient but also as a stimulant these remote modes of appreciation instill. No matter how
of regression. The aim of the spatial setup of the consultation close we can zoom into an image on our screens, we will not
room is to imbue the patient with a feeling of ‘the uncanny’, be able to feel the texture of the space where it is hanging,
a concept developed by Freud in his 1919 paper of the same or hear the quiet whispers of fellow visitors to the gallery, or
name. The use of the couch, the controlled visual, auditory be affected by the myriad environmental and physical factors
and tactile environment– is to simultaneously disorient and that distracted the spectator of a fresco, as described earlier
orient, confuse and enlighten, frighten and shelter the patient. in the cases where artwork is fully integrated with the archi-
It evokes simultaneous opposing –yet not contradictory‐ sen- tectural space that houses it. Through our devices it is possible
sations which extract the patient from his or her particular that we might gain access to aspects of the work that may
perspective of reality and re‐orients the patient into a state not be available when visiting in person, but that intangible
of fusion with the space itself. This, together with the words and yet highly present “aura” which one feels when in direct
of the analyst, is instrumental in propelling the patient to lose contact with an artwork image cannot really be substituted
himself in the space, allowing the space itself to recede and by any device.
the words to come to the fore. This oscillating movement
between opposing states causes a reorientation of the patient There have certainly been attempts to re-introduce this bodily
towards the primal oceanic feeling of oneness – towards a three-dimensional sensorial quality back into the experience
state of fusion with the space itself, inducing regression into of viewing images on screens, in order to make it “more
the unconscious. It seems that Kiesler is making reference to real”. The aim to re-introduce of the third dimension that
the ability that physical environment has to create a palpable was seemingly lost in photography and cinema, has sparked
effect and feeling of oneness on the spectator. the proliferation of 3d movies or cinema in four dimensions,
attempting to envelope the spectator in a full-body sensorial
ARCHITECTURE AS AN AESTHETIC DEVICE experience. Enabled by technology, movie houses are aiming
After decades of aiming to find its place movies seemed to to reinvent the experience with immersive cinema, to make
have an established location in the black box space. The audi- the experience more “real”, more three-dimensional.
torium’s principal objective for the vitruvian spectator was
to impose on the audience a new attitude towards movies, Paradoxically, with this attempt to provide a more realistic
by subjecting spectators to total darkness and voluntarily experience, we are constantly reminded of its artificiality. In
restricting freedom of movement. Yet, as any contemporary 3d movies we are obliged to wear awkward glasses to perceive
moviegoer knows, cinema is undergoing the same crises that the three-dimensional information. If we were to remove
artwork images did once they reached the age of massive them nothing but a blurred vision of what is being projected
reproduction. Given the prevalence of technology that allows would be perceivable. Thus, in aiming to make the experience
the streaming of movies in our own homes, film is now repro- more bodily by adding the third dimension of space, we are
ducible at the level of the individual, who is able to project a only able to perceive it through a device that is external to
film without the apparatus of the cinema. Thus, the ceremo- our body, the 3d glasses. On the other hand, when we are
nial quality of the cinema and its uniqueness is now lost.14 It provided with the added sensorial perks of a shivering seat,
The Ethical Imperative 327

or a puff of air suddenly blowing in our face, rather than being through space in order to appreciate the image. With the
immersed by the experience we are reminded of the absurdity overabundance of reproduction techniques, enabled by the
of the artifice gone into creating the still awkward effect. digital, we are paradoxically returning to the conception of
images we had before images could be reproduced with the
While this 4d technology is still very much in develop- rapidity that contemporary methods allow. As we have seen:
ment, with the advent of the digital in image making we are in virtual reality, the device is what controls our experience by
undoubtedly in a different place than when images became shutting off most of our senses and privileging the visual; while
reproducible via photography or film. It appears that the in augmented reality, we are not denying the physicality and
control is now in the hands of the spectator, able to choose the multi-sensorial quality of our world. Architectural space
between very different modes of viewership. How can we is still, curiously, the aesthetic device that it was during the
think about images in the same way now that we are in the Renaissance.
post digital-reproducibility era?
While there is no singular overarching conception of how
Virtual reality has been one of the new ways to experience images are to be experienced today, there certainly is an
images, whether of art, movies or of an entirely different attempt to regain the loss of dimension implicit in image
nature, mostly related to gaming. But virtual reality relies on reproduction, by reintroducing the experiential and sensorial
the wearing of devices, usually around the eyes, that shut the dimension back into the appreciation of art. It seems however,
physical world out in order to experience an intangible world that the cinema and the art gallery are still in search for a new
almost purely through a visual register. The privileging of the typology fit for the fragmented spectator.
visual is exacerbated to such a degree in virtual reality that it
denies the multi-sensorial body that enables us to navigate ENDNOTES
the world. Which might be why it is successful in gaming but 1 In the context of this paper, drawings and diagrams are considered images.
not so much in the experience of art. 2 Vitruvius The Ten Books of Architecture, Book 3: On symmetry, 73.
3 This is an explicit reference to the work of Walter Benjamin “The Work of Art in
the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. While Benjamin’s text is of huge value to
“Augmented reality” does something different. Rather than the development of the ideas in this text, there is also an understanding of the
making us inhabit a reality that is virtual, denying the body, work of art which this text moves away from in favor of a multifaceted under-
standing of how art can be appreciated. To quote Gabiele Pedulla: “Contrary
it brings the virtual into our physical world, supposedly aug- to what Benjamin thought, there is more than one way to appreciate the work
menting the real. In augmented reality, we are not denying of an architect, to go to the theater, or to look at a painting. If this were not the
case, there would be no need for aesthetic devices like the dark cube in the first
the physicality of our bodies. Instead of trying to mimic the place.” In Broad Daylight, 73.
physical environment virtually by shutting off the world, there 4 Walter Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”
(1936).
is a re-framing of the physical with the introduction of the
5 Theater design is covered in Book 5 of Vitruvius’ text. As Pedulla states: For
virtual: we see the physical anew. To some important degree, Renaissance humanists, educating the public in the classical theater was part
it signals a return to the appreciation of the physical environ- of a much more comprehensive project of recreating man in the likeness of the
Greek and Romans. Gabriele Pedulla, In Broad Daylight, 47.
ment in which our images found themselves prior to their
6 This is the title of a chapter in Gabriele Pedulla’s book In Broad Daylight, 37-60.
irreproducibility. The images need the physical qualities of the
7 As Leon Battista Alberti claimed: “The architects only task was to put the specta-
space in order to be understood, there is an inter-dependence tors in a condition to see and hear effortlessly what was happening on stage.”
between the space and the virtual image that inhabits that Leon Battista Alberti, The Art of Building in Ten Books. In Latin, De reAedificato-
ria c.1443.
space. 8 Certainly, the shift in the type of space was also enabled by the kinds of movies
that required more attention, and were based on narration. However, they
could not have emerged without a concerted effort to control the viewer’s per-
CONCLUDING REMARKS ception of space through the careful design and associative power that physical
By zooming into three moments in history (the Renaissance, space has on the subject, and the subject’s capacity to appreciate the object.
To quote Pedulla further: “Imitating the theater, the dark cube in fact aspired
the beginning of the 20th century and our current condition to propose itself as a place of absolute aesthetic experience that allowed only
starting at the end of the 20th century) we have traced a suc- one legitimate activity: the contemplation of a film. (...) Suddenly, going to the
movies was like going to church.” Gabriele Pedulla, In Broad Daylight, 33.
cessive distancing from the physical body: going from a united 9 For instance; in a movie house, the first rows were no longer the best ones, as in
conception of images, body and space, to a disembodied one the theater; the side seating provided by elegant boxes also become nonsensical
for the viewing of a flat screen which is best viewed frontally; and similarly, the
separating body and space, to a fragmented one enabled by typical fan-shaped seating of the theater house did not provide the best view for
the pervasiveness of the digital. We have also seen that built the flat screen.
spaces to house artwork, both still images and moving images, 10 Friederick Kiesler quoted by Gabriele Pedulla, In Broad Daylight, 51-52.
have served as aesthetic devices to either tightly, or more 11 It is interesting to note that Kiesler and Freud were both from Vienna and Kiesler
being thirty-four years younger implies that his working years were in a fully
loosely, control and affect the spectator. Freud-imbued Vienna.
12 Freud first refers to the ‘oceanic feeling’ in Civilization and its Discontents, in the
Paradoxically today, while we seem to be in a moment where context of letters exchanged with his friend, now known to be Romain Rolland:
“It is a feeling which he would like to call a sensation of ‘eternity’, a feeling as of
almost everything can be experienced virtually, the evolu- something limitless, unbounded—as it were, ‘oceanic,’” 11.
tion of digital technology is almost nostalgically pointing us 13 As Lacan put it “reducing it to its bare truth (…) it is merely a question of words
spoken”. Jacques Lacan, “The Direction of the Treatment and The Principles Of
back to the times when we depended on our bodies moving Its Power” in Ecrit: A Selection, 227.