Tag Archives: Cognitive Architecture

Plečnik capitals you can see

Jože Plečnik may perhaps be deemed the Antoni Gaudi of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. Or vice versa. Both shifted the character of their principal cities (Barcelona in Gaudi’s case) toward a more animated, innovative and yet entirely classical character. … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Perils of architecture school

Common/Edge is a website about architecture. All of the essays are written well, but many seem to try to have it both ways about the battle over style in architecture. So I’m not quite sure how Prof. Nikos Salingaros managed … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sussman on Corbu’s autism

One reason people prefer traditional to modern architecture is that their eyes literally refuse to look at blank walls. Shown a picture of a building with a blank wall, the eye of an observer will linger anywhere – on a … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

The eye, the mind, the heart

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so sayeth just about everyone, but how does the mind influence what the eye of the beholder sees? If the eye informs the brain and the brain informs the taste, then there … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Beauty and the bore

Several people have sent me “The Psychological Cost of Boring Buildings,” by Jacoba Urist in New York Magazine. The title hooked me, of course, but her essay hardly went down like an oyster. First, I am distrustful of “studies,” especially … Continue reading

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Fie on a million years!

For his latest piece in CityLab, “Making the Case for Symmetrical Cities,” peripatetic architecture critic Anthony Flint, housed at the Lincoln Institute in Cambridge, does a very nice job adding up the evidence for the superiority of classical and traditional … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Edges, shapes and patterns!

Edges, patterns and shapes affect our perception of the built environment through the millennia worth of knowledge accumulated by our brain about our world. Only 70,000 years from the savannah and, as Ann Sussman put it last night, “your subconscious … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Uncategorized, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

On “Cognitive Architecture”

Ann Sussman will be in Boston on Tuesday evening to discuss her book Cognitive Architecture. She will speak at an event sponsored by the New England chapter of the Insitute of Classical Architecture & Art beginning at 6 in the … Continue reading

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Art and design, Books and Culture, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments