Tag Archives: emotion

Betwixt and between

Architecture is not a polite discipline. According to architectural theorist Bernard Tschumi, “the ultimate pleasure of architecture lies in the most forbidden parts of the architectural act; where limits are perverted, and prohibitions are transgressed. The starting point of architecture is distortion” (91). Rem Koolhaas asserts something similar. Design is not “meticulous definition, the imposition…More

Frequent feelings

In my research into emotions I’ve found it useful to look at Google search counts to gauge the relative popularity of terms like happiness, melancholy, and mood. Now Google provide n-grams, which show the occurrences of words (or any string of characters) during any year in the entire corpus of books that Google have scanned…More

Absence of melancholy

The muted joy of autumn melancholy: who can resist the temptation to be lyrical in such a season? By all accounts melancholy is the feeling you get in the event of loss or absence, as in the passing of summer. Melancholy is also absent from classifications of mood and emotion as devised by experimental psychologists. For…More

Melancholy urbanism

I revisited Waverley Cemetery in Sydney a few weeks ago. It covers a valley that looks out to the Pacific Ocean. It’s a site of loss and remembering of course, but it also conforms to the architectural geometry of melancholy. The horizon is sovereign, and reminds the visitor of the reaches of time, distance and…More

Freeways in the sky

I’ve just visited the Keppel Bay residential estate by Studio Libeskind, a luxury apartment development in Singapore — through barbed wire. I’ve also been reading Peter Adey’s very helpful book, Mobilities. The Keppel Bay development puts me in mind of some of the key themes of the book, which summarises how geographers and sociologists think about…More

Digital mood modifiers

Apparently botox helps you feel better. I’m researching mood, so I’ve skimmed through a recent book called The Face of Emotion: How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships, in which the author says, “If you smile broadly, at that moment you will feel happier. You need your smile to help you ‘feel’ the emotion.” Conversely, frowning…More

Why music reaches the parts that architecture can’t

Physical spaces are charged with meaning and emotion for most of us — some spaces more than others. But it’s rare to enter a building or encounter spectacular scenery and experience the same intensity of emotion many of us feel on hearing a piece of music, particularly music that fits the mood of the moment,…More

Ambient wit

Film, music and game sales from downloads reached £1bn in 2012 according to a BBC report. Travellers waiting patiently in airport lounges and couples and groups sitting in dulled silence access online news reports. They also stream, download and play movies, tv programmes, and other information content and entertainment on their smartphones, tablets and laptops…More

Spem in Alium

Thanks to Kindles and e-readers you can read anything at home, at work, on the train, or the bus without embarrassment. No one need ever see the book’s cover. Paper books can be left lying around the house for others to pick up. Not so with electronic books. Reading really has become a private affair.…More

Mad crowds disease

Mobs, herds, battalions, minions, spectators: these are groups to whom we readily ascribe a mood – celebratory, triumphant, ugly, angry, battle-weary, hysterical, frenzied, supportive, enthusiastic, docile. I confess to being moved by the presence of crowds on George IV Bridge in Edinburgh as the Olympic torch relay passed by. I had stumbled across different segments…More