Haptic Perception

"Drawings help people to work out intricate relationships between parts."

“Our sensory experience of the world originates in the interior sensation of the mouth, and the world tends to return to its oral origins. The most archaic origin of architectural space is in the cavity of the mouth”

“There is a hunger of the eyes, and doubtless there has been some permeation of the visual sense, as of touch, by the once all embracing oral impulse”

“Good architecture offers shapes and surfaces moulded for the pleasurable touch of the eye. ‘Contour and profile are the touchstone of the architect,’ as Le Corbusier put it, revealing a tactile ingredient in his otherwise ocular understanding of architecture”

“Skin reads the texture, weight, density and temperature of matter”

“A particular smell makes us knowingly re-enter a space completely forgotten by the retinal memory; the nostrils awaken a forgotten image, and we are enticed to enter a vivid daydream”

“The most essential auditory experience created by architecture is tranquility. Architecture presents the drama of construction silenced into matter, space and light. Ultimately, architecture is the art of petrified silence”

“We are not normally aware of the significance of hearing in spatial experience, although sound often provides the temporal continuum in which visual impressions are embedded”

“Vision reveals what the touch already knows. We could think of the sense of touch as the unconscious of vision”

“Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory; qualities of space, matter and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, skeleton and muscle”

"The important thing is that—in architecture—this is not merely a hunch but a testable empirical result. It means that the objects that are most profound functionally (when I say objects, I mean buildings, streets, door knobs, shelves, rooms, domes, bridges) are the ones which also promote the greatest feeling in us. This is a very peculiar thing."

“Sound is invisible but has the power to change the space characteristics we occupy”

“The sight separates us from the world, while the rest of the senses joins him.”

“We feel pleasure and protection when the body discovers it’s resonance in space.”