The Eyes of the Skin

in terms of vision, emphasising the construction of three-dimensionalvisual images in space.An Architecture of Visual ImagesThe ocular bias has never been more apparent in the art of architecturethan in the past 30 years, as a type of architecture, aimed at a striking andmemorable visual image, has predominated. Instead of an existentiallygrounded plastic and spatial experience, architecture has adopted the psychologicalstrategy of advertising and instant persuasion; buildings haveturned into image products detached from existential depth and sincerity.David Harvey relates 'the loss of temporality and the search forinstantaneous impact' in contemporary expression to the loss of experientialdepth. 58FredricJameson uses the notion of 'contrived depthlessness'to describe the contemporary cultural condition and 'its fIxationwith appearances, surfaces and instant impacts that have no sustainingpower over time'.59As a consequence of the current deluge of images, architecture ofour time often appears as mere retinal art of the eye, thus completingan epistemological cycle that began in Greek thought and architecture.But the change goes beyond mere visual dominance; instead of being asituational bodily encounter, architecture has become an art of theprinted image fIxed by the hurried eye of the camera. In our culture ofpictures, the gaze itself flattens into a picture and loses its plasticity.Instead of experiencing our being in the world, we behold it from outsideas spectators of images projected on the surface of the retina.David Michael Levin uses the term 'frontal ontology' to describe theprevailing frontal, fIxated and focused vision.6oSusan Sontag has made perceptive remarks on the role of the photographedimage in our perception of the world. She writes, for instance,of a 'mentality which looks at the world as a set of potential photographs',61and argues that 'the reality has come to seem more and morewhat we are shown by camera',62 and that 'the omnipresenceof photographshas an incalculable effect on our ethical sensibility. By furnishingthis already crowded world with a duplicate one of images, photographymakes us feel that the world is more available than it really is.'63As buildings lose their plasticity, and their connectionwith the languageand wisdom of the body, they become isolated in the cool anddistant realm of vision. With the loss of tactility, measures and detailscrafted for the human body - and particularlyfor the hand - architecturalstructures become repulsively flat, sharp-edged, immaterial andunreal. The detachment of construction from the realities of matterand craft further turns architecture into stage sets for the eye, into ascenography devoid of the authenticity of matter and construction.The sense of 'aura', the authority of presence, that Walter Benjaminregards as a necessary quality for an authentic piece of art, has beenlost. These products of instrumentalised technology conceal theirprocesses of construction, appearing as ghostlike apparitions. Theincreasing use of reflective glass in architecture reinforces the dreamlikesense of unreality and alienation. The contradictory opaque transparencyof these buildings reflects the gaze back unaffected andunmoved; we are unable to see or imagine life behind these walls. Thearchitecturalenigmatic and frighteningMaterialitymirror, that returns our gaze and doubles the world, is anand Timedevice.The flatness of today's standard construction is strengthened by a weakenedsense of materiality. Natural materials - stone, brick and wood ­allow our vision to penetratetheir surfaces and enable us to become convincedof the veracity of matter. Natural materials express their age andhistory, as well as the story of their origins and their history of humanuse. All matter exists in the continuumof time; the patina of wear addsthe enriching experience of time to the materials of construction.But the30THE EYES OFTHE SKINPART I 31