Picturesque studies Sequentional analysis - Technische Universiteit ...

Special characteristics of the ‘highway experience’• The visual is dominant• Kinesthetic experience• Spatial feeling of large scalearchitecture• Temporal stream comparable withmusic or film• Sequence not from beginning tot end• Experience can be reversed• The driver is a captive spectator51Special characteristics of the ‘highrway experience’• The visual aspect is dominant. A driver is inside a car and can only see the outsideworld. Feeling it only takes place via the steering wheel and the gas pedal (comment:and in modern cars even that is not the case any more).• Riding the high way is a kinesthetic experience, comparable with a theme park ride,although less intense. The driver feels bumps and bands, horizontal and verticalaccelerations.• The spatial feeling of a highway is that of large scale architecture, it is like movingthrough a gigantic architectural space.• The continuity and the temporal stream are comparable to music and film. Thingshappen sequentional and not parallel as in a normal space.• The designer of the motorway cannot be sure that his work of art will be viewed intotal by its users. People enter the highway at certain points and leave it at otherpoints. The sequence must therefore be such that it also works when it is interrupted.• A motorway has two directions, so the sequentional experience can be reversed. Inother words: the design of a sequence has to be such that it can be experienced intwo directions.• Drivers and passengers are captive spectators of the highway. When driving on themotorway they have no choice but to experience it as it is.51