The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

THE INNER STUDIO
Psychology has an enormous appetite for architectural
language. Instead of using this language to describe physical things,
psychology uses it to describe the psyche, the “place” where our
conscious and unconscious mind are thought to reside. I began to
wonder if the power and wonder of architectural phenomena rests
in their ability to point to structures that reside in the immeasurable
world of our psyche. In the world of the psyche, as in
architecture, the primary dialogue concerns the relationship and
boundary between inside and outside. Inner and outer may seek
congruence or be split. Where inner and outer touch, psychology
uses words like “façade,” “boundary,” “border,” “threshold,” and
“wall.” Psychologically speaking, walls may be transparent, rigid,
divided, or fragile. Boundaries may be clear or need strengthening.
They are subject to breaking down or may suffer a collapse, but
they can also be rebuilt or repaired. Inside and outside are always
interacting, and we depend on these invisible structures to make
sense of the world. These psychic constructions may be functional
or dysfunctional, they may feel heavy or light, or they may cause us
to take flight, feel grounded, or feel out of place.
In the psychological world we commonly describe our moods
with reference to space. “I’m feeling down,” “I’m feeling up,” “She’s
beside herself with anger,” “You’re driving me up the wall,” “She’s
feeling open” or “He’s always closed down.” We have an innate
sense of ourselves as the “center” and use symbolic ideas about
place to help us communicate our moods. We have established,
through descriptions of psychological space, experiences that we
bring to the built world.
Psychological language has moved quickly into every corner of
our conversations because we need its capacity for describing the
immeasurable yet tactile experience of moods. Words like “split,”
“compensation,” “sublimation,” “fragments,” “nightmare,” “light”
and “shadow” are found in descriptions of both the built world and
therapeutic case histories. They have been absorbed into architecture
with the meaning acquired in psychological discourse.
The education of designers currently begins and ends with the
rational world. We might believe that this was sufficient if we did
not have the evidence of a troubling state of affairs in the built
6