Architecture Is a Mediation Between the World and Our Minds”: Juhani Pallasmaa on Art and Imagination
This morning, I stumbled across these words of wisdom by Juhani Pallasmaa.
I quote him every week on my architectural tours of the Audain Art Museum. He believed that architecture “domesticates limitless space and endless time,” giving the infinite world a human measure.
I am sharing his words today, beautifully and softly spoken.
Transcript
One of the miracles of any great artistic work is that it is timeless. As Paul Valéry, the poet, writes, “An artist is worth a thousand centuries.” It is a fact that greatness is measured by this timelessness.
Today, we enjoy a cave painting of twenty-five thousand years ago just as much as a painting of today. It is the miracle of art that it conveys the presence of the maker and the presence of human consciousness, and brings it right here.
For any artist, I would say, or designer or architect, it is important to work on yourself, because each one of us is a construction. I have constructed myself; you have constructed yourself.
It is this self-construction which is so important as a young person. You can do it by swallowing the works of others, having friends among artists and writers and poets and handicraft people. That’s how you build up and construct yourself. Only after that is there a hope that you can also create something by yourself.
Reading is perhaps the most important thing. Good books are real sources of wisdom, and reading is a fantastic exercise for the imagination. As we all know, although we rarely stop to think about it, when we read a good book, we construct each one of the figures, the persons, every room, every space, every house, and entire cities in our imagination.
That’s a wonderful exercise for anyone. To train one’s imagination is to keep reading good books. Those do not have to be books on your own profession. I often tell my students of architecture: don’t read architecture books. Read good literature, poetry, and books on art.
When I began to study architecture, and as a young architect, I thought that architecture was the buildings out there in the world. I have gradually learned that architecture is not out there. It is a mediation between the world and our minds.
Architecture is something that tells us—good architecture tells us—something about the world. It tells us something about history. It tells us about culture, how society works, and finally, it tells each one of us who we are.
Good architecture, and good art in general, enables us to live a more dignified life than we could without the presence of art.
I very much believe what Dostoevsky said: “Beauty will save the world.” I would say art will eventually save the world. That is possibly the only trustworthy area of human culture in today’s mad, mad world.
Juhani Pallasmaa was interviewed by Rasmus Quistgaard in his office in Helsinki, Finland, in March 2018. The film was produced by Louisiana Channel.
Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses