integrative role of buildings and cities

The essential mental task of buildings is accommodation and integration. They project our human measures and sense of order into the measureless and meaningless natural space. Architecture does not make us inhabit worlds of mere fabrication and fantasy; it articulates the experience of our being-in-the-world and strengthens our sense of reality. The sense of self, strengthened by art and architecture, permits us to engage fully in the mental dimensions of dream, imagination and desire. An architectural work is not experienced as a series of isolated retinal pictures, but in its full and integrated material, embodied and spiritual essence.

Buildings and cities provide the horizon for the understanding and confronting of the human existential condition. The ultimate meaning of any building is beyond architecture; it directs our consciousness back to the world and towards our own sense of being. Profound architecture makes us experience ourselves as complete embodied and spiritual beings. A peculiar exchange takes place; we lend our emotions and associations to the space and the space lends us its atmosphere, which entices and emancipates our perceptions and thoughts.

movement and action in space

linked mentions for "integrative role of buildings and cities":

1. the dominant sense of vision and the suppressed sense modality of touch

   Body is truly the very locus of perception, reference, memory, thought, and consciousness, imagination, and integration. All the senses, including