Genius Loci: Architecture as Poetry carved in Stone

The book Genius Loci by Christian Norberg Schulz is a deep understanding of phenomenology in architecture and how the spirit of a place contributes to heightened human experience in any building or settlement. He talks about how spaces when designed with an existential foothold respond better than spaces designed only with a practical approach. This ideology was negated by a lot of architects who put the building over the context of the place. But the truth is that perceptions of a building and its architecture are very subjective and are influenced by the culture that the viewer belongs to. How then could a building be designed with an objective standpoint?

He describes in his book that a space is rendered a sense of place in totality with the natural environment along with human and built environment, which means that the time of the day, the varying seasons, the flora and fauna etc. are important influencers of the perceptions that the place generates. Architects like Geoffery bawa and Frank Lloyd Wright understood the spirit of the place they were designing in and the built environment was a pure outcome of the context. Purely debatable about capturing the ‘Genius Loci’ of a place were architects like Peter Eisenman for instance, for whom architecture was ‘self- referential’ and not affected or generated that deeply by the context. What was the role of culture, history and memory of a space as influencers of the spirit of that place then? Modernists were deeply criticized for negating this need for preserving the ‘memory’ of a space as advocated by phenomenology. For instance, in the mass housing Habitat, in Montreal, the main consideration in design was the technological capacity of prefabricated concrete, and the entire design reflected that and made users forcibly adapt to a set grid. Whereas, in modernist buildings by Le Corbusier for instance, the material and its capacities while being a priority, user perceptions and experience was definitely considered. La, Tourette monastery, for eg. Is one of the pioneering works of Corbusier that portrays a phenomenological trajectory.

Heidegger, who was one of the inspirations for Schulz, highlights the difference between living and dwelling in his book ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’. Dwelling is the phenomenological term that portrays an intrinsic connection between man’s lifestyle and the cultural landscape of the place. The often discussed topic about the spaces more conducive for dwelling in Ahmedabad comes to mind. Was the traditional pattern making of the old city was a stronger generator of a phenomenological experience as opposed to the sterile, homogenous forms in the new city?

Throughout history, organic natural forms were reduced to geometrical forms for ease in understanding and to serve specific purposes. Boundaries began to be defined for ease in understanding territories and for administrative purposes. But are these geometrical proportions natural? Do these boundaries really exist? Phenomenology guides one to look beyond these boundaries and focus on the connections intrinsic to a space in a layered manner. Expressive forms like Poetry and Art capture the essence of a space very powerfully. Phenomenology asks architecture to become poetry frozen as well as moving along with the changing spirit of the place: the Genius Loci.