Narrative In Space
Dena Baker
Narrative is always unfolding, whether on text or screen or real life, a subconscious narrative is ever-occuring in the space of the built environment. I define narrative here as an extended series of moments experienced by people who make up the human experience. Narrative in the built environment requires two main components to occur: firstly, an understanding of how the built world is only as real as we perceive it to be, as well as an understanding that architecture is an active participant in a semiotic process in which architecture is the sender of messages and we, inhabitants, observers and actants, are the receivers of messages. The second component is an understanding that the built environment gains a strong visual, haptic, and formal power from typology. These two components- typology and the semiotic nature of our understanding of the built environment come together to create a narrative greater than the sum of its parts. This narrative is significant because it is universal and therefore wildly personal, hopefully cultivating empathy within inhabitants.
To claim that the world, and more specifically, the built environment, is only as real as we perceive it to be, I will begin by taking a quantum physics-oriented approach. In the book, You are the Universe, by Dr. Deepak Chopra and Dr. Menas C. Kafatos, they explain that we are the “creator[s] of reality”.1 We define our reality based on what we perceive—and what continues to exist beyond our perception is merely irrelevant. They use the example of a fire truck siren to explain this—the sound of the siren begins quietly, becomes louder as the fire truck approaches, then fades away again. To the observer, the siren’s volume has gone down and up and down again, while the observer dually knows the volume of the siren has not actually changed, it just sounds like it has. This explains how our senses are “unreliable” and they define reality for us all the time.2 This concept finds its roots in Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. We can sum up Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity by understanding that reality is different depending on the position of the observer; and Chopra and Kafatos explain it concisely through Einstein’s eyes, “Einstein could see in his mind’s eye that objects would not appear to travel at the same speed to someone riding a beam of light and to someone standing on another moving object.”.3 Human experience defines everything.4 This is where we can understand that we are always projecting onto reality—meaning we are also always projecting onto the built environment that we perceive.5
This is how we can begin to understand that reality beyond our perception is not real. The unseen is not entirely independent of us but rather unaffected by our projections. Quantum theory proves this through a phenomenon the Observer Effect, which argues that the difference between the perceived and unperceived is a matter of waves versus particles. If a photon or electron is unobserved, it is a wave—and waves provide nowhere for photons to land. The observed photon or electron, however, does not behave like a wave, but rather like a particle—this lends the photon a location, charge, and momentum.6 On an atomic level, this is how reality that we do not perceive is unaffected by our projections.
Lastly, Chopra and Deepak bring to light that we are involved in a constant and perpetual dialogue between ourselves and our built environment. They describe this as what is “in here” inside our brain as never passive to what is going on “out there”.7 They use an example of one gazing around a room and seeing a mouse in a corner to prove this—while the gaze seems passive to one's external environment because it does not alter the room, it is not passive at all, because seeing the mouse is likely to trigger a response “in here” within the human brain.8 This example proves how we are constantly involved in a narrative within our built environment that requires both us and it to occur.
While design decisions in the built environment have the potential to create universal narratives for inhabitants, the built environment is ultimately subject to projections from inhabitants. Typology is subject to our projections always. The built environment poses as a blank screen for our fantasies to play out. This is not split from the notion that architecture is always a sender of messages and we are the receivers. It is beneficial to look at this argument through the lens of semiotics in order to understand how there is always a subconscious narrative occurring in space in the built environment. In the book, How to Read a Film, by film critic James Monaco, he uses semiotics to describe the viewer/film relationship and I believe a similar approach can be taken here to describe the inhabitant/ built environment relationship. In language systems there are always two parts, a signifier and a signified.9 Monaco argues, however, that in film, a visual medium, the signifier and signified merge into one.10 I believe the same goes for visual factors of the built environment. The signifier and signified are one in architecture and they send messages that the inhabitant receives. A fundamental understanding of this process of communication is necessary for understanding how the projections of the inhabitant and the built environment come together to create narrative. Monaco brings up a point regarding the halfway point both signifier and signified must meet at, “The reader of a page invents the image, the reader of a film does not, yet both readers must work to interpret the signs they perceive in order to complete the process of intellection.”.11 One must understand that just as film and viewer both put in work in order to grant existence to the film’s narrative, the sender and receiver in architecture must also both put in work to grant existence to a narrative. This will be useful later for understanding the work that typology does alongside the work of the observer in order to create a narrative that could not exist without either.
In Jonathan Crary’s book Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, he discusses the relationship between the observer and the observed to also make the point that the observed only exists to the extent that the observer agrees with. He identifies the relationship between the observer and observed, and notes, like the lens of semiotics mentioned earlier, that there are two necessary participants in the act of vision. He then notes how the process of vision is tied to the viewer—who is a “product” of their historical context as well as the “site” of subjectivity, “Vision and its effects are always inseparable from the possibilities of an observing subject who is both the historical product and the site of certain practices, techniques, institutions and procedures of subjectification.”.12 This means that the observed is influenced by the observer’s projections. This echoes both my points earlier that one, reality is as real as we perceive it to be and two, nothing we perceive can escape our projections. An additional point Crary makes regarding the observed being unable to escape the projections of the observer is that the observer is influenced by culture and history. Since the observer is influenced, this then influences the observed, “Though obviously one who sees, an observer is more importantly one who sees within a prescribed set of possibilities, one who is embedded in a system of conventions and limitations.”.13 Crary mentions this “prescribed set of possibilities” as inescapable, just as inhabitants' projections are inescapable for typology and what they view in the built environment.
The second component of the foundation of my argument is an understanding that the built environment on its own gains a strong visual, haptic and formal power from typology. I am borrowing writer Nili Portugali’s definition of typology from her book, The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic Phenomenological Approach to Architecture. She has another name for it—pattern—but the concept remains relevant. Portugali claims that all architectural elements, such as arcades and walkways possess a “superstructure” that speaks a language all observers understand.14 Every corridor you have ever walked down, you and all your peers are able to agree that it is a corridor, every single time. The “superstructure” of every corridor is what tells us it is a corridor. Take an example as simple as a room—every room you have ever been in—you are able to identify it is a room because of distinct, consistent built elements that make up said room. The same goes for every corridor, arcade, and walkway. Typology has its power in the distinct and consistent language it speaks. This is where we can understand the specific impact and extent of the role of typology and design decisions in the built environment. Architects can never comprehensively fabricate a message, feeling, or narrative for inhabitants. Does typology contain narrative-influencing elements or subtle nudges that design is modestly capable of? Is design capable of authoring the human narrative or is it an un-personified bystander? My take is that typology possesses its own unshakable power, however, is not comprehensive enough to reach far enough to create narrative for us but can meet us halfway. Our projections run the length of the other half—they need a screen, intangible or tangible, to operate on—and typology serves this purpose. We, the inhabitants, observers, or actants, are always working in tandem with typology to create the narrative that subconsciously operates in the built environment.
Jumping off the argument that narrative requires the work done by both typology and projections of inhabitants, it is useful to reference Rem Koolhaas as he makes a very valuable point regarding the “convergence” of two actants in his book, The Generic City. At its most basic, his argument concerns identity. He poses the question—how pure can identity be after convergence? One must lose something to converge with another—but he acknowledges that this “loss” is not loss at all, and that “homogenization” is beneficial, “Convergence is only possible at the price of shedding identity. That is usually seen as a loss. But at the scale at which it occurs, it must mean something...what are the advantages of blankness? What if... homogenization were an intentional process?”.15 My argument does not concern identity, but the concept Koolhaas alludes to here is significant. We can simplify it down to this: the combination of two is greater than the sum of its parts—therefore the combination of typology and projections of the actant create a narrative that is greater than the sum of its parts. I could also argue that both the built environment and human projection lose something when they converge—the built environment loses the intentional message of the architect, and our projections trade their original direction for another.
The significance of this narrative is universality. The soul of the inhabitant in architecture undergoes something incredibly personal and universal. This long conversation about typology merging with perception of reality to create narrative needs an example. Bernard Tschumi touches upon a morbid yet very real example of narrative in architecture in his book Violence of Architecture. Tschumi begins by personifying architecture and highlighting its bond with inhabitants; he claims that architectural space and human action are linked, “actions qualify spaces as much as spaces qualify actions, space and action are inseparable,”.16 He then notes on the constant dialogue between architecture and inhabitants, “architecture is only an organism engaged in constant intercourse with its users,”.17 Tschumi then makes a point that hits closer to the possibility of narrative occurring in space by emphasizing the simple and undeniable presence of the inhabitant, “Each door implies the movement of someone crossing its frame... Each architectural space implies (and desires) the intruding presence that will inhabit it.”.18 He then unfolds this stance further by suggesting that if bodies “violate” space, space can commit the same unto bodies. The bully can back you into a corner, and the corner will remain indifferent. Tschumi is arguing that architecture, despite its typological power, is indifferent to the narrative. The walls of your bedroom cannot help you. It is important to note that the built environment and narrative do not engage in a cause-and-effect relationship; Tschumi knows this, “Spaces are qualified by actions as just as actions are qualified by spaces. One does not trigger the other; they exist independently. Only when they intersect do they affect one another.”.19 Once again, proving that the combination of these two elements, the built environment and projections of the actant, create a narrative greater than the sum of its parts.
Why is it important to have a collective understanding of the ever-present, unwavering, universally personal narrative we undergo in the built environment? Collective understanding of personal universality can result in empathy. Empathy is useful and beneficial, for example, on three different scales: the urban, the institutional, and the home. All three of those realms are areas influenced by the built environment, legal matters, urban planning, and institutional policy. All three could benefit from a widespread scent of empathy among inhabitants. On an urban scale, empathy could mean a nicer day for the unhoused. On an institutional scale, empathy could prevent sexual harassment in the workforce. On a residential scale, empathy could prevent domestic violence.
An understanding of basic rhetorical strategies: logos, ethos and pathos, can help one understand why narrative is essential for cultivating empathy. In the study of rhetoric, an effective theory of persuasion is the Elaboration Likelihood Model. This method of persuasion recognizes the one you are trying to convince as a target. The ELM gains its power from recognizing that a target needs both appeals to emotion and logic in order to be convinced.20 This is one of the most effective and common methods of persuasion practiced by rhetoricians.21 One must also understand that appeals to emotion are made through several cues, however the most common is telling stories.22 This is where narrative gains its effectivity and power for catalyzing empathy.
In conclusion, empathy is a goal in several built environments on several different scales, the urban, the institutional, and residential. If inhabitants recognize that they are collectively undergoing a universal personal narrative, that equals a higher chance that empathy will be cultivated. Empathy in these environments can prevent oppression. Narrative is always occurring in the built environment and requires the union of two main components to occur: typology and projections of the inhabitants. Typology gains its power from being distinct and consistent but is not comprehensive enough to create narrative on its own—it needs the projections of the actants for the rest of this process. The projections of the actants are significant in the second half of this process of creation of narrative because the world is as real as we perceive it to be, according to quantum physics.
Bibliography
Deepak Chopra & Menas C. Kafatos, You are the Universe. (London: Rider Books, 2018), 3-19.
Elaine D. Zelley & Marianne Dainton, Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life: A Practical Introduction. (Claifornia: SAGE Publications, 2011), 122-123.
James Monaco, How to Read a Film. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), 127-128.
Jonathan Crary, “Modernity and the Problem of the Observer,” Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (1990), 5.
Martin Mcquillan & Bernard Tschumi, “Violence of Architecture” in Deconstruction, (New York: Routledge, 2000), 44-46.
Nili Portugali, The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place: A Holistic Phenomenological Approach to Architecture. (London: Edition Axel Menges, 2008), 25.
Rem Koolhaas, “The Generic City,” and “"Singapore Songlines: Portrait of a Potemkin Metropolis... or Thirty Years of Tabula Rasa." SMLXL, (1998), 1248.
