The Affective Intertwining of Body and Space: Towards a Phenomenological Sublime in Contemporary Architecture

Abstract

My paper addresses the founding body emotions of architecture, and in particular it aims at redefining the sublime into phenomenological terms. Starting from Kant, it argues that the phenomenological sublime is a bodily-felt emotion aroused by the excess of sensuousness over conceptuality. But at present, the body metaphor does no longer guarantee order and symbolic meaning. This disruption was brought about by Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s criticism of compossibility and representation, which led, paradoxically enough, to a sublime bodily experience of space. As contemporary architectural space shows, body and space are affectively intertwined, but this co-belonging is characterized by conflicts, tensions, and the suspension of meaning.