Architecture of Movement - Embodiment
I remember the question posed to the architect Louis Kahn: what is a school. His answer birthed understanding in me of embodiment: architecture and the physical body are embodiment. They give a form to being. They are not to be confused with the body...they Embody.
The design of a city, a street, a building, a school...speak of embodiment, of form and function. I hear them speak the same whispers as the dance. An intrinsic nature that wills itself. The call upon a desire to be.
architects look at landscape, observe and listen, like dancers listening to sound and silence. to sensations. to the silent calling of what "it" want to be: how will it perform its function. how will movement occur inside and within through and around. How will it inform what shape it takes in space. How will it occupy space? How will the body move through space? through and
with other bodies in space? other buildings? What makes a street? what makes a community?
How will it inform the dance? what will "it" look like? if "it" is a house, what materials will give it the life it wants to live? What skin will envelope it? How will it skeletal structure hold it up? How will it root into the ground. How is my skeleton designed to move and to stabilise? What sensations do I sense through my skin? temperature. wind. touch.
Be it a building or a dance - it speaks the voices of harmony and grace. In it's most naked truth, the dancer yields to the dance. The movement dances the body. It is the architecture of movement.