New Empiricism addresses the simple observations and questions of everyday life. A good starting point is the “Introduction to New Empiricism” and “Time and conscious experience” treats the subject in more depth. If you find yourself bridling at the novelty of this approach and feel it should be dismissed try “Perceiving perception” and “Materialists should read this first” which provide arguments about why you might believe your own experience. Our conscious experience is a projective geometrical space and projective geometry was developed to describe it so that artists could produce a convincing appearance for their pictures. Physics in three dimensions will not be adequate for a description of a projective space such as our experience. Many people have spotted that there is a difference between physical theory and the reality of experience but it would be nice to see more people adapting physical theory to remove the difference.
As a brief expression of Experiencing Architecture, the chapter of ‘’Basic Observations’’ can be good example and summary of whole book with its good examples. The first point is while you are reading, you can easily sense that everybody can understand the topic whether he/she is an architect or not. The book was written for everyone without any exceptions because even a child can understand. Without any doubt, the text is very understandable for all in terms of context and contend.Rasmussen says; ‘’Architecture is produced by ordinary people, for ordinary people; therefore it should be easily comprehensible to all.’’
Second point is, the New Empiricism movement contain all book. As it is mentioned earlier, Rasmussen believes on the whole, art and fields of art shouldn’t explain, they must be experienced. The purpose is very clear throughout the book.
According to Rasmussen, architecture is kind of fine arts and with comparing architecture with other types of arts like painting and sculpture, the difference between them are very clear he says. All of them play with forms and masses but painting and sculpture appeal to the eyes but architecture is the only functional art among of them. Architecture solves practical problems and it is utility. Therefore, Rasmussen gives feature and casts to architecture an important role.
In briefly, Steen Eiler Rasmussen says in his book that you must experience architecture, it is not enough to see architecture. He claims that observation is important to understand that how the building was designed for a special purpose and how it was attuned to the entire concept and rhythm of a specific era. He claims that architect must be aware of the textural effects, discover why just those colors were used, how the choice depended on the orientation of the rooms in relation to windows and the sun.
Then he tells about children’s game as an example. Rasmussen says that most children have the desire to build some sort of shelter and he tells the steps of it and children’s experimentation. Children creates enclosed spaces while they surrounding the space according to specific era and they dwell it. And this – to bring order and relation into human surroundings- is the task of the architect.
Burak Ağbulut 