Architecture and Context
What do we perceive in a particular place? In perceiving a physical object, the experiences we have had with comparable objects play a decisive role. Certain elements of this are empirical in nature and can accordingly be represented; others remain entrusted to intuition and mostly go unspoken. The image of a place is a multi-layered web of relationships. For sensory perception, prior knowledge of the place is not important. One senses forms, proportions, spatial connections, material qualities, surfaces, colours, but also atmospheres, smells and sounds. All of this, however, has far more to do with one’s own culture than with the culture of the place. For structural perception, a certain prior knowledge of the culture of the place is necessary. Building typologies, constructions and building techniques can be identified, but also specific ways of life. Alongside one’s own knowledge and prior understanding, information drawn directly from the place is also required. Virtual perception is a mix of the two levels described. Its intention is to define future realities and to factor them into the calculation of a choice to be made. The starting point for this is not questions of fact but questions of insight, which are always coupled with questions of tendency and decision. Research on a place without regard to foreseeable tendencies would be a set of facts with no relation to the present time and its problems. Only through such a relation does a new reality emerge; and what exists becomes an idea. When does the question of rules, of criteria, arise? We are at the point of discourse. In our history, in uncertain times, people have mostly longed for a protected, manageable space in nature. Today it is different. Many people – worldwide – are drawn from peripheral locations to the centres. That is one observation. The second is that many of those who stay behind often regard the existence of cultural diversity unreflectingly and watch its disappearance unmoved. The manageability of the protected space falls by the wayside through increasing uniformity, and insecurity visibly spreads. This raises the question of the kind of discourse to be conducted and of who participates in it. The debate should first of all be a political learning process among those affected, one that produces a shared goal and a jointly supported decision. Beyond that, it must foster environmental awareness, a sense of responsibility, and competence and knowledge in architectural and building matters. If all those affected engage concretely with the issue, a broad understanding of their own cultural space will grow from it.