The philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty
(1908–1961) has influenced the design work of architects as diverse as
Steven Holl and Peter Zumthor, as well as informing renowned schools of
architectural theory, notably those around Dalibor Vesely at Cambridge,
Kenneth Frampton, David Leatherbarrow and Alberto Pérez-Gómez in North
America and Juhani Pallasmaa in Finland. Merleau-Ponty suggested that
the value of people’s experience of the world gained through their
immediate bodily engagement with it remains greater than the value of
understanding gleaned through abstract mathematical, scientific or
technological systems.
This book summarizes what
Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy has to offer specifically for architects. It
locates architectural thinking in the context of his work, placing it in
relation to themes such as space, movement, materiality and creativity,
introduces key texts, helps decode difficult terms and provides quick
reference for further reading.
