The Embodied Image

The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture by Juhani Pallasmaa explores how artistic and architectural effects are evoked, mediated, and experienced through poeticised images. These images are lived experiences that occur in ‘the flesh of the world’, becoming a part of us, while we simultaneously project aspects of ourselves onto a conceived space, object, or event. Artistic images possess a life and reality of their own, evolving through unexpected associations rather than through rational and causal logic. Though images are often considered as retinal pictures, profound poetic images are multi-sensory and engage us in an embodied and emotive manner.

Typically, architecture is analysed and taught as a discipline focused on articulating space and geometry. However, its mental impact significantly arises from its image quality, which integrates various aspects and dimensions of experience into a singular, internalised, and remembered entity. The material reality of architecture fuses with our mental and imaginative realms.

The book is organised into five main parts, each examining different aspects: the image in contemporary culture; language, thought, and the image; the many faces of the image; the poetic image; and finally, the architectural image. The Embodied Image is illustrated with over sixty paired images, diverse in subject matter. These range from scientific images to historic artistic and architectural masterpieces. Artworks included span from Michelangelo and Vermeer to Gordon Matta-Clark, while the architectural discourse encompasses Modern Masters such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Alvar Aalto, along with significant contemporary works by Steven Holl and Daniel Libeskind.