Aesthetic Experience of Built Environment

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 PhD of Urban Design, Faculty of Architecture & Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University

2 Master of Urban Design, Faculty of Architecture & Urban Planning, Shahid Beheshti University

Abstract

Throughout human evolution history, beauty has always been one of the necessary integral components of human need. As Greer (2010) said, “one of the prehistoric human’s responses to the animal life around them was to etch and paint these animals on the walls of their caves. Turning them into art and rendering them beautiful was a natural response - a way to help make sense of a hostile and confusing world”. Likewise, people of old civilizations such as Babylon and Egypt used disciplined arrangements in their settlements structures. And they used concepts such as symmetry, order, harmony and etc. to express beauty in their living environment. This historical effort has been followed till today, which one of the main concerns of environmental design practitioners and theorists, especially in urban design, is creating and designing beautiful urban environments and places for people. In the storyline described, dispute about concept of beauty and its origin has been an ongoing discussion that dates back at least to 2.500 years ago. This storyline also could be seen as a single movement from certainty to doubt which according to Powers (2010) “reflects the growing complexity of the world surrounds us”. Though this evolutionary path has a repetitive oscillation between two polarities of subjectivity and objectivity. So that, according to Reber et al. (2004) in the former one, which is a rather rational understanding of beauty, aesthetic theorists, dating back at least to Plato, saw beauty as a property of an object that produces a pleasurable experience in any suitable perceiver. This special point of view tries to boil down the essence into formulae and models for further application. While in the latter one, which is a romantic understanding of beauty, theorists, dating back at least to the Sophists, proposed that beauty is based on personal experience and insight. So it can be defined only ‘in the eye of the beholder’. In this point of view, anything could be beautiful if it only pleases human senses and therefore, beauty is not that much open to explanation or proof. Most modern philosophical analyses, however, reject the objective versus subjective distinction and define beauty as a sense which emerges from patterns in the way people and objects relate. Despite frequent use of the concept and different definitions it has, the entity of it, still seems ambiguous. And at least in Iran, there is not a clear understanding of aesthetic experience in knowledge of environmental design. Regarding the importance of beauty in human health and significant role of aesthetic experience on bringing structural changes in the brain, this article, seeks to define aesthetic experience of human. For better understanding of aesthetic experience and its role in the process of perception, we adopt three different perspectives, including biological, cognitive and psychological perspectives. Consequently, we propose that aesthetic experience is caused by a multitude of senses, and beauty is grounded in the processing experiences of the perceiver that emerge from the interaction of stimulus properties and perceivers' cognitive and affective processes.

Keywords


استرنبرگ، آر. جی. و کافمن، جی. سی. (1378). توانایی‌های انسان، ترجمه‌ی نهاله مشتاق بیدختی، فصلنامه‌ی تازه‌های علوم شناختی، شماره‌ی 3، صص 59-44.
پاکزاد، ج. و بزرگ، ح. (1391). الفبای روانشناسی محیط برای طراحان، چاپ اول، تهران: انتشارات آرمانشهر.
تاتارکوویچ، و. (1381). فرم در تاریخ زیبایی‌شناسی، ترجمه‌ی کیوان دوستخواه، شماره‌ی 52، صص 61-46.
ریتی، جی. جی. (1390). راهنمای کاربران مغز؛ آشنایی با مغز، ترجمه‌ی امیر رحیمی، چاپ اول، تهران: انتشارات نیلوفر.
فرهودی، س. (1378). زیبایی‌شناسی، فصلنامه‌ی هنر، شماره‌ی 41، صص 59-53.
کالینسون، دی. (1388). مجموعه مقالات فلسفه‌ی هنر و زیبایی‌شناسی 6: تجربه‌ی زیباشناختی، ترجمه‌ی فریده فرنود، چاپ دوم، تهران: فرهنگستان هنر جمهوری اسلامی ایران.
کاویانی، م. (1370). زیبایی و زیباشناسی، فصلنامه‌ی فرهنگ، شماره‌ی 8، صص 264-243.
ویتیک، ای. (1391). زیبایی‌شناسی؛ برگرفته از دانشنامه‌ی برنامه‌ریزی شهری، ترجمه‌ی دکتر علی‌اصغر ملک افضلی، چاپ اول، تهران: انتشارات موسسه‌ی علم معمار.
یوسفیان، ج. (1379). نگاهی به مفهوم زیبایی‌شناسی، فصلنامه‌ی دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی دانشگاه تبریز، شماره‌ی 177، صص 179-135.
Beardsley, M.C. (1958). Aesthetics, Indianapolis: Hackett.
Berlyne, D. E. (1971). Aesthetics and Psychobiology, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Carlson, A. (2012). ‘Environmental Aesthetics’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/environmental-aesthetics/>.
Cowan, R. (2005). The Dictionary of Urbanism, Tisbury and Wiltshire: Streetwise Press.
Cuthbert, A. R. (2006). The Form of Cities, Australia: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Davies, S., Higgins, K. M., Hopkins, R., Stecker, R., Cooper, D. E. (2009). A Companion to Aesthetics, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Dewey, J. (1934). Art and Experience, New York: Putnam.
Dickie, G. (1962). ‘Is Psychology Relevant to Aesthetics?’ The Philosophical Review, Vol.71, No.3: pp. 285-302.
Greer, B. (2010). Beauty, Wellbeing & Prosperity, London: Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
Hekkert, P. (2006). ‘Design Aesthetics: Principles of Pleasure in Design’ Psychology Sciences, Vol.48: pp. 157-172.
Ingarden, R. (1985). Selected papers in aesthetics (P. J. McCormick, Ed.). Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
Lavie, T. & Tractinsky, N. (2004). ‘Assessing Dimension of Perceived Visual Aesthetics of Web Sites’ Human-Computer, Vol.60: pp. 269-298.
Nasar, J. (1994). ‘Urban Design Aesthetics: The Evaluative Qualities of Building Exteriors’ Environment and Behavior, Vol.26: pp. 377-401.
Parsons, G. (2010). Beauty and Public Policy, London: Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.
Porteous, D. J. (1996). Environmental Aesthetics; Ideas, Politics and Planning, London: Routledge.
Reber, R. & Schwarz N. & Winkielman P. (2004). ‘Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure: Is Beauty in the Perceiver’s Processing Experience?’ Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol.8, No.4: pp. 364-382
Santayana, G. (1896). The Sense of Beauty; Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory, C. Scribner's Sons.
Smith, P. F. (2003). The Dynamic of Delight; Architecture and Aesthetics, London: Routledge.
Smith, P. F. (1976). ‘A Psychological Model for Aesthetic Experience’ Leonardo, Vol.9: pp. 25-31.
URL1: http://mybrainnotes.com/triune-brain-theory.jpg (Accessed 2014).
URL2: http://appliedlifescience.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/right-brain-left-brain-fnl-598x441.jpg (Accessed 2014). Xenakis, I. Arnellos, A., Darzentas, J. (2012). ‘The functional role of emotions in aesthetic judgment’ New Ideas in Psychology, Vol.30: pp. 212-226.
Zajonc, R. B. (1984). ‘On the Primacy of Affect’ American Psychologist, Vol.39: pp. 117-123
Zajonc, R. B. (1980). ‘Feeling and Thinking: Preferences Need No Inferences’ American Psychologist, Vol.35: pp. 151-175.