Since ancient times, cities and towns have incorporated dominant architectural features as a means of signaling the priorities of civic and/or elite populations, as a way of making apparent the hierarchy of popular or imposed institutions, whether religious, governmental, or technological in nature. Often it has been architectural features, such as the degree of decoration displayed on buildings, combined with the relative size of functionally specific structures, that have been used as a way of signaling this order of priority, where building size has been especially important in communication over distance. Traditionally, the term “skyline” referred to a line in the distance where the earth and sky met. Today, the term has come to represent those buildings of a town or city visible at a distance on the horizon (Kostof 1991:279). More often the prominent buildings influence how a city is perceived, signaling the prevailing social and/or political order of the time. For instance, in modern societies it is the secular architecture of enterprise that now dominates the landscape of most cities, where corporate skyscrapers now overshadow the religious architecture of churches and cathedrals (Kostof 1991: 280-294). In the ancient past, funerary monuments and temple architecture outshone all other forms, the most prominent being the Ziggurats of Mesopotamia and the temples and pyramids of Egypt and Mesoamerica.
It is argued that “environmental cognition is a vitally important part of the interaction between people and their physical surroundings” (Walmsley 1988: 22). Human beings both seek and create meaning from the landscape as a way of establishing some sense of order and security, raising questions as to what can and cannot be interpreted symbolically. For some time it has been acknowledged that “everything can assume symbolic significance” (Jaffe 1966: 232), whether natural objects like stones, plants, animals, mountains, wind, water, and fire, or things made by human beings such as houses, boats, and cars (Jaffe 1966: 232). It is through symbolic constructs that we as human beings assign meaning to a world that can and cannot be experienced directly. More specifically, “place naming, star naming, maps, myth and tale, the orientation of buildings, the spatial implications in dances and ceremonies, all facilitate the construction and maintenance of spatial patterns of the world in which the individual must live and act” (Hallowell 1977: 133).
In an environment shaped by the human constructs imposed upon it, much of the meaning communicated by the landscape comes from symbols contrived as regulatory mechanisms. For example, symbols may be used to signal function, accessibility, order of importance, acceptable behaviour in a particular environment, the intensity at which a given activity is performed, in addition to the relative significance of proximity (Walmsley 1988: 21-22). One function of symbols and rules encoded within the landscape is to articulate domains, for example, separating public and private localities and ensuring appropriate levels of inclusion, exclusion, interaction, and protection (Rapoport 1977: 289). In this sense, the built environment may be viewed as influencing how, in what context, and under what conditions individuals and/or groups interact and communicate with each other (Rapoport 1976: 19).
Spatial attributes are primarily understood in terms of the static and shifting relationships between objects contained within them, as the ability to perceive space relies on discerning the proximity of things in relation to other things. Spatial perception permits individuals to orient themselves, coordinate behaviour with others, as well as manipulate and transform their environment, whereas culturally constituted views of space permit people to
Participate in a world that is commonly perceived and understood (Hallowell 1977: 132). The distribution of space in the built environment displays patterns because of the influence of culture; different cultures comprise different rules, which guide behaviour and subsequently affect the design and organisation of architectonic space. Rules affect the placement, distribution, and utilisation of architectural features assigned to the landscape; therefore, the built environment can be understood in terms of the rules encoded within it (Rapoport 1977: 14). The effect that culture has on spatial patterning is discernible when comparing the urban landscapes of different countries. For example, the layout of North American cities such as New York generally conform to a grid pattern, whereas cities such as Paris in France display a more hierarchical layout where streets radiate outward from an architectonic epicentre (Nanda 1994: 81). In both examples, navigating through a city would make more sense to those people who reside in it, as particular cultures determine what emphasis is placed on spatial relationships, in addition to the significance of objects and reference points used for spatial orientation (Hallowell 1977: 131).
Human beings view themselves, in addition to objects, as being “in” space; consequently, they function as points of reference from which the rest of the world is perceived. “What spatial orientation... involves is a constant awareness of varying relations between the ‘self’ and other objects in a spatial schema of traditionally defined points” (Hallowell 1977: 133). Subsequently, to be oriented in a world that extends beyond the senses, the individual must view himself or herself in relation to a greater spatial plan, perceiving the self relative to objects and things conceived rather than seen (Hallowell 1977: 134). Social, psychological, and cultural aspects are represented in spatial terms, in “the intervals, relationships and distances between people and people, people and things, and things and things... [that lie] at the heart of the built environment” (Rapoport 1977: 9). Accordingly, features that we assign to space become markers of human action, values, and experiences and it is culture that determines the way in which these markers are ordered and interpreted (Pearson and Richards 1994a: 4).
The arrangements ofarchitectural features in the built environment are affected by how people relate to each other in space, and are therefore subject to variation depending on behavioural context. Space articulated by architecture provides a “physical frame” to behaviour and allows architecture to be interpreted as arenas of “activity and performance of a range of social and cultural roles” (Arnold 2002: 135). Grahame (1997) points out that, in attempting to understand spatial layout in architecture, it becomes important to note that human beings are not simply located in space, but that they also have feelings towards space. Because of this emotional response to the environment, and the fact that social interaction occurs within it, space is constantly altered and transformed. It is through this process that structure is assigned to the world not only in a physical sense but morally, socially, and cosmologically, as it is through constructs derived through classification and categorisation that our sense of morality and social order are manifested and transformed.
It remains important to consider the relationship between space, social structure, and social consciousness; in this way the experience of architecture may be viewed as an interaction between subjective feeling and external influences (Arnold 2002:134). There are three forms of knowledge that collectively control the way individuals perceive and react to their environments. They are: (1) operational knowledge, (2) responsive knowledge, and (3) inferential knowledge. Combined, these three forms of knowledge do two things: First, they facilitate movement, and, second, they provide a general frame of reference by which individuals understand and relate to their environment (Walmsley 1988: 21-22).
Operational knowledge relates to a person’s understanding of the system or mode of operation in a given environment. By committing to memory such things as locations and physical attributes important to the functioning of an environment, one acquires this form of knowledge. In modern-day towns and cities, examples would include buildings, parks, and other features that, in addition to providing spatial contexts for activities (e. g., education, administration, and recreation), provide cues for the successful navigation around structured environments.
An individual’s responsive knowledge comes as a result of reactions to distinctive features in the physical environment that stand out to differentiate elements - features such as the colour, size, and elaborateness of buildings - and the presence of communicative media, such as signs and billboards. Like operational knowledge, responsive knowledge provides cues that may assist in the selection of appropriate routes through an environment. To Walmsley (1988), knowledge of a place may also be derived from sounds and smells, which also fall under the category of responsive knowledge.
At the centre of inferential knowledge is the human being’s ability to create systems of generalised categories to help organise and understand his or her environment. Inferential knowledge differs from both the operational and responsive forms in the sense that it is not derived from direct experience but rather through the individual’s ability to extrapolate beyond what he or she has previously experienced and to probabilistically infer things that have not been experienced directly. Walmsley (1988) uses the modern example to make his point, noting how prior experience with a central business district may allow an individual to survey the skyline of an unvisited city and discern the proximity of its central business district based on the proximity and height of certain buildings.
As a result of the three forms of knowledge just described (operational, responsive, and inferential), cities and towns come to be known in terms of the actions of the occupants, the images projected by the environment, and the systems of symbols and categories selected to order and classify features of the landscape (Walm-sley 1988: 21-22). Contrast in architecture is important in providing identity to formal systems leading to mutual reinforcement where a duality of interdependence is attained by the tension of opposing characteristics. Examples of these paired oppositions include solid/void, dominant/subordinate, positive/negative, complex/ simple, high/low, large/small, wide/narrow, and also public/private (von Meiss 1990: 44; see also Pearson and Richards 1994a: 24).
World History
