Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 3, 2003|Volume 32, Number 5

Intersection of architecture and
psychoanalysis to be explored

The School of Architecture is hosting a symposium this month on "Architecture and Psychoanalysis," a complex topic that has eluded close scrutiny, according to Peggy Deamer, associate dean of the school, who organized the event.

The symposium, to be held Friday-Sunday, Oct. 24-26, will bring together architects, analysts, intellectual theorists and academics from a variety of disciplines and reflecting a range of psychoanalytic perspectives. Sessions will examine the relationship between architecture and psychoanalysis from three angles: the designer/architect, the object that is created, and the user or observer of the created space.

Sessions on the first topic will embrace fundamental questions about the nature of creativity and the peculiar bearing such specific attributes of the architect as gender, ethnic background or sexual orientation might have on the object he or she creates, explains Deamer.

Discussions about the object that is created, which can include anything from individual residential buildings to large-scale urban developments, will take up "formal spatial issues," Deamer explains, and explore the question: "How does architectural form elicit a psychological response?" In linking objects to the responses they might arouse, she stresses, presenters will not be trying to "codify" specific architectural features in a literal way -- that is, assign concepts borrowed from the language of psychoanalysis to elements of the architectural trade (e.g., openings such as doors and windows as subconscious representations of the orifices of the human body).

In considering the user or perceiver of the built environment, participants in the symposium will consider what individuals bring psychoanalytically to certain architectural forms, notes Deamer.

The symposium begins on Friday with an address by keynote speaker Richard Kuhns, professor of philosophy at Columbia University and author of the seminal book "Psychoanalytic Theory of Art." The talk, titled "Constructive and Destructive Passion: Architecture and Psychoanalytic Thought," is the Roth-Symonds Lecture.

There will be two sessions on Saturday, at 9:30 a.m. and 1:15 p.m., and a third session at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday. The symposium will conclude with a talk titled "Two Principles of Architectural Functioning" by Mark Cousins, director of critical studies and graduate programs in theory and history at the Architectural Association, London.

Although the scholars, practitioners and critics participating in the symposium will draw on a wide range of psychoanalytic thought, from the generally familiar theories of Anna and Sigmund Freud to the more arcane philosophies of Jacques Lacan and Michel Foulcault, Deamer hopes a broad audience will attend the event. The discussions should provide "a roadmap for the intersection of psychoanalysis and architecture," she says. "This is not just architects talking to themselves."

The symposium is partially funded by a grant from the Graham Foundation for the Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the David W. Roth and Robert H. Symonds Memorial Lecture Fund.

"Architecture and Psychoanalysis" will take place in Hastings Hall of the Art and Architecture Building, 180 York St. Admission is free, but those wishing to attend must register before Oct. 10. For more information, contact Jennifer Castellon at (203) 432-2889 or jennifer.castellon@yale.edu.

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