152
ing touch of the hands. This visual-tactile appeal accounts for
a substantial portion of the powers of attraction – but also
repulsion – that emanate from forms and substances: such
signals amount to invitations to touch an object (or warnings
to touch it cautiously) in order to ascertain its character.
Inaccessible elements such as ceiling vaults, for example,
can be perceived ‘haptically’ in the sense that the gaze and
the corporeal sphere nestles in the rounded curvature above
us (> extension). Cold and warm areas such as the draughty
areas in front of a window or the warm zone of a fireplace
can be probed tactilely as spatially extended zones (> warmth
and cold). But containing a strongly haptic component in
many cases as well is the measuring out of the space with
one’s own steps, and the gauging-tactile sense of one’s own
> scale within a spatial situation. Certain architectural ele-
ments address this in special ways, inviting us to touch and
grasp them: switches, knobs, keys, catches and handrails.
The ‘gestalt of grasping’ a knob not only prefigures the act
of grasping visually, but also facilitates the incidental and
familiar act of grasping without the necessity for pronounced
attentiveness. By grasping a latch firmly, pressing down, and
sliding the door open, we gain access to the house along tac-
tile lines. When the haptic performance of these actions is
not inhibited by the homogenous smoothness of an abstract
automatism, the body is able to recall them as gestalt-like
figures of movement. They are reinforced by painstakingly
designed > details, for example the curving of the handrail
at the end of a banister, the winding or projection of steps at
the entrance to a staircase, the sculptural differentiation of
hardware fittings at > windows and > doors, or the differen-
tiation of sections of flooring. ‘The objects which surround
my body reflect its possible action upon them.’ (Bergson
1896/1911, 7)
Literature: Hajek 2009; Pallasmaa 1994, 1996