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implements, things, including walking sticks, spectacles, the
compartment of a vehicle, the interior of a house. For Mer-
leau-Ponty, the boundaries between the human body and the
external physical world are indistinct to such an extent that
‘it [my body] holds things in a circle around itself. Things ...
are encrusted in its flesh, they are part of its full definition; the
world is made of the very stuff of the body.’ (1961/1993, 125)
The corporeal sphere also requires space for our move-
ments and our radius of action, and this zone forms the core
of our > personal space. Every situation is constituted for us
on this basis; the human body is anchored in the objectivity
and spatiality of architecture.
The spatial disposition of the human body is structured
according to a schema that is consistent with the three spatial
axes. The vertical axis corresponds to the upright posture of
the body, which follows gravity as an immutable alignment,
hence ensuring orientation in relation to the ground plane;
it forms the symmetrical axis for the pair-wise arrangement
of bodily organs and limbs in the horizontal direction; the
horizontal depth axis corresponds to the primary direction
of movement and of the gaze. The resultant zero point of
> centring is, to be sure, the point of departure and reference
for spatial perception, but is however relativized by orienta-
tion towards other spatial centres. We perceive the middle of
a room as the centre from which we experience it, even if
we do not stand inside it; the same is true of the middle of a
public square viewed from a window. The zero point wanders
with the gaze. ‘Functioning as immediately centring is the goal
of experience, not its point of departure. And in relation to
this goal, the body is experienced in the corresponding per-
spective.’ (Holenstein 1985, 35)
Through corporeal conditionality, we perceive spaces in
a specific way. Our eyes are set in front and our feet favour
forward locomotion, resulting in highly specific forms of
movement in space. Spatial sequences are staggered in a linear
fashion as a series of imminent, anticipated steps. Centralized