99comes animate, figuratively speaking, meaning that it seems to
express specific bodily states, sensations, emotions or charac-
teristic traits of the kind we normally attribute to other living
beings. The experience of empathy presupposes that we have
already internalized analogous experiences in our corporeal-
motor perceptions. ‘I assume the presence of my individual
life in lifeless forms,’ said Robert Vischer. (1927, 21)
According to the view held by Theodor Lipps (1912),
however, the word empathy (Einfühlung) should be under-
stood transitively, and not reflexively, so that a specific mode
of human comportment is projected into perceived architec-
tural or spatial forms, which is to say, ‘felt into them’, and
moreover as independent actions of these forms, not an imi-
tation enacted by the beholder. At most, empathy in relation
to particular attitudes also stimulates the adoption of corre-
sponding bodily postures, for example when our chest ex-
pands in a grand hall, or an upright posture is suggested by
a stele. Distinct from the sensations of empathy that arise in
conjunction with architectural or spatial structures are asso-
ciations; these lead further afield, and may be connected only
relatively loosely with a given situation.
Alongside experiences of empathy involving virtual
movements such as holding oneself erect, contraction or ex-
pansion, passive states such as compactness or heaviness may
also be ‘felt into’ architectural forms. Perceptions derived from
empathy are also encountered in numerous linguistic expres-
sions that refer to spatial > form character, and in particular
to spatial > gestures in terms of bodily traits and processes. A
bridge ‘swings’ across a river, a path ‘snakes along’, a building
‘approaches us’ with its facade, and we speak of the ‘foot’ of
a pillar, the ‘crown’ of a tower. We also encounter frequent
links between > tectonic features and empathic processes that
render the physical properties of loads and load-bearing ame-
nable to direct experience and comprehension. Wölfflin, for
example, explains the expressive qualities of architecture to a
substantial degree via bodily analogies, ranging from weight