Embodied Space - An Investigation on E.G. Asplund's Law Courts Extension in Gothenburg

Journal article, 2012

A theme of movement can be found in all of architect E. G. Asplund’s works. In this paper we argue that the Body Schema plays an important role in the mediation of a psychological architectural experience. The embodied understanding of space according to Merleau-Ponty must be understood as a ‘spatiality of situation’. Our claim is that the architect uses the distinct awareness of our interactions in space to form a psychological spatial narrative that provides a frame for the beholder’s ideated sensations. Could the slow pace in the stairway in the Gothenburg Law Courts Extension by E. G. Asplund be recognized as such an architectural objectct that gives resonance to our innermost feelings?