Contemplative neuroaesthetics and architecture: A sensorimotor exploration

  • Zakaria Djebbara , 1,2 ,
  • Juliet King 3,4 ,
  • Amir Ebadi 5 ,
  • Yoshio Nakamura 6 ,
  • Julio Bermudez 7
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  • 1. Department of Architecture, Design, Media, and Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
  • 2. Biopsychology und Neuroergonomy, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 3. Art Therapy Department, The George Washington University, Washington DC, United States
  • 4. Department of Neurology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, United States
  • 5. Dellustration, Washington DC, United States
  • 6. Pain Research Center, Division of Pain Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Utah School of Medicine, Utah, United States
  • 7. School of Architecture and Planning, The Catholic University of America, Washington DC, United States
zadj@create.aau.dk (Z. Djebbara)

Received date: 10 Jun 2023

Revised date: 29 Sep 2023

Accepted date: 30 Oct 2023

Published date: 15 Feb 2024

Copyright

2023 2023 Higher Education Press Limited Company. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd.

Abstract

This paper takes initial steps towards developing a theoretical framework of contemplative neuroaesthetics through sensorimotor dynamics. We first argue that this new area has been largely omitted from the contemporary research agenda in neuroaesthetics and thus remains a domain of untapped potential. We seek to define this domain to foster a clear and focused investigation of the capacity of the arts and architecture to induce phenomenological states of a contemplative kind. By proposing a sensorimotor account of the experience of architecture, we operationalize how being attuned to architecture can lead to contemplative states. In contrasting the externally-induced methods with internally-induced methods for eliciting a contemplative state of mind, we argue that architecture may spontaneously and effortlessly lead to such states as certain built features naturally resonate with our sensorimotor system. We suggest that becoming sensible of the resonance and attunement process between internal and external states is what creates an occasion for an externallyinduced contemplative state. Finally, we review neuroscientific studies of architecture, elaborate on the brain regions involved in such aesthetic contemplative responses, provide architectural examples, and point at the contributions that this new area of inquiry may have in fields such as the evidence-based design movement in architecture.

Cite this article

Zakaria Djebbara , Juliet King , Amir Ebadi , Yoshio Nakamura , Julio Bermudez . Contemplative neuroaesthetics and architecture: A sensorimotor exploration[J]. Frontiers of Architectural Research, 2024 , 13(1) : 97 -111 . DOI: 10.1016/j.foar.2023.10.005

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