The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses

In a time when architecture is increasingly designed for the camera, and experienced through screens, it’s easy to forget a simple truth: buildings are not images—they are environments to be inhabited, remembered, and felt.

The book of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin (1996), stands as a vital counterpoint to the rise of hyper-visual design culture. A poetic and philosophical manifesto, the book calls for a return to embodied architecture—spaces that engage the full spectrum of human senses, not just sight.

This is not merely a critique of aesthetics. It’s a deeper question about how architecture shapes identity, memory, and the way we relate to the world.

Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa

Book: The Eyes of The Skin

The book of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, stands as a vital counterpoint to the rise of hyper-visual design culture.

The Tyranny of the Eye: How Architecture Became Flat

Pallasmaa argues that modernity—and especially digital culture—has cultivated what he calls the "hegemony of vision." Architecture today is often conceived as a spectacle: smooth, photogenic, and hyper-real. In this context, buildings risk becoming two-dimensional performances, optimized for visual consumption rather than lived experience.

This phenomenon isn’t new. The industrial age accelerated visual dominance through mechanical reproduction, while the digital era has turned architecture into a field of renderings, filters, and drone shots. We see the building before we feel it—and often, never feel it at all.

But architecture, at its most powerful, resides in the body before it lives in the image.

The Forgotten Senses: Touch, Sound, Scent, and Movement

Historically, architecture was inseparable from the full sensorium. Gothic cathedrals, traditional homes, sacred courtyards—these spaces were designed with a precise understanding of acoustics, texture, light, smell, and material aging. They weren’t just seen; they were entered, breathed, touched, and remembered.

Pallasmaa invites us to rethink design through a more human lens:

• Touch is the first sense to develop in the womb—and often the last to fade. Materials like stone, timber, and fabric communicate warmth, weight, and presence.

• Sound defines space in subtle but powerful ways: echoing domes, muffled corners, resonant thresholds.

• Scent, often ignored in architectural discourse, is deeply tied to memory. The scent of cedarwood, damp stone, or old books embeds itself in the psyche.

• Movement is how architecture unfolds. The experience of a hallway narrowing, light cascading through slats, or a soft curve in the floor—all are kinaesthetic readings of space.

A truly human architecture speaks to all these senses—not as afterthoughts, but as core design strategies.

Towards a Multi-sensory Practice: Design as Empathy

What does it mean to design with the whole body in mind? According to Pallasmaa, it’s not about romanticizing the past or abandoning visual sophistication. It’s about restoring balance.

A multi-sensory architecture embraces:

• Material authenticity: Honest materials that age gracefully and speak to the hand.

• Acoustic sensitivity: Spaces that embrace both silence and sound as part of their identity.

• Sequential revelation: Environments that unfold in time—encouraging exploration, intimacy, and discovery.

• Atmospheric depth: Places that evoke mood, memory, and emotion beyond the visual.

This design approach cultivates a kind of spatial empathy—a sensitivity to the rhythms of the human body, the rituals of everyday life, and the psychology of place.

Architecture has been regarded as an art form of the eye. Vision is regarded as the most noble of the senses, and the loss of eyesight as the ultimate physical loss.

Architecture in the Age of Disembodiment

In a world increasingly mediated by screens, algorithms, and augmented realities, the risk is clear: we may lose our ability to feel space at all.

The Eyes of the Skin is not just a theoretical text—it is a call to action. It challenges architects, planners, and clients alike to reclaim architecture as a bodily and emotional practice. A discipline rooted not only in what a space looks like, but in how it supports the act of dwelling—with all its complexity, vulnerability, and joy.

Final Reflection: Designing for Memory, Not Just Optics

Architecture begins where words end. It holds us when we are alone, shelters us in ritual, and offers continuity in a world of flux.

Architecture is the art of reconciliation between ourselves and the world. ~ Juhani Pallasmaa

At its best, architecture transcends style or trend. It becomes part of our inner landscape—a scent that returns after years, a wall we once leaned on, a hallway that echoes with childhood laughter.

Pallasmaa reminds us that these moments are not accidents. They are the result of intentional, multi-sensory design—architecture that honors both the eye and the skin.

As we move forward—into cities shaped by code, climate, and complexity—this lesson remains essential:

To create architecture that lasts, we must first design for how it feels.