Emotional Architecture
情感の建築 / 1953- / Style / Modern Architecture
Building that raises unbroken walls as sculptural mass and works on feeling through color, direct sun and stillness alone. Goeritz gave it the name in the 1953 manifesto he wrote for El Eco, against the functionalism of his day.



At a glance
Visual cues
- A single large wall left without windows
- Surfaces painted through in one flat color
- Planes of shadow cast by direct sun
- Mass read as sculpture rather than as building
Best used for
- Giving a white modern building strong feeling through local color and light
- Making stillness in a hot climate house with courtyards and water
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Dictionary entry
- Type
- Sink signage into the wall color and let shadow make it readable
- Composition
- Close the outside with thick walls, opening only to courtyard and water
- Material
- Rough plaster in one vivid color, with the hour's light calculated in
- Caution
- Painting walls in vivid color without designing openings and shadow makes the color glare evenly, giving loudness instead of the intended stillness.
- Further study
- Luis Barragán / Oscar Niemeyer / the 'architecture of emotion'
Related entries
- International Style (インターナショナル・スタイル)Same Modern Architecture lineage.Compare Emotional Architecture and International Style
- Tropical Modernism (トロピカル・モダニズム)Same Modern Architecture lineage.Compare Emotional Architecture and Tropical Modernism
More from Modern Architecture
Continue through styles in the same Modern Architecture family, prioritised by shared effects.
- Biomorphism (バイオモーフィズム/有機的形態)Shared effects: Intimacy / Calm.
- Organic Architecture (有機的建築)Shared effects: Intimacy / Calm.
- Prairie School (プレーリー・スクール)Shared effects: Calm / Intimacy.
Browse all Modern Architecture entries
Cite this entry
The dictionary is meant to be linked to. Take whichever form fits where you are writing.
- Link
- https://indexstyle.org/styles/emotional-architecture
- Markdown
- [Emotional Architecture — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/emotional-architecture)
- HTML
- <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/emotional-architecture">Emotional Architecture — IndexStyle</a>