The Urban Catharsis

Abstract

Embodied cognition suggests that human beings are emotional machines whose experience of the world lies on the interaction between the body and the environment. This can be seen as the echoing of the twentieth century philosophers such as Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari that breaks from the disembodied concept of mind. The research elaborates on architecture and music as domains of immersive experience. The study borrows from recent developments in musicology and cognitive neuroscience, specifically embodied music cognition. This framework is used to address the irreducible multiplicity of the experience of music as cerebral, corporeal, emotional, sociocultural and contextual. Thus, the architecture of musical experience should incorporate all these dimensions. The Binckhorst, a post-industrial area in the Hague, will be treated as the dance floor where spaces can be activated through the movement of bodies. Through the cathartic release of immanent properties of the site, local sub-culture and industry will be preserved. Unpleasant characteristics of the area will be reevaluated as emotionally moving musical elements, such as discordance. Without any preconceived architectural program or concept, similar to a musical arrangement, these elements will be reformatted and played back to the crowds.