‘Sensation of space and modern architecture’ : a psychology of architecture by Franz Löwitsch Poppelreuter, T http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2012.678645 Title ‘Sensation of space and modern architecture’ : a psychology of architecture by Franz Löwitsch Authors Poppelreuter, T Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/46929/ Published Date 2012 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at:
[email protected]. Sensation of Space and Modern Architecture A psychology of architecture by Franz Löwitsch Abstract: In 1928 the Austrian architect and engineer Franz Löwitsch (1894-1946) published the article “Sensation of Space and Modern Architecture” in Imago, the psychoanalytical journal edited by Sigmund Freud. Based on Richard Semon’s theories of Mneme, which Löwitsch connected to psychoanalytical theories, the prevalence of dissimilar sensations of space throughout the stages of the development of western architectural history is presupposed, and Löwitsch offered an explanation of how their symbolic meanings reflected psychological conditions of a particular time and culture. By connecting Semon’s theory with psychoanalytical deliberations that equip the inherited memory of spatial sensations with pleasurable or unpleasurable emotions, Löwitsch furthermore argued that spatial sensations produce spatial concepts, and that the dominating shapes and forms of the architecture of a time therefore reflect the dominance of a particular inherited sensation of space.