The Embodied Image: Imagination and Imagery in Architecture

TLDR: In this article, the authors discuss the meaning of image and imagination in contemporary culture, and the nature of imagination and its role in image production and the feasibility of architectural image production.

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1 Image in contemporary culture. Hegemony of the image. The demise of imagination. Image production and the feasibility of architecture. Architecture and the spectacle. Images of control and emancipation. The sense of the real. 2 Language, thought and image. Image and language. The philosophical image. The meanings of image and imagination. The nature of imagination. 3 The many faces of the image. The lived and embodied image. Images of matter. The multi-sensory image. The image as a condensation. The archetypal image in architecture. Architecture as mandala. The reality and unreality of the artistic image. The unconscious image. The metaphor. Image, affect and empathy. The collaged image. Images of incompleteness and destruction. Images of time. Illusionary image. The iconic image. The epic image. Poetic images as worlds. 4 The anatomy of the poetic image. The dual existence of the poetic image. Ontological difference. Significance of origins. The lived metaphor. Thinking through art. Historicity of the mind and poetic time. Unity of the arts: art and life. Aestheticisation and beauty. 5 The architectural image. Architecture and the world. Architecture as metaphor. Architecture as an organising image. Architecture as a verb. The house and the body. Historicity of architectural images. Primal architectural images and archetypes. The imagery of the window and the door. Dilution of images. The fragile image. Newness and tradition. Selected bibliography. Alphabetical index. Image credits.