Cooper, Clare. "The House as a Symbol of the
Self." In Designing for Human Behavior:
Architecture and the Behavioral Sciences, edited by Jon Lang,
Charles Burnette, Walter Moleski, and David Vachon, 130-146. Stroudsburg:
Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Inc., 1974.
In this chapter, Clare Cooper breaks down the studies of
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and definitions of his concepts of "the
collective unconscious, the archetype, and the symbol" and how we can relate
them to the connections we make between our house and our idea of self,
specifically that the "house is a symbol of the self." Evidence, both conscious and unconscious, to
prove this strong link is presented based on various researchers' comparisons
between people of different economic profiles and social status, via a look at
how a house is presented in the media or in the written word, and through analysis
of Jung's own dreams, where he realizes the parts of himself not yet discovered
with the house as a mind model.
Studies are presented, such as those where people relate
their idea of a "home" to be a house, versus that of an apartment,
versus that of a mobile home, concluding that this could. We also are alerted to the idea of the house
as a means of protection from the outside world, a protection of self, a sacred
place, often with the "hearth" as the central symbol. Another example is the evidence that we look
at our homes, and how we present our homes physically and decoratively, to the
world publically, as a representation of what we perceive our attitude and
social status to be. Even in 1974, when
this work was written, the increase in popularity of interior design and
decorating was noted. A similar trend
has continued today, so one would surmise the idea that there is still this
connection. It seems these studies are
as relevant today, as they were nearly 40 years ago.
In the end, Cooper underscores the importance and relevance
of this theory and offers a programmatic solution for the design of homes for
low economic profiles through encouraging architects and designers to strive to
understand how individuals see themselves currently with their house as a
model. Once that is done, means to
improve such feelings about self can be explored and devised through
design. There is alot of power that
comes with this knowledge and understanding.
Proshansky, Harold M., Abbe K.Fabian and Robert
Kaminoff. "Place-Identity: Physical World Socialization of the
Self." Journal of Environmental Psychology (1983): 57-83.
In this journal piece, the authors define the term “place-identity”
as “a sub-structure of the self-identity of the person consisting of…cognitions
about the physical world in which the individual lives.” This represents how what we know about our
environment, (often times a subconscious perception) and where we come from
influences who we are as people, and the means by which this occurs.
The authors take us back to our early development and
childhood and relay how we came to realize who we were, and what belonged to us
through how this was described to us by others (our parents) both verbally and
non-verbally. We got a distinct sense of
ourselves through this relationship with our physical setting, but also by our
relationships with others within those settings.
They present the ideas that it is not just the place itself in the present, but
what has happened to us in our past, and our expectations of the future that
affect this place-identity. It is also
what we know and bring with us in terms of our memories, our social and moral
values, and the roles (which can change over one's life cycle) in which we
perceive ourselves as having that influence this. It can indeed be our varied roles and
“cultures” that also come into play. To
understand all of this best, the role of our place and how well it functions
for and supports us must be clear.
Our ability to manipulate our environment (cognitively at
first) in terms of territoriality, personalization, and in response to
proxemics and how we would like to see others who share our environment to
behave are analyzed in the piece, as well as this idea that we have the need to
protect our space if we see that it will be threatened in any way. By extension, we are protecting ourselves,
our self-identity. There is a
relationship between this piece and the chapter by Clare Cooper, “The House as
Symbol of the Self,” in the book Designing
for Human Behavior: Architecture and the
Behavioral Sciences, where Cooper also discusses the design and
presentation of our homes and how they reflect who we are socially and culturally.
Our place identity directly relates to our self identity, as
is defined in the beginning of the piece, but the most interesting part is how
it really shows us that this is a reflection of the degree in which we value
ourselves as human beings.
No comments:
Post a Comment