Awakening Our Senses: Aesthetics and Design

When Larry came up with the title of our session, “Coming to Our Senses,” I had

to smile, because the exact same phrase appears in The Green Imperative: Natural

Design for the Real World, written by a designer, Victor Papanek, and it is one of my all

time favorite phrases. In this work Papanek reminds the fellow designers that we humans

are sensuous creatures and designed objects and built environments must respect and

respond to our needs. He claims that “seeing helps us to enjoy architecture, but only

seeing can hinder us,” and urges that “we need to come to our senses again.”i As if to

heed his advice, today’s advertising strategy emphasizes that we should “awaken our

senses.” In our visually-oriented culture, “senses” here mean primarily the “lower” or

“bodily” senses: touch, smell, and taste. In comparison, academic aesthetics seems to be

one step behind when it comes to honoring those senses; hence, this session to address a

still lingering bias against “lower” senses in contemporary aesthetics.

Several reasons account for this neglect of “lower” senses, which is by no means

universal, but characteristic of Western aesthetics. First, perhaps the most deeply-rooted

reason is the male-dominated framework governing the Western intellectual history that

privileges humans over nature, male over female, mind over body, objective over

subjective, and permanent over impermanent. Accordingly, vision and sound, deemed

amenable to quantification and analogous to intellect, have traditionally been favored

over more animalistic, and presumably purely subjective, faculties of taste, smell and

touch.

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Second, the relative paucity of precise vocabulary and the principle of

composition is thought to disadvantage the aesthetic status of lower senses. Finally, it is

difficult to provide a uniform experience of lower senses, because taste and touch require

our active bodily engagement, while certain tastes and smells trigger different, and

sometimes quite strong, bodily reactions in some people.

I do not think any of these reasons justify excluding bodily senses from aesthetic

investigations. However, here my particular concern is the importance of attending to

these often neglected aspects of our aesthetic experience, not only for enriching our

aesthetic life but also for enhancing our moral sensibility. Specifically, I want to

illustrate how artifacts can embody, as well as elicit, care and thoughtfulness through its

sensuous surface that is sensitive to the multi-sensory and temporary dimensions of our

experiences. Japanese culture offers a plethora of such examples; so do an increasing

number of contemporary Western designs. Let me discuss some of those examples.

First, take perhaps the best-known traditional Japanese art medium, tea ceremony.

It is primarily understood by non-Japanese audience as the quintessential embodiment of

wabi aesthetics, that is, the aesthetics of minimalism and imperfection. What is often

neglected is that this art form is based upon the host’s utmost effort in pleasing and

entertaining the guest and the guest’s sensitive acknowledgement and grateful

appreciation of the host’s intent. The almost excessive fussiness involved in the host’s

preparation is neither for its own sake nor for expressing his creative imagination, but is

rather an expression of other-regarding considerations for the guest. Among numerous

choices and decisions made by the host is the care taken to provide comfort appropriate

i Victor Papanek, The Green Imperative: Natural Design for the Real World (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995), p. 104.

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for each season. A coal-fired open hearth is used during winter literally to provide

warmth, accompanied by a sense of warmth expressed by the sound of boiling water. In

the summer time, in contrast, the hearth is closed; instead, a water urn filled with hot

water prepared elsewhere is placed in the corner of the room to minimize additional heat.

Furthermore, the host may sprinkle water on the plants and rocks along the garden path

prior to the guest’s arrival to create a cool feeling. The tea bowl for a winter ceremony is

usually a thick pottery with straight side to keep the warmth of the tea, while a wide-

mouthed, thin pottery is favored during summer so that the heat of the tea inside

dissipates faster.

There is nothing unusual about an effort to provide comfort and satisfaction to a

guest. Many of us try to do so in our everyday life. The art of tea ceremony renders this

effort explicit through aesthetic decisions and choices made by imaginatively considering

what would provide the utmost comfort, pleasure, and entertainment to the guests. And

the aesthetic decisions made accordingly address a wide spectrum of the guest’s

experience: the temperature of the room and tea, the taste of the tea and snack, the smell

of the incense, and the tactile sensation of the tea bowl. The guest’s sense of comfort and

the feeling of delight have to be orchestrated by a finely-tuned multi-sensory experience.

Japanese food also prominently features this multi-sensory dimension, reflecting

the same other-regarding sensitivity in cooking and well-known picture-perfect

presentation. The smell involved in the eating experience comes not only from the food

itself but also from some containers, such as lacquerware, wooden vessel, or leaves used

for wrapping. The texture, as well as color and taste, of each ingredient is enhanced

through a cooking method that brings out its inherent qualities. For example, in nimono,

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a kind of vegetable stew, the crispness and vivid green color of pea pods are showcased

through a quick blanching in lightly salted water, while carrots are cut with no sharp

edges and cooked longer to avoid misshapen edges and provide easy chewability.

Additional tactile sensations come from holding and eating from a rice bowl and drinking

from a soup bowl or a teacup. In particular, a Japanese teacup is without any handles, so

we cradle it with our hands and feel the movement and temperature of its content. As for

sound, contrary to the Western taboo of making a sound while eating, slurping is not only

tolerated but sometimes expected, particularly as we drink tea at a tea ceremony or eat

noodle soup. The crunching sound of chewing pickles and some vegetables is an integral

part of the experience as well.

Japanese package design also facilitates multi-sensory engagement. In addition to

the obvious involvement of visual and tactile sensations, traditional Japanese packages

engage other senses, with sound being the only exception. Some packaging materials are

eatable, as in pickled cherry leaves wrapping pastry and seaweed wrapping rice, crackers,

sushi, and pickles. Even more prominent is the fragrance of various packaging materials.

Cedar box imparts its pungent smell to pickled seafood and pound cake, bamboo and

other leaves wrap sushi and pastry with their fresh fragrance, and the distinct scent of

lacquer container permeates the ingredients inside.

One of the numerous sensory delights we enjoy while walking through a Japanese

garden is the tactile sensation provided by stepping stones. Because of the uneven

placement of the stones and irregular shape and surface of each stone, we cannot but

attend to what we are stepping on. Even through our shoes and sandals we feel the

different texture of each stone, not to mention its contrast with the ubiquitous velvety

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moss surrounding it. The tactile sensation gained through our feet becomes even more

acute as we take our shoes off to enter a traditional Japanese architecture. We feel the

softness of tatami mats (woven straw), as well as the natural grain of raw wood used for

corridors and verandahs that have gained prominence with age and repeated use.

In addition to the sensitivity toward multi-sensory experiences, the Japanese

aesthetic tradition also displays attention to the temporal sequence of our experience.

While material objects, whether garden, food, or packaging, are spatial entities, our

experience of them necessarily takes time. Their spatial arrangements and compositions

affect, or sometimes determine, the sequential order in which our experience unfolds.

Some sequences, such as those accentuated by anticipation, surprise, or fulfillment of

expectation, are more likely to satisfy us by holding our attention and interest than other

sequences characterized by repetition and monotony. Designing a spatial arrangement

that is experientially satisfying requires not only a sophisticated aesthetic sensitivity and

skills but also the ability to imagine how the experience unfolds for the experiencing

agents. In other words, such a design process also engages the other-regarding

sensibility. Let’s take another look at Japanese garden design, food serving, and

packaging.

First, consider how the direction of visitors’ movements is determined by the

placement of stepping stones and bridges in Japanese gardens. Irregularly arranged

stepping stones in Japanese gardens control both the direction and the speed of our stroll,

providing changing vistas and varied paces. A similar effect is achieved by bridges, often

made with two planks or slates placed in a staggered manner, an application of the design

principle of suji kaete (changing the axis) specified in the eleventh century treatise on

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garden-making, Sakuteiki.ii This arrangement makes us pause in the middle and turn

slightly before continuing our crossing. If considered purely as a functional device to get

us from point A to point B fast, the design is not efficient. However, their placements

provide different angles and distances from which to experience different parts of the

garden, making our experience more engaging, enriching, and stimulating.

Furthermore, the strategy of miegakure, literally meaning “now you see it, now

you don’t,” sometimes also referred to as “Zen view” by Western designers,iii

intentionally blocks or partially obscures a scenic view or a tea hut by dense planting,

giving us only hints and glimpses. Anticipating an unobstructed view excites us and

invites us to proceed, and the final, usually sudden, opening of the full vista is quite

dramatic. A series of gates found in tea gardens as well as in temple or shrine

compounds also makes us become conscious of the unfolding layers of space, invoking a

sense of “unwrapping.”iv

Sensitivity to the temporal nature of our experience expressed by spatial

arrangement also characterizes Japanese food presentation. The meticulous spatial

arrangement of various ingredients in Japanese food presentation accentuates the

temporal sequence of eating experience by inviting us to pick up one morsel at a time

with chopsticks in a desired sequence. The decision regarding the order of eating also

involves several dishes. A typical Japanese meal consists of several dishes, including a

ii Written by an aristocrat, Tachibana-no-Toshitsuna. There is a recent English translation of this document included in Jirō Takei and Marc P. Keane, Sakuteiki: Visions of the Japanese Garden (Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2001).iii Donald A. Norman, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things (New York: Basic Books, 2004), pp. 109-10. He derives his discussion of “Zen view” from Christopher Alexander, et al’s A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 642-3.iv Joy Hendry interprets various Japanese objects and practices as expression of wrapping/unwrapping. See her Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and Power in Japan and Other Societies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

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bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, a pickle plate, and two or three other plates of vegetables,

fish, and meat, all served at once. Sometimes in a resort hotel or an upscale Japanese

restaurant, dinner is served on one, sometimes two, individual tray table(s), holding so

many dishes that we stare at them for a moment before deciding with which plate of food

we begin our feast. Even when there is one container holding everything, as in a lunch

box, the Japanese version of “fast food,” so many ingredients are packed in with

thoughtful arrangement that we also take time to survey the entire box before deciding on

the order of eating.

The activity of eating here, therefore, is not just a matter of consumption, but also

of making aesthetic choices concerning the best order for savoring each ingredient. In

this case, the sensibility of the cook is reflected in the careful spatial arrangement, which

sets the stage for us to compose our own gustatory symphony. Such an aesthetic

experience will not be possible if the food were haphazardly mixed and heaped onto a

plate, or, paradoxically, if each dish were served in a Western “linear” manner.

In addition to providing multi-sensory experiences, Japanese packaging also

highlights the temporal sequence of the recipient’s experience by inviting us to take care

and time in unwrapping it. Sometimes the maneuver needed for opening the package is

simple; however, it is often complicated requiring several steps. Sometimes a gift is

wrapped in furoshiki, the traditional square-shaped carrying cloth, so we first untie its

corners to reveal a packaged box. To get at the candies inside, we then unwrap the paper,

open the box, and untwist the thin paper wrapping individual candies. A fine piece of

pottery is first wrapped in a cloth, then placed in a wooden box with the potter’s signature

in calligraphy on the lid, which is then tied by a cloth cord, requiring at least three steps

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for opening. Finally, when opening a ceremonial envelope containing gift money, we

first remove the ornamental paper cord and then carefully open the envelope made with a

distinctive fold, only to find another piece of paper that needs to be unfolded. One

commentator characterizes these “layers of wrapping” as “a way of expressing care for

the object inside, and therefore care for the recipient of the object.”v

My point in enumerating these examples of Japanese design sensitive to multi-

sensory and temporal aspect of experience is not simply to show “the more the merrier,”

that is, the more senses and dimensions are engaged, the more enriching and rewarding

the overall aesthetic experience is. A deeper lesson I want to derive is the design practice

that attends carefully and responds sensitively to the way in which we as sensuous

creatures experience the world in a temporal sequence and through all of our senses.

Such a design is fully respectful of us for who we really are: body and mind.vi

The problematic consequences of design without consideration, sensitivity, or

respect regarding people’s sensory experience are most apparent in built environment.

As one contemporary Western critic points out, ours is a culture dominated by “visual

information” which tends “to make sight dominant over the other sensory inputs to ears

and nose,” rendering “modern architecture…a reflection of this limited palette of

senses.”vii This over-reliance on visual experience tends to make us detached from the

environment, alienating us from the space with which we should be fully engaged.

Himself an architect, Juhani Pallasmaa complains that “our detachment from experiential

and sensory reality maroons us in theoretical, intellectual, and conceptual realms.”viii

v Hendry, op. cit., p. 63, emphasis added.vi It is interesting to note that when “mind” and “body” are paired as a phrase in English, “mind” precedes “body,” while the Japanese phrase is in reverse order.vii David Pearson, “Making Sense of Architecture,” Architectural Review (1136: 1991), p. 68.viii Juhani Pallasmaa, “Toward an Architecture of Humility,” Harvard Design Magazine (Winter/Spring 1999), p. 24.

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Papanek, quoting a Zen adept’s teaching to “think with the whole body,” also reminds us

that our understanding of the world is facilitated by five senses, kinaesthesia, thermal

receptors, haptic muscular sensitivity, intuition and that “it is in the interaction of all our

senses that we can begin to really … experience.”ix

These critics also take recent designs to task for exuding the qualities of

“arrogance,” “narcissism,” “impudence,” “formal authority,” and “showiness.”x

Pallasmaa criticizes the contemporary architectural profession for encouraging “ego

trips” and the super-stardom of individual “geniuses” whose creations are for the sake of

self-aggrandizement, alienating the users and inhabitants.xi Similarly, Papanek observes

that designers and architects tend to think of themselves as artists whose mission is to

make artistic “statements.” As a result, he states that “a good deal of design and

architecture seems to be created for the personal glory of its creator.”xii There is a fear

among designers that responding to people’s physical, psychological, social, and

aesthetic needs would compromise their artistic creativity and imagination. However,

this fear is unfounded because, I believe, true creativity in design, unlike in fine arts,

comes from solving a problem and working within certain parameters.

In contrast to such insensitive design practice, these critics offer an alternative

model of design process that reflects other-regarding attitudes, such as “courtesy,”

“thoughtfulness,” “responsiveness,” “humility,” “patience,” and “care.” These qualities

are embodied in an appropriate size for human scale, spatial arrangement sensitive to the

bodily-oriented experience as well as its temporal sequence, or design features that are

ix Papanek, op. cit., p. 76. The next citation is from p. 104.x These terms are culled from Pallasmaa, op. cit., Papanek, op. cit., and Sim Van Der Ryn and Stuart Cowan, Ecological Design (Washington, D. C.: Island Press, 1996).xi Pallasmaa, op. cit.xii Papanek, op. cit., p. 203.

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simply delightful to the senses. Resultant design not only provides a richer aesthetic

experience, but also leads to pragmatically serious consequences, such as healthy

environment. The degree of healthfulness is gauged by the way in which our senses are

affected. For example, consider some recent “green” buildings that utilize the benefits of

sustainable materials, sunlight, fresh air, breeze, rain water, and vegetation. Such a

building “honors” the senses, one critic points out, and it is “comfortable, humanising and

supportive,” “healthy and healing,” “caring for the environment,” “nourishing to the

human being”; in short, it is where we feel “at home.”xiii

In addition, this wake-up call to our multi-sensory experience is also important for

inducing sheer delight – smelling the fresh air and feeling breeze, hearing the rustling

sound of water, splashing water and feeling its coolness. The NMB Bank building in

Amsterdam is often praised as a model of green building that is sensitive not only to the

environment but also to the workers’ experience. Among many of its unique features

embodying such sensitivity is the running water that flows in the groove of its stairway

rail. It not only provides humidity and soothing white sound for the workers but also is

said to be a source of fun and delight as workers play with it as they go up and down the

stairs.xiv Such a structure that respects and responds to environment and its users and

dwellers, according to green building advocates, “celebrates a range of cultural and

natural pleasures – sun, light, air, nature, even food -- in order to enhance the lives of the

people who work there.”xv A delightful experience facilitated by a particular design is not

xiii Pearson, op. cit., p. 70.xiv See Pearson, op. cit., p. 69 and Dorothy Mackenzie’s Green Design: Design for the Environment (London: Lawrence King, 1997), pp. 56-9 for visual images and descriptions.xv William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle: Rethinking the Way We Make Things (New York: North Point Press, 2002), p. 9, emphasis added.

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simply an extra amenity; it communicates the attitude of care and thoughtfulness toward

the users.

One might object that the feeling of comfort or delight is outside the realm of

aesthetics, more like the purely bodily sensation of a full stomach or the restful feeling

after a good nap. However, I contend that the feeling of comfort or delight does belong

to the aesthetic realm insofar as it is a response to the sensuous qualities of the objects

and environments. Granted the feeling is body-centered, generally with little intellectual

deliberation. It is certainly not on the same sophisticated and lofty level as our usual

experience of art, which dominates aesthetic discourse. This does not mean, however,

that the bodily-oriented aesthetic experience is insignificant or unimportant. Instead,

these experiences are extremely important as they are a barometer for our well-being,

determining the quality of life.

The aesthetic value of designed objects and built environments that respond to our

multi-sensory and sequential experiences, therefore, ultimately has a moral implication.

If a building appears to be put together thoughtlessly and carelessly, one commentator

states, it “would offend us aesthetically, but, more than that, part of our offense might be

ethical. Thus we might reasonably be angered or outraged… by the visible evidence that

the person who designed it didn’t show sufficient care about the aesthetic impact of his

building.”xvi In contrast, he continues, a thoughtful design reflective of care “is to exhibit

not just an aesthetic but also a moral concern. Or rather, it is to exhibit an aesthetic

attentiveness which is itself moral.”

xvi Nigel Taylor, “Ethical Arguments about the Aesthetics of Architecture,” included in Ethics and Built Environment, ed. Warwick fox (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 201-2. The next passage is from p. 205.

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We should note that this other-regarding design practice encourages a

corresponding sensibility of gratefulness in the experiencing agent. For example, a recent

writing on the etiquette of eating a Japanese meal first establishes that “the most

important rule is to be grateful for the cook’s thoughtfulness and consideration… and to

humbly acknowledge the cook’s sincere heart while savoring the food… Failure to do so

would not only diminish the taste but also ignore the thoughtfulness of the host.”xvii Of

course, “thanks-giving” for food is hardly unique to Japanese culture, but in Japan this

“thanks-giving” is directed not simply toward the nourishment but also the aesthetic

experience provided by the prepared food. Similarly, the care embodied in Japanese

packaging encourages a reciprocal care in opening them. A person who rips apart a

beautifully wrapped gift or gobbles up a Japanese lunch-box meal without savoring each

ingredient is considered not only deficient in aesthetic sense and manner but also lacking

in moral sensibility. In this sense, thoughtful design functions as a vehicle of

communication, as well as a cultivator, of moral virtues.

The aesthetic considerations in our lives are thus never mere dispensable luxuries,

what Yrjö Sepänmaa calls “high cultural icing.”xviii Neither are they confined to works of

fine arts that tend to encourage or facilitate our disengagement from everyday life.

Rather, sensitively designed objects and humane environments constitute what Sepänmaa

calls “aesthetic welfare,”xix a necessary ingredient of a good society. In addition to

guaranteed rights, freedom, equality, and social welfare, a good society must also provide

an experientially-verifiable indication that people’s needs and experiences are taken

xvii Shiotsuki Yaeko, Washoku no Itadaki kata: Oishiku, Tanoshiku, Utsukushiku (How to Eat Japanese Meals: Deliciously, Enjoyably, and Beautifully) (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1989), p. 12. The awkward, but literal, translation of the title is mine.xviii Yrjö Sepänmaa, “Aesthetics in Practice: Prolegomenon,” included in Practical Aesthetics in Practice and in Theory, ed. Martti Honkanen (Helsinki: University of Helsinki, 1995), p. 15.xix Sepänmaa, op. cit., p. 15.

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seriously and responded to. We should be able to experience and appreciate the care,

respect, sensitivity, and consideration shown to us through the sensuous qualities of the

built structures and artifacts with which we interact daily. Being able to enjoy the ease,

comfort, and aesthetic pleasure they provide induces a sense of appreciation and

belonging. In turn, it encourages us to adopt the same attitude toward others.

Thus, concern for the aesthetic in our everyday life has a close connection to the

moral dimension of our lives. There is no question that we need to cultivate respect, care,

sensitivity, and thoughtfulness through our direct interactions with others. However,

what is often unnoticed is that we can also nurture these virtues through aesthetic means.

I tried to illustrate how awakening our senses can and should be a part of such practice.

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