Utopias of the Body in Architectural Space

This chapter traces the emergence of an ideal in architecture based on the senses and movements of the human body. This conception, symptomatic of a new series of relations between the body and technology, also takes place within the modern history of a discourse concerning the body in architectural space. Its utopian and idealist implications are explored in the works of Le Corbusier, Manfredo Tafuri, Juhani Pallasmaa, and Peter Zumthor; the design firm Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Riuye Nichizawa); and the partnership of Madeline Gins and Shusaku Arakawa. The latter’s quixotic notion of “reversible destiny,” according to which a new form of architecture could allow us to live forever, is the most radical vision of “the world constructed as a strategically designed environment for the benefit of the body.”