Book Review 27/8/2014

Book: The Hidden Dimension

Author: Edward T. Hall

1. Culture as communication

The chapter explains how culture acts as a determinant factor affecting the perception and
communication amongst humans. It’s in a way analogous to what psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan says about the symbolic order and how Christian Noberg- Schulz explains
schematization in his work Genius Loci: Towards a phenomenology of architecture.
Anthropologists like Leonard Bloomfield and Edward Sapir laid the foundations of thought that
language and culture form the basis of our way of thinking, formation of our thoughts and
also the perception of things.

He has showed through examples that the experiences of people vary with different cultures
and languages. In fact they inhibit different sensory worlds. The sensory data fed in the mind
differs with different culture and languages. For example, Americans and Arabs live in different
sensory worlds. Arabs make more use of senses of olfaction and touch than Americans, and
the interpretation of data and its combination also occurs in different ways.

2. Distance regulation in animals

This significance of culture is that it moulds the thought processes of man. In, this light, man
has created a new dimension, called the cultural dimension, of which Proxemics is only a
part. Proxemics is study of spatial distances between individuals of different culture and
communication. Comparative study of animals show how mans space requirements are
influenced by his environments. Here, the author shows the types of distances (both tangible
and intangible) differs and also their significance.

Talking about territoriality in animals, he says that it’s the most significant concept for the
study of animal psychology that is described by H. Hediger and Zurich, well known animal
psychologists. It bounds and impacts all the life processes in animals. Similarly, others such
distances talked about are flight distance, critical distance, distance in contact and non
contact species, personal distance and social distance.

3. Crowding and Social behavior in animals

This chapter talks about the life processes of animals and the significance of the culture with
them. Ethologist John Calhoun showed I his experiments that even if by taking the example of

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rats, that even if they are freely allowed to mate, their population stabilized at 150 rats at a
time in a quarter acre open land. Also, he showed that they formed territories with maximum
number of 12 rats in territory.

He uses the term ‘behavioral sink’ to show disruptions in life processes like nest building,
courting, sexual behavior, reproduction and social organization. When the rats are allowed to
inhabit at a place, they fight aggressively unless they form groups and also social hierarchy
and organizations in form of territories.

4. Perception of space: Distance receptors-Eyes, Ears, Nose

This chapter shows the role of the senses in the perception of space. Though we can’t
segregate the definite roles of senses in perception and day to day life experiences, we can
identify then as the carrier of information to the brain. The author says that the most
significant sense is vision. He describes the hegemony of vision as the sense in human
beings.

He also shows the significance of the auditory and olfactory senses by giving an example of
urban public spaces. He says that the urban public spaces are devoid or any peculiar smell
odor or fragrance. This leads to the blandness of public spaces. People are devoid of a rich
experience that can get captured in our memory. The role of olfactory sense in memory is
far greater than that of the vision.

5. Perception of space: Immediate receptors-skin and muscles

The author describes the role of skin- muscles in perception of space, also known a
kinesthetic experience, by giving an example of the old Imperial Hotel in Tokyo designed by
F.L.Wright. Walking down the hall from the upper floors in a spiral staircase, a person is
compelled to move his finger in the plastered groove of two roughly textured brick. This
shows how the richness of experience can be generated by the sensitive use of texture and
materials and gives the user a feeling that he is in a totally different world.

Talking more about the kinesthetic experience, he says that the Japanese were the masters
of generating this experience in the Japanese gardens. They designed it in such a way that
the visual experience was fused with the kinetic experience and every muscle of the body of
awakened during the experience.

6. Visual space

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Here, the author shows that vision as a sense should not be ignored just a device used to
gather information. Vision is a sense that can communicate intangible things like feeling and
mood. It helps us to learn by synthesizing experiences. We learn something by seeing, and
then that learning influences the next time we see something similar.

This chapter is different from Chapter 4 as it talks about how the visual sense is exploited
and how it is undermined. The exploitation of visual sense is explicitly explained by
architectural theorist Juhani Pallasmaa in his work The Embodied Image. The consumerist
culture is subconsciously determining the way we use our visual sense. It’s exploited as we all
are continuously bombarded by innumerous images in our daily lives through internet,
television and computers. It undermines the true capacity of the visual sense. Eyes are
capable of identifying emotions and even communicating the same. Eyes can converse what
words cannot. This understanding can be extended for all the sense. But the world we inhibit
today is slowly undermining all this aspects.

7. Art as a clue to perception

By giving the example of portraiture as an art, the author shows that the key to perception
of what we see lies in manipulation, and exaggeration of reality and in details. Every artist
has his style of exaggerating the reality by various ways like the use of color. By changing
the reality, he manipulates the way in which the observer perceives the art work. And by
details, he means that there are some details that are intentionally focused on and some are
dulled down.

There is a process in which the observer goes on step by step looking at the art work. By
this ways, the artist induces a process in which the observer is compelled to look at the art
work. And the way in which he looks at it, will be the key to his perception.

Art always aims to communicate something. This something differs for every artist and in
every art and is reflected in the style of every artist. Comparing the styles of 2 master artists
Vincent Van Gogh and Salvador Dali, Van Gogh’s works are an example of showing the details
in reality while Dali’s works try to bridge the gap between fantasy and reality. Hence, each
artist consciously manipulates the real into what they wish to communicate. This becomes to
the key to communicate in art.

8. The language of space

He portrays the significance of literature and linguistics and their influence on culture and the
combined influence on the perception. Franz Boas, the famous anthropologist showed this
by lexical analysis (understand the same material things in different culture). For example, for

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the Americans, the vocabulary for snow is limited just to 2 terms i.e. snow and slush, while
there are a large number of terms used by the Eskimos for the description of the same
thing. This is because the culture and life world of both the communities differ and similarly
would be the case with their understanding and perception.

Another example given by Benjamin Lee Whorf, who spent years to study Hopi, the language
of the Indians who live on the northern Arizona desert mesas, say that for them there was
no word equivalent to the word ‘time’ in English because for them, space and time was
understood as a fusion and indivisible whole. Even, the Hopis can’t imagine space as we can
do like the heaven and hell. There was no existence of abstraction or fantasy in their
thoughts. It was completely missing. This is how language and culture moulds our perception
and understanding of space.

9. The anthropology of space: an organizing model

The space is explained by the author here in 3 different layers. First being the fixed-feature
space. This space is the space that we create as an extension of our daily activities in terms
of built form. This space inhabits our daily activities and the way we move on earth. This can
be compared to the primitive and existential space that Edward Relph talks about in his work
Place and Placelessness.

The second space is semi-fixed feature space. This space can be understood as the
arrangement of semi fixed feature (furniture) in a fixed feature space and how it determines
our behavior. He gives the example of Humphary Osmond, a psychiatric physician. Osmond
suggested that there a 2 kinds of spaces. One is the socio-fugal, that which tend to keep
people apart like the railway waiting rooms and other is socio-petal, which tend to bring
people closer, like the sidewalks of the road or the old fashioned drug store. His hospital was
filled with sociofugal spaces and with a few socio petal spaces.

The newly built female geriatrics ward had a new, shiny touch, had enough space and
cheerful colors. But he observed that the more people stayed there, the less they conversed
with each other. They slowly became like furniture that was attached to walls. He conducted
an experiment in order to know the cause. The author here tries to reflect that the
arrangement of the semi fixed features in a space can have a profound impact on the user’s
behavior. The organisation and its pattern and the order determine the way people respond
to it and to each other to the extent that its measurable.

10. Distances in man

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As the title suggests, man has distances in his behavior like animals. The author suggests
that these distances in man vary with the intensity of voice and loudness. He whispers when
he shares intimate distance with another person and he shouts when he is at a large
distance from another person. He also suggests that distances in man are not just physical.
We often say that somebody is close to us. It indirectly means that others are far from the
one who is close. Another type of distance he suggests is that a large noise or sudden
darkness will bring closer together. This distance arises out of insecurity to mankind in
general. There are countless distances that can be studied based on the human behavior.
The author classifies the distances in major 4 classes

Intimate distance: body of two beings are in physical contact and the warmth of the body
can be felt and the breathe can be sensed like in the cases of making love, wrestling,
protecting and comforting.

Personal distance: the distance that we maintain with while conversing with others within
which we feel uncomfortable if somebody enters it.

Social distance: distance between 2 persons talking in adjacent cabinets can be called a
social distance where the voice is very slightly raised to generate awareness.

Public distance: distance between persons conversing from different terraces is called a public
distance.

(These are my examples reflecting the understanding of the author’s perspective)

11. Distances in cross cultural context: Germans, French and the English

Here, the author describes how the earlier mentioned distances in man form different
cultures, differ and accordingly, their behavior too. Talking about the Americans, he says that
they have courtesy to grant privacy. Meaning that, if 2 people are talking and the third one is
listening, he’ll pretend as if he isn’t listening. While in case of Germans, this is quite formal in
nature. They’ll consider it as an intrusion if a third person walks in the distance of 7 feet.
English are more of the American types. They are taught sharing while they are born and
brought up. Even in government offices, they share the working space without any enclosure
offering them privacy. While the French are very sensitive for their feelings and experiences.
All the products that they use are specifically designed to meet their need. They have higher
level of sensory involvements.

12. Distances in cross cultural context: Japan and the Arab World

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The Japanese have the centre as an important element in their spatial configuration. He says
that Japanese are the ones who don’t like to remain alone. There is no direct translation for
the word ’privacy’ in Japanese language. Unlike the Westerns’, who consider space as
something that is empty, the Japanese have given meanings to space. They have ma as a
hidden element in their layout, planning and design which means interval. Japanese have
spaces which lead you to a point, while the Westerns’ have spaces which revolve around a
point.

Talking about the Arabs, they have large spaces in their homes. If an American lives in a
home on an Arab, he will feel that the place is just too much large. They like spaces that
have unobstructed view. Their ceilings are more heighted than usual. They don’t like the
feeling of being enclosed in four walls. They are sensitive toward olfaction and love to smell
and breathe on somebody and to an extent where they select their brides and grooms on
the basis of how their body smells.

13. Cities and Cultures

Due to urbanization, lots and lots of people are migrating from one places to another. Now
keeping in mind they all are from different culture, this unending undefined migration is
creating a series of behavioral sinks owing it to the difference in cultures. The author
suggests that urbanization being an unpredictable phenomenon, certain things are just loosing
meaning in today’s time, for example the quality of life. He suggests that experts like
psychologist, anthropologists, ethnologist etc. must be involved in planning for a city. Various
problems pertaining to city planning and culture, like the automobile syndrome are explained
in depth in this chapter, also showing throwing some light on future of the city planning.

14. Proxemics and the future of man

This chapter is like a summarization and conclusion of this book. It suggests that everything
that man is and does, is associated with the experience of space. Man’s sense of space is
synthesis of various sensory inputs..Each of this constitutes a very complex system, for
example, there are various ways of looking at the same thing. But each of the way is molded
by different culture. And as mentioned earlier, each one has a different sensory world which
is again molded by the culture and the understanding

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Summary

The most important feature of this book is that it serves a vast range of audiences like
anthropologists, ethnographers, architects, psychologists, linguists and philosophers. As a
student of architecture, this book is extremely helpful as it opens various perspective of
looking at architecture and associated subjects. It helps in sensitizing the understanding about
humans and its significance in architectural domain that is currently neglected. It helps in
clearing the preconceived notion of architecture that many students would be fancily
fascinated with.

There is no single theme that the book tends to reflect. However if we try to analyze it, we
can conclude that it revolves around Proxemics and overlapping subjects and issues. It also
helps in giving a broader sense of the significance of art, culture, linguistics, senses,
perception, notion of space and how these rotate around Proxemics.. It broadly explains what
can be classified into human sciences.

Starting from culture, the author delves into what he means by the hidden dimension of the
aspects like art, language, senses, space, perception and broadly explaining the distances in
man by comparing people of different cultures and how these distance originate, and govern
human behavior at any time. By the hidden dimension, he tries to say that what is often not
spoken is taken for granted. He extracts out all this taken for granted notions about art,
culture, language, perception, senses and breaks them by explaining them extensively. It
successfully opens up new and varied perspective of looking at previously ignored or
unnoticed things.

Finally, he ends up criticizing the technology and widespread acceptance of the technocratic
world. Technology is a lends us short lived pleasures but it horrifyingly and un/sub
consciously changes the way we live, exist and the hence is ending up losing the very
essence of being human.

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 Book Review 27/8/2014

Glossary

Anthropology: The social science that studies the origins and social relationships of human
beings.

Proxemics: The study of distances between individuals in different culture and individuals.

Behavioral sink: The collapse in behavior resulted due to overcrowding.

Territoriality: The word associated with non verbal communication of ownership and
possession.

Kinesthesia: The perception relating to body position, movement, balance and muscle and
bone awareness

Linguistics: The humanistic study of literature and scientific study of language.

Lexical analysis: The understanding of same material thing in different cultures. For example,
people dwelling in snow, i.e. the Eskimos understand snow as a concrete part of their
Lifeworld while Americans understand is as an event or occasion.

Automobile syndrome: The extensive use of automobiles for movement causes no or

unpleasant places for walking. It discourages walking, diminishes the kinesthetic sense,
disengages man from the surrounding environment (in case of cars) and permits limited
interaction.

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 Book Review 27/8/2014

I P School of Architecture - Rajkot Smit Patel 2409