ABSTRACT
PHENOMENOLOGY Phenomenology may be defined as the study of how phenomena appear. However, this is not limited to the visual domain. Phenomenology demands a receptivity to the full ontological potential of human experience. It therefore calls for a heightened receptivity of all the senses. Nor should this be perceived as some shallow, superficial level of reception. Phenomenology, as it was developed by Heidegger and Gadamer, necessarily entails a deeper, interpretative dimension in the form of hermeneutics. To engage with architecture involves an openness not only to the realm of the sensory, but also to the potential revelation of some truth. Hermeneutics allows for the reception and understanding of that truth. The nature of this revelation varies from thinker to thinker. For Heidegger and Gadamer the work of art ‘represents’ some form of symbolic truth, while for Lefebvre the process takes on an overtly political twist. Within the lived experience Lefebvre claims that there are ‘moments’ which reveal the emancipatory capacity of potential situations.
