ABSTRACT
There is a wide range of conceptual and methodological approaches for researchers to study buildings and other architectural works (Gifford, 2016; Groat and Wang, 2013; Seamon and Gill, 2016; Zeisel, 2006). In this chapter, I suggest ways whereby the related philosophical traditions of phenomenology and hermeneutics might examine Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Central Library. On the one hand, phenomenology works to understand phenomena – i.e., any experience, thing, action, event, or situation that a human being can experience.1 On the other hand, hermeneutics works to understand texts – i.e., artefactual expressions like novels, poems, art works, photographs, buildings, historical documents, and so forth.2 For phenomenology, the aim is a more accurate, comprehensive knowledge of human experience; for hermeneutics, the aim is a more accurate, comprehensive knowledge of human meaning.
