ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how new understandings in neuroscience and biology, known as the twenty-first-century paradigm shift, reframe psychology as well as the history of modern architecture. Paradigm shifts mark an inflection point; they make previously unimaginable ways of thinking feasible. Occurring across disciplines, they rewrite narratives about who we are and how we came to be, transforming how we study and think about ourselves including, and as this chapter reveals, the history of modern architecture itself. Twenty-first-century understanding that ‘reality’ is a construct between the eye and brain underlies the new realization that key ‘founding fathers’ of the post-WWI, ‘modern’ building approach had brain disorders, primarily PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The chapter elaborates on how traumatic experience rewires the brain, subliminally impacting subsequent behavior, and why, for instance, ‘founding father’ Walter Gropius’ work can be described as a direct external expression of the trauma of WWI-trench warfare. The twenty-first-century paradigm shift also gives us a remarkable opportunity to create a new, healthier foundation for design, one where normal human perception is acknowledged and respected and provides the parameters for practice. It lets neuroscience, and essentially, our evolution, establish the metrics for how we build.
