A Conversation About Architecture and Neuroscience, between architect Juhani Pallasmaa and neuroscientist Selma Tir
BIOGRAPHY
Juhani Pallasmaa
Juhani Pallasmaa (b. 1936 in Hämeenlinna, Finland), is an architect by academic training, but the scope of his activities is quite wide: architecture and urban planning; exhibition, furniture, product and graphic design; and artistic works.
His major design projects include numerous one-family houses 1961-90; the Moduli 225 Industrial Summer House System (in collaboration with Kristian Gullichsen 1968-73; the Antilope Banking Block in Helsinki Center 1988-93; Rovaniemi Art Museum, Rovaniemi 1984-86; Finland Institute, Paris 1986-91; Arrival Plaza, Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 1994; Sámi Lapp Museum, Inari 1990-98; Kamppi Center, Helsinki 2001-2006, and Korundi Music Hall, Rovaniemi 2011. He closed the design activities of his office in 2011 and devoted his time to writing and teaching.
He has held a number of administrative and teaching tasks: Rector of the Institute of Design, Helsinki 1970-71; Associate Professor, Haile Sellassie I University, Addis Abeba 1972-74; Director of the Museum of Finnish Architecture 1978-83; State Artist Professor 1983-88; Professor and Dean of Architecture Faculty, Helsinki University of Technology (currently Aalto University) 1990-95. He has also held several visiting professorships in the USA: Yale University, spring term 1996; Washington University in St Louis 1999-2004; University of Virginia, spring term 1992; The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, fall term 2011; and the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, fall term 2000.
Pallasmaa's literary production includes 70 books and 850 published essays, articles and prefaces. His best known publications include: The Language of Wood, 1987; The Eyes of the Skin: architecture and the senses 1996; The Thinking Hand: existential and embodied wisdom in architecture 2009; The Embodied Image: imagination and imagery in architecture 2011; The Architecture of Image: existential space in cinema 2001; Animal Architecture 1995, Encounters 1: Juhani Pallasmaa, Architectural Essays 2012, Encounters 2: Juhani Pallasmaa, Architectural Essays 2012; Understanding Architecture (in collaboration with Robert Mc Carter) 2012; Inseminations: seeds for architectural though (in collaboration with Matteo Zambelli) 2021. His books and writings have been published in 37 languages.
His early writings are mostly critiques of modern and contemporary architecture. Later his interest turned to the arts in general, and experience, perception and the role of the senses, embodiment and existential sense. He has a special interest in unfocused and peripheral perception, uncertainty and unconscious mental processes. The philosophical framing of his later writings could be identified as phenomenology. As he has not studied philosophy academically, Pallasmaa has paraphrased a statement of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa: "I am not a philosopher with literary interest, I am a poet interested in philosophy", with the declaration, "I am not a philosopher with architectural interests, I am an architect interested in philosophy".
Pallasmaa has received six Honorary Doctorates: University of Industrial Arts, Helsinki, 1993; Helsinki University of Technology, 1998; Estonian Academy of Arts, 2004; Washington University in St. Louis, 2013; The Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest, 2014; Gdansk Art Academy, 2021.
He has participated in the juries of numerous Finnish and international juries. In 2008-2014 he was member of the Pritzker Prize Jury, in 2020 and 2022 he was a member of The Daylight Award jury, and in 2024 he was the jury chair.
Selma Tir
Selma Tir is a fourth year DPhil Candidate in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford. She is part of the Circadian and Visual Neuroscience group, and is supervised by Professor Stuart Peirson and Professor Russell Foster. Her doctoral research investigates the mechanisms mediating circadian disruption by the modern light environment.
Selma received a B.A. degree in Neuroscience and Mathematics from Smith College, USA, in 2016. During her time at Smith, she worked with Professor Mary Harrington on the development of a new technique to measure circadian gene expression in behaving animals using in vivo tracking of bioluminescent markers. Her honours thesis employed this method to further explore the effects of dim light in the evening on circadian rhythms and behaviour.
Selma Tir has been part of The Daylight Award Community from the launch in 2022 and also , participating in the workshop held at the Window Museum at the begining of 2023.
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