PHENOMENOLOGICAL AND AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN A SUBURBAN VILLA OF THE EIGHTEEN CENTURY - QUINTA DAS ÁGUIAS, IN LISBON

Abstract

On Suburban Villa, architectural and spatial universe of great complexity and rationality (functional, geometric and symbolic), we find, in their relationship with nature and artistic imaginary with which it is designed, a rich array of sensory and visual experiences only possible to understand in all its dimensions, if we associate different fields of knowledge, here chosen 'Architecture' and 'Phenomenology'. When apprehends architecture, the observer assumes an active position that permits the dynamic achieve of its formal and spatial characteristic. This type of perceptive experience is determined by the architectonic object and by the suggestions that it causes on its beneficiary. This interaction made from the architecture apprehension is an imaginative experience that has necessarily a strong subjectivity dimension and can even reflect a conception of its object totally different from the common, instinctive, perception. The ‘Phenomenology of Architecture’ can be understood through the conscious apprehension of the observer, when he recognizes and experiments its space. In contrast with a simple physical analysis of the building, he identifies its proportions or stylistic properties that can be directly associated to the architectonic space.