Architectural Amnesia and Architectural Smell

- taken from an article of the same name by Sheryl Boyle & Marco Frascari in AI Architecture & Ideas 2009, v.9, p.36-47

Smell is our most primary sense. However, smell has never achieved the status of architectural objects - perception led by vision has led to the formal, object-based understanding of architecture to flourish while muting the participation of our other senses.

Anosmia - lack of the ability to smell - dominates current architectural theory.
If the essence of architecture is intimately linked with materiality, then it's necessary to re-discover the power of architectural perfumes and odours - the aura of buildings.

NB ' Aura' - from the Latin 'breeze, wind, air' or Greek, 'breath, breeze' - in this context is a sense of invisible clouds of smells and aromas used to indicate the distinctive but intangible quality surrounding a person or thing.

People recollect odours spontaneously and involuntarily. In architecture with prominent scents, the residents become part of their building - surrounding them. Whether pleasant or not, odour functions in terms of a powerful point in time (kairos) of the space that surrounds us.

Architectural amnesia in this article refers to the loss of the olfactory dimension of architecture; but also a progressive form of loss in education in the teaching of the importance of sensory attributes other than visual. This can be seen via techniques of representation.

Traditional architecture embraced smell as a participant in the depth of the architecture. Buildings were a sanctuary of scent - stone, incense, flowers - a reprieve from the city thick with odours in the 18th and 19th centuries.

However, the reverse is true today where the city has worked to become odour and smoke-free while buildings have become a repository for noxious fumes - new buildings with volatile organic compounds (VOC, from carpet, paints, adhesives, furniture, vinyl) used to be left for 1-2 weeks to complete its off-gassing before being considered safe to move into. While levels of VOC are now monitored and reduced, the resulting goal of odour-free architecture is obvious. If there is a smell, it must be bad which leads to architecture that is sterile and 'clean'. Modern judgement of what materials are appropriate seems to have eliminated all smells from buildings. Glass, aluminium and steel don't release enough particles in the air at room temperature for us to detect any noticeable smell.

Buildings which do have an aroma reveal their materiality:

• cedar is often used to line cupboards and wardrobes as the scent, along with being a fresh sweet resiny smell, is also a natural insect repellent
• In the Imperial summer palace of the Manchu emperors, the cedar beams and panelling were left un-lacquered and unpainted so the fragrance of the wood could be detected
• floors of Medieval castles were strewn with rushes, lavender and thyme which were thought to prevent typhoid
• During the Han Dynasty, Chinese imperial concubines were housed in buildings with mud walls that were infused with Sichuan pepper during construction - the pepper is highly fragrant and also a symbol of fertility (still used during wedding ceremonies)
• Builders of Islamic mosques used to mix rose water and musk into the mortar - the sun would warm the stone and bring out the perfume to create an olfactory experience and adding an extra dimension to the flat walls.

Traditional representations of odours and perfumes are weaving lines of variable thickness suggesting a movement from the source to the nose. NB. see also the cartoonist Charles Schulz' representation of Pigpen. However, if these methods are used in architecture, it's seen as illustration rather than an architectural drawing...