The Hand that Draws the Future - Part 4 of 10

The Thinking Hand and the Brain of an Architect

In 2009, renowned Finnish architect and thinker, Juhani Pallasmaa, authored a fascinating exploration into the nature of the haptic connection between the hand and the creative mind. He called it: The Thinking Hand – Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. He explores the uniqueness, importance and autonomy of the hand in all areas of life, especially in art and design.

“The pencil in the architect’s hand is a bridge between the imagining mind and the image that appears on the sheet of paper; in the ecstasy of work, the draughtsman forgets both his hand and the pencil, and the image emerges as if it were an automatic projection of the imagining mind.”

Pallasmaa continues: “We regard our hand as a commonplace and self-evident member of the body, but in fact it is a prodigious precision instrument that seems to have its own understanding, will and desires.”

The idea that the drawing hand has a will and desire of its own is poignantly illustrated by a quote from Andre Wogenscky, assistant, associate and friend to Le Corbusier for three decades, from his book “Le Corbusier’s Hands”

“Then I would let my eyes go from his face down to his hands. I would then discover Le Corbusier. It was his hands that revealed him. It was as if his hands betrayed him. They spoke all his feelings, all the vibrations of his inner life that his face tried to conceal…Hands that seemed to hesitate but from which precision came. Hands that always thought, just like he did in his thinking, and on his hands one could read his anxiety, his disappointments, his emotions and his hopes.“

Harry Francis Mallgrave explores this very phenomenon in his book The Architect’s Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity and Architecture. He describes the construct of our brains, the various lobes, cortices, regions, gyri, the two hemispheres, the limbic system and brainstem.

The human brain consists of 100 billion neurons, each neuron consisting of an axon (looks like a tree trunk with roots), a nucleus (the knobby mass at the top of the trunk) and dendrites (which look like branches). Neural connections are made between the roots of one neuron and the dendrites of another. At any given time, 200 million neural connections, or synapses, are made.

When synapses occur between neurons, they tend to wire together to create neural loops or maps that oscillate in synchronous rhythms in different regions of the brain. When measured using EEG or fMRI technology, the frequencies of these rhythms can tell us how active or inactive specific regions of the brain are in response to external stimuli, such as typing, writing and drawing.

Every brain is comprised of two connected hemispheres mounted on a brain stem, which connects it to the spinal cord and the nervous system. Each hemisphere is made up of four lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe and the occipital lobe. Each lobe has its cortex comprised of those snakelike gyri cushioned by subcortical white and gray matter.

Deep within the brain, nestled up against the brain stem is the limbic system. The limbic system or region contains the core structures such as the hypothalamus, amygdala, basal ganglia, pituitary gland, the thalamus, and one specific organ that is highly relevant to architects and to drawing by hand – the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is Greek for seahorse, hence its shape. It is the part of the brain critical to the retrieval of memory. The two hippocampi (one in each hemisphere) have another interesting function, that of spatial orientation and navigation. Neuroscientific studies from as recently as 2005 show that spatial comprehension is processed through the hippocampus. For example, it has been demonstrated that London taxi drivers have enlarged hippocampi. Mallgrave suggests that the same may be true for architects, who are constantly engaged in determining spatial orientation and actively navigating between spaces.

Mallgrave further suggests that architects have unique brains. Brains that are educated in their late teens and early twenties and reach the height of the creative powers in their 40s. One reason is the sheer volume of knowledge that needs to be acquired to do our job well. Another might be the time needed for our unique brains to develop the level of cortical sophistication needed to excel in this field.

Next up: Neuroscience and the workings of the brain