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Given my thumbnail sketch, you might be left thinking that Alexander is something of a New Age mystic, but such an impression would be deeply misguided. Alexander deals with the notion of centers and wholeness at a completely pragmatic level, using it to explain such things as how the different parts of a well-made chisel (its blade, handle, connections) contribute to its beautifully simple functionality. In almost the same breath, Alexander draws an analogy with the connection between the length and orientation of a hallway and the quiet dwelling space it is attached to, making it clear how the two parts (two centers) contribute to the organic unity of the whole. Alexander’s main aim is to find a way to explain how the geometric properties of spaces have “the power to touch the human heart.”

Though his agenda is sweeping, his belief that space influences feeling and movement at a deep level is very much in accord with what we are now beginning to document with scientific experiments. The underlying reasons for these types of influences are buried in the nature and organization of the parts of our mind that have evolved to contend with problems of physical space. Alexander may not mention isovist analysis explicitly, yet it seems certain that some of the ways the shape of space influences behavior can be explained using the same analyses that I described earlier, and, in turn, that these analyses work so well to predict feeling
and movement because of the size and shape of our spatial brain.

Sarah Susanka, the successful architect and popular author of the groundbreaking
The Not So Big House
, bemoans the North American tendency to equate square footage with happiness. She has demonstrated through more than two decades of building, writing, and case studies some of the same principles espoused by Alexander. Susanka insists that it is the quality of space, rather than its quantity, that influences our behavior. How we are attracted to spaces and how we thrive in our own dwellings has much more to do with the configuration of spaces and the small finishing touches, such as alcoves, built-in furnishings, and the quality of light, than it does with pure geometric horsepower: the number of tape measures needed to measure our expanses of real estate. What Alexander has managed to convey over a life’s work of practice and writing, Susanka has attempted to boil down to a somewhat simpler level, allowing more of us to take advantage of what is known about how shape influences feeling.
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Hermann Muthesius, though not exactly a household name, is well known to students of architecture. Muthesius was recruited by the German government in 1896 to work in England as a cultural attache. Rumors have swirled from time to time suggesting that Muthesius had a secret role as a spy (it does seem to be true both that he was personally appointed by the Kaiser and that part of his work consisted of careful documentation of English infrastructure, including railroads and heavy industries). Yet mostly he occupied himself scrutinizing the architecture, furniture, and manners of the English household. He quickly “went native,” packed an inordinate amount of traveling into a short tenure in England, and studied every detail of English life, from the habits of afternoon visitors to the placement of soap dishes near bathtubs. The culmination of this work was the monumental three-volume
The English

House
and, in it, the suggestion that an integral connection existed between the design of the English home and what Muthesius saw as their enviably successful way of life.
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For example, Muthesius was much struck by the English lack of ostentation in their dealings with houseguests. The common German practice consisted of carefully stage-managing visitors such that private quarters were kept hidden away and that the best, biggest, and most formal and impressive rooms and furnishings were highlighted. The English seemed to simply invite outsiders into the most intimate corners of the house:

Muthesius noted that the absence of physical separation between guests and residents in English homes was brought about by the artful arrangement of spaces. For one thing, the rooms of the English homes that Muthesius studied possessed what he called “very good wall spaces.” What he meant by this was that typical rooms in these houses were entered from hallways and were almost always cloistered behind doors. Door hinges were arranged so that the doors always opened inwardly upon the private spaces behind them. In this way, someone entering the room would begin their experience of the room by first seeing a tiny crack of an opening before seeing the entire room. This way of hinging doors produces an isovist that increases in size slowly
and methodically, much as Muthesius saw the English style of life. This method of door hinging would have the further advantage that anyone already inside the room would have ample warning of the entry of the visitor, and so have time to prepare for the visit.

Muthesius contrasted such arrangements as he saw in English houses with German houses of the time, in which one room commonly contained an open doorway to another room, making the whole affair more like a succession of ostentatious entry halls to the living space rather than a comfortable set of quiet, contemplative spaces shared by guest and owner alike. More generally, he saw the German approach to the design of dwelling spaces to be showy, wasteful, and stiff compared to the more relaxed, humble, and disingenuous approach espoused by English architecture.

Arguments such as those of Muthesius are interesting because they suggest that there are interesting relationships between the way we design built spaces, the way that such spaces interact with our psychological makeup (the manner in which the organization of space makes or breaks intimacy, for example), and our cultures. Not only can the architecture of house spaces be used to reinforce cultural norms but it may also amplify them. Muthesius saw in microcosm in the organization of the English home many of the reasons for the apparent economic and social success of England at a time when Germany was struggling.

As we have already seen, such clashes of culture and space may have exerted enough of an influence over human behavior to cause bloodshed in our own times. Mohammed Atta, incensed by the imposition of Western architectural ideals on Muslim streetscapes, was ultimately prepared to sentence thousands of innocent people to death to exact payment for the insult. Later in our story, when we look at city space, we will see another example of a head-on
collision between the organization of built spaces and the cultural values of those sentenced to live in them, a clash that contributed to death and destruction on a grand scale. Before we venture into the city, though, we must spend some time with the larger interior spaces where we work and play.

S
t. Peter’s Basilica, with a capacity of 60,000 people, not only is the largest Christian church in the world but, as a landmark punctuating the Roman skyline, it resides in the same pantheon of immortal city identifiers as the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, or Rio de Janeiro’s mountaintop statue of Christ the Redeemer.

St. Peter’s is much more than a landmark, though. It is an icon of the Roman Catholic Church, the venue for religious events presided over by the Pope, and the reputed burial place of the biblical St. Peter. In other words, this magnificent structure stands as one of the most important pieces of religious architecture in the world. It is a sacred space of the highest order.

When I visited the basilica for the first time, I joined the long lineup of visitors sweltering in the hot July sun. As we made our way toward the main gate, we endured the inspections of officers of the Vatican Guard who ensured both that we were not carrying contraband and also that we were dressed appropriately. This only served to enhance our excitement about entering one of the architectural marvels of the world.

I will never forget the feeling that engulfed me once I had cleared the doorway and the gigantic space was in full view. It felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me. I was frozen to the spot for the better part of a minute as my eyes tried to make sense of both the sheer scope of the space and its overwhelming kaleidoscope of textures and colors. When I was finally able to move, I found myself walking slowly and carefully, clinging as much as possible to the sides of the building like a timid mouse in a lion’s den. As I looked around, with a sudden and inexplicable lump in my throat, I noticed that many other visitors seemed similarly affected. Most people were quiet and reverential. They took tiny steps across the threshold. One man actually slumped to his knees. To some extent, these reactions might be attributed to the sacred significance of the site. Most visitors, even summer tourists, would realize that this magnificent structure represents the spiritual center of the modern Roman Catholic Church. Not only this, but the site is stuffed with incredible numbers of precious artifacts, holy relics, and stunning works of religious art. This alone, one might argue, would be enough to render many people a little weak in the knees.

In addition to the overwhelming scenery, though, I would argue that impressive spaces such as those found in huge churches and cathedrals are designed explicitly to influence our feelings, our moods, and even our patterns of movement. The same spatial influences that might cause us to gravitate to a favorite chair in a humble
dwelling can be amplified to hit us like a sledgehammer in a differently organized space. This is demonstrated convincingly in a sacred setting, but just the same principles that might choreograph the high drama under a cathedral roof are also at play in the more mundane spaces of our everyday lives.

Our offices, shopping malls, government buildings, and casinos all have design elements that help to control how we move, where we pause and rest, and what feelings we have along the way. In the best cases the principles of spatial design can enhance the function of a building. A well-designed office building can make us happier at our jobs, and an artful casino can encourage us to gamble away too much of our money. Conversely, poorly designed spaces can work against our aims. Government buildings in which we lose our way quickly will frustrate us, and institutional buildings that cut us off from the outside world make us angry. In this chapter, we will focus on what I’ve called working spaces, and my intended meaning is a bit of a double entendre. Though we will look at the design of spaces in which we work at our jobs, our more general interest is in how the spaces inside larger buildings can “work” us by sculpting our patterns of movements while we are inside them.

When Bob Propst invented the Action Office concept in 1965, he unwittingly (and much to his later horror) helped to set in motion developments in the organization of workspaces that would culminate in an epidemic of unhappy and unhealthy office workers trapped in stultifying beehives of cubicles.
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Propst’s invention of the Action Office, a modular design system in which “panels” could be matched with function and combined like so many building blocks to produce a highly functional workspace, was meant to begin a revolution in office design. Propst’s
aim was to bring the design of workspaces into closer accord with what he saw as revolutionary changes that were taking place in the world of work during the 1960s. For one thing, workers were being required to deal with huge amounts of information necessitating complicated workflow and communication requirements like nothing that had been seen before. The Action Office was designed to facilitate these new requirements in environments that were spacious, comfortable, attractive, and ergonomically sound. Indeed, the Herman Miller Company, with a $1.5 billion market share as one of the world’s leading providers of office furniture and environments, continues to offer versions of the Action Office based on some of Propst’s original ideas.

Somewhere along the way, though, much of Propst’s thinking was hijacked. In place of Action Offices designed to provide thoughtful integration of the needs of both an individual worker and collaborative groups, there arose the nefarious cubicle, essentially designed to maximize the number of workers who could be housed in expensive urban real estate but not always with adequate consideration given to how the shapes of spaces made by the great nests of cubicles might affect navigation, communication, or the general state of mind of workers. In contrast to Propst’s Action Office concept, classic cubicles isolate workers in any one of a vast number of small, identical workspaces while effectively cutting them off from co-workers with the use of high partitions.

There is no shortage of satire dealing with the problems of cubicle culture, from Dilbert cartoons to the cult movie classic
Office Space
. This form of office organization has also given rise to lexical novelties. “Gophering” is exactly what it sounds like—the practice of standing up to raise one’s eyes above cubicle walls to take in a larger vista. Gophering in cubicle farms is elicited by exactly the same kinds of events that produce this behavior in the animals from
which the name is taken—a desire to take in additional information in the face of some kind of threat or instability such as a loud noise (a shouting co-worker or supervisor) or some other kind of stimulus such as an unusual smell (of food, hopefully). Though it sounds funny, gophering is a genuine response to an environment that has spatial limitations. People are peering over the tops of cubicle walls in part to make up for an information deficit that has been produced by the configuration of space in their office.