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12/5/12 Defining the Emotional Cause of 'Affect' - NYTimes.com
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DESIGN
Defining the Emotional Cause of 'Affect'
Jonathan Scelsa/Farshid Moussavi Architecture
Farshid Moussavi’s ‘‘Architecture and Affects’’ installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
By ALICE RAWSTHORNPublished: December 2, 2012
VENICE — If asked to describe what you think of a chair or a phone,
you might begin by explaining what it looks like, what it does, and if
it has any special qualities. But one of the most important factors in
determining how you feel will be your instinctive response when you
encounter the object, an experience that is similar to what
philosophers call an “affect.”
That word is becoming rather popular
in design circles. Not that it is new. On
the contrary, the concept dates back
to Aristotle’s writing in ancient Greece.
Nor is it new for designers and design
theorists to discuss how design
impacts the senses. But doing so can
be complicated, not least because the
language to describe it is often imprecise, sometimes
confusingly so. Some people refer to the fuzzy bundle of
sensations that design can provoke as a change of mood or
atmosphere, and others talk about a new tone or spirit.
Affect could prove to be a more accurate term, which
would be helpful. After all, the clearer we are in identifying
the different ways that design influences us, the better
equipped we will be to understand it, and to ensure that its
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12/5/12 Defining the Emotional Cause of 'Affect' - NYTimes.com
2/3www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/arts/design/defining-the-emotional-cause-of-affect.html?ref=design
Thonet
The Thonet No. 14 chair, designed byMichael Thonet in 1859.
power is used intelligently.
The concept of affect may be rooted in ancient Greece, but
the word hails from ancient Rome and the Latin noun
affectus. It was introduced to the English language in the
1300s to describe the rush of emotions experienced when
someone falls in love or is overcome by joy or sorrow. In the
17th century, the philosophers René Descartes and Baruch
Spinoza distinguished affect from emotion by emphasizing
its transformative nature. It was redefined again in the
20th century by philosophers like Henri Bergson and Gilles
Deleuze, who applied it to aesthetics, literature and
technology.
Affect is now being used in architecture, notably by the
Iranianborn, Londonbased architect Farshid Moussavi,
who devoted her contribution to this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, which ended
here Nov. 25, to “Architecture and Affects.” By projecting giant images of different
architectural styles and structures, she illustrated how architects can define the way we
relate to buildings by creating different affects through their choice of scale, materials,
shapes, decorative elements and methods of construction.
Similar principles apply to the design of other things, whether they are objects, like chairs
and phones, or images. I know that my response to them is as likely to be determined by
the seemingly random assortment of memories and associations they provoke as it is by
fact.
An obvious example is a typeface, like the one you are reading now. Simply by looking at
the shapes of the letters you will know instinctively how its designer wanted you to
interpret it. You don’t need to be a typographic historian to realize that the simplicity of a
font with no decorative details, like Helvetica, used in the logos of American Airlines and
American Apparel, is intended to evoke efficiency, speed and clarity. And you should be
able to guess that the more elaborately shaped and ornately decorated the letters are, the
likelier they will be to appear on the cover of a trashy novel or in the opening titles of a
sappy movie. We know intuitively that, unlike ascetic Helvetica, a typeface with those
affects is not intended to be taken entirely seriously.
Or consider a familiar object: the Thonet Model No. 14, a wooden dining chair designed by
the German industrialist Michael Thonet during the mid1800s. It was introduced in 1859
as the first massmanufactured chair to be sold at an affordable price and has since seated
more people than any other chair.
Anyone who is familiar with its history will know how radical the No. 14 would have
seemed in the 1800s, when it was one of the first pieces of furniture, which was as likely to
be bought by a teacher as a prince. They will also know that Thonet devoted years of
research and testing to its development, and rejected numerous early versions until he
found one that satisfied him. He then continued to refine the chair’s design and by 1867
had worked out how to make it from just six pieces of wood, ten screws and two nuts.
But even without that knowledge, you can still sense what sort of chair Thonet wanted to
make, whether or not you realize that you are doing so, by instinctively decoding the
affects of his design. What do they tell us about the No. 14? That it will be useful, robust
and, somehow, both bold and reassuring.
We can see that Thonet planned to produce a practical chair from its structure. Why else
would he have designed it from so few components: each of which is compact, simple in
shape, and clearly designated to fulfill a specific function? The fact that nothing is surplus
to requirements suggests that the No. 14 was designed, not only with a certain bravura and
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12/5/12 Defining the Emotional Cause of 'Affect' - NYTimes.com
3/3www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/arts/design/defining-the-emotional-cause-of-affect.html?ref=design
A version of this article appeared in print on December 3, 2012, in The International Herald Tribune.
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Venice Biennale
a refusal to compromise, but with considerable care, which is bound to feel reassuring.
The same qualities are embedded in its stylistic elements. There is nothing fussy about the
chair, signaling that it was intended to be useful and durable. But there is a tension
between its gleaming wood and gentle curves, which remind us of the rustic coziness of
traditional handcrafted furniture, and the precision of those curves: clues that they must
have been made by machine, not by hand.
Back in 1859, the first No. 14s promised to combine the reliability of industrial production
with the emotional warmth of wood. Over 150 years later, we still find that combination
reassuring, while sensing that there is something unexpected about it, bold even. Each of
us will interpret the affects of Thonet’s chair slightly differently, but the impression they
produce is very powerful, which is why understanding that sensation is not just important
to designers but to us too.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: December 3, 2012
The credit on the photograph of Farshid Moussavi’s ‘‘Architecture and Affects’’ installation
in a previous version of this article was incorrect. The photo was taken by Jonathan Scelsa.
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