On the Fragility of Empathy: Drawing as Empathic Musing

This research through drawing—drawing research—examines the role of (architectural) drawing, and particularly drawing by hand, as a transformative tool in engaging human empathy in observing and reconstructing (architectural) place. The research takes a phenomenological approach, whereby the aim is to gain a better understanding of how drawing can become a transformative tool that aids in cultivating the human capacities to empathize with and to project the self into the places that are observed. It navigates through, and makes use of a referential framework that spans from 19th century philosophy and art history that introduced 'Einfühlung' ('feeling into') in the observation of art and natural objects, and 20th century architectural phenomenology, to 21st century takes on empathy and its relation to architecture. Interpersonal empathy is the empathy mostly referred to when the term is used in contemporary situations. In architecture, an architects' empathy is, or should be, aimed at the future user of a space, as well as the landscape this place will become part of. The meticulous observation of the latter landscape and empathizing with it is indispensable to any architectural design process, as the experience of it comes before any spatial intervention is even imagined. Empathy is also one of the most human and bodily of capacities, and it is predicated on awareness, which in turn must be based on acute, sharp observation. However, it is not always brought into use or harnessed—one can show a lack of empathy with someone or something. Empathy also depends on the willingness of the observer to activate it; hence it is fragile. In some cases, one empathises naturally, without much effort, but from an architectural point of view, empathy can, and needs to be worked on intellectually if one is to ever empathically understand the place that is being observed. The research is experimental, and was conducted through iterative and immersive processes of (analogue) drawing so as to develop empathic understandings of the observed places. Every drawing process was preceded and fuelled by 'walking' actions, and was interspersed with various 'writing' actions as tools of verbalisation that made both the critical assessment of the drawing and walking actions and their outcomes (the drawings) explicit. Through drawing, as a tacit method of thinking-through-making, and reflecting on those drawing processes and their outcomes, as well as through experiments within an educational context, the research has affirmed that drawing, an example of empathic musing, is a transformative tool in engaging human empathy and is a generator of iterative knowledge. However, drawing does not mean empathising by default. The research has identified and developed 'Memo Drawing' and 'Critical Iterative Drawing' (CID) as ways of drawing that have empathy-engaging capacities. Subsequently, it has brought the 'Fragment-Instrument' to the fore as a tool in drawing processes, whereby the (architectural) 'whole' is holistically assembled via its fragments, not from beholding and capturing it from an overarching, holistic stance; hence inverting habitual ways of observing. On the basis of a series of drawings made by the author, and drawings made by students, it states that through observing the 'whole' via its fragments, by employing the 'fragment-instrument', a physical empathic understanding of the observed place can consciously be developed.

Publication year:2022

Accessibility:Open