Arkitekturens kroppslighet. Staden som terräng

Sammanfattning: Beginning with the notion that spatial and material qualities of architecture set limits and create conditions for how we make use of it, the overall aim and ambition of this thesis is to develop this notion and to contribute to a deeper understanding of the relationships that are produced between the materiality of architecture and a bodily appropriation of it. To investigate this the thesis establishes two concepts: corporality and terrain. The concept of corporality recognizes that a body is dependent on the situations it is made active by, that is the body techniques and materialities involved. The same individual can articulate a wide range of body techniques and body materialities. Some experiences can be carried and activated in new ways as part of a new corporality, but which ones these are and how they are transplanted depends on the techniques and materialities that come with a certain corporality. This highlights the dependency on spatial relations in order for different corporalities to be put into motion. The concept of terrain describes the encounter between a corporality and a surrounding environment. An environment can accommodate several overlapping terrains, and their extensions do not necessarily coincide with the environment or each other. A terrain assembles actors with a wide time-spatial distribution, and the relations between corporality and environment are shaped by many different conditions and with many different prerequisites. Terrains are continuously articulated, but depending on differences in modes of production, a terrain can also become more or less manifest. The thesis discuss the production of terrains, in relation to some significant differences as to how this production takes place, and how terrains are made visible in terms of body cultural affinities. Architects do not create terrains, they establish the prerequisites for them, but architecture is significant to the temporal and spatial coordination of different terrains, and the ways they are articulated. The thesis show that such coordination can be achieved by identifying which architectural configurations articulate already known and familiar terrains. Architects can also use the concept to examine terrains that are being produced by a given environment and thereby making visible and ensure the yet unknown terrains and body cultures.