Includes bibliographical references.

Thin ice / Steven Holl -- Touching the world / Juhani Pallasmaa -- Part 1. Vision and knowledge -- Critics of ocularcentrism -- The narcissistic and nihilistic eye -- Oral versus visual space -- Retinal architecture and the loss of plasticity -- An architecture of visual images -- Materiality and time -- The rejection of Alberti's window -- A new vision and sensory balance -- Part 2. The body in the centre -- Multi-sensory experience -- The significance of the shadow -- Acoustic intimacy -- Silence, time and solitude -- Spaces of scent -- The shape of touch -- The taste of stone -- Images of muscle and bone -- Images of action -- Bodily identification -- Mimesis of the body -- Spaces of memory and imagination -- An architecture of the senses -- The task of architecture -- A door handle, a handshake: an introduction to Juhani Pallasmaa and his work / by Peter MacKieth.