M. Gerwing ARCHITECTS

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texture and memory

bark2

On the change from Winter to Spring, I am thinking about texture and the haptic experience of architecture.

water2

How very important that sense of touch can linger in the memory of a place.  I can't really remember anything about the first house in Kentucky my parents rented when I was 3 years old other than the pine staircase - rough at the tread noses, slick at the side edges, smelling of oil soap.  I have no idea what it looked like.

The two photos above, one of tree bark, one of water, have a similar visual texture, but their real surfaces couldn't be more different on the hand. The eye has only one kind of truth, often fleeting and unreliable.

photos by Mark Gerwing