Theory Building in Neurourbanism: Aesthetics and Affordance of Public Spaces

(To appear in: “Brain Principles of Urban Design. Scales, Memory, Emotion” eds. D: Ruzzon, C. Machado)

In this paper, I address the role and the relationship of two central concepts for a philosophy of neurourbanism. The first is the concept of aesthetic-affective perception and the second that of the perception of affordances. I will focus on the first issue by discussing a class of mental states that is still largely neglected in the philosophy of mind and culture as well as in architecture and urban studies: aesthetic emotions. The aim is to describe the relation of aesthetic categories, such as beauty, interestingness, the sublime to corresponding emotions such as intense feelings of beauty, wonder, and awe. The key claim is, that aesthetic emotions come with specificific embodiment that is also related to a cognitive style. i.e. we process information differently when we face an awe-inspiring Cathedral or Novel Museum Building compared to narrow street filled with driving cars or a semi-public space of a shopping mall.