Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In our current global networked culture that puts so much emphasis on the virtual and the visual, the mind and the body have become detached and ultimately disconnected. Though physical appearance is idolised for its sexual appeal and its social identity, the role of the body in developing a full understanding of the physical world and the human condition has become neglected. The potential of the human body as a knowing entity - with all our senses as well as our entire bodily functions being structured to produce and maintain silent knowledge together - fails to be recognised.

It is only through the unity of mind and body that craftsmanship and artistic work can be fully realised. Even those endeavours that are generally regarded as solely intellectual, such as writing and thinking, depend on this union of mental and manual skills.

In The Thinking Hand , Juhani Pallasmaa reveals the miraculous potential of the human hand. He shows how the pencil in the hand of the artist or architect becomes the bridge between the imagining mind and the emerging image. The book surveys the multiple essences of the hand, its biological evolution and its role in the shaping of culture, highlighting how the hand-tool union and eye-hand-mind fusion are essential for dexterity and how ultimately the body and the senses play a crucial role in memory and creative work. Pallasmaa here continues the exploration begun in his classic work The Eyes of the Skin by further investigating the interplay of emotion and imagination, intelligence and making, theory and life, once again redefining the task of art and architecture through well-grounded human truths.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction: Embodied Existence and Sensory Thought
• Chapter 1 The Mysterious Hand
• The Multiple Essences of the Hand
• What is the Hand?
• Hand, Eye, Brain and Language
• Hand as Symbol
• Gestures of the Hand
• Languages of the Hand
• Chapter 2 The Working Hand
• The Hand and the Tool
• The Hand of the Craftsman
• Collaborative Craftsmanship
• Architecture as Workmanship
• Chapter 3 Eye-Hand-Mind Fusion
• Experimentation and the Art of Play
• Skill and Boredom
• Eye, Hand and Mind
• Chapter 4 The Drawing Hand
• Drawing and the Self
• Tactility of Drawing
• The Computerised Hand
• Primacy of Touch Hapticity of Self-image
• Unconscious Touch in Artistic Experience
• Chapter 5 Embodied Thinking
• Creative Fusion
• The Work of Thinking The Value of Uncertainty
• Resistance, Tradition and Freedom
• Thinking Through the Senses
• Embodied Memory and Thought
• Existential Knowledge
• Chapter 6 Body, Self and Mind
• The Body as Site
• The World and the Self
• The World and the Mind
• Existential Space in Art
• Chapter 7 Emotion and Imagination
• Reality of Imagination
• The Gift of Imagination
• Reality of Art
• Art and Emotion
• Artistic Experience as Exchange
• Chapter 8 Theory and Life
• Theory and Making
• Opposition of Theory and Making
• Architecture as Image of Life
• The Task of Art
• Index
• Photo Credits

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Finnish architect Pallasmaa, whose The Eyes of the Skin (1996) has become a classic on the value of the application of phenomenology to architecture, has shifted his attention in The Thinking Hand from the four nonvisual senses--smell, hearing, touch, and taste--to touch and to the action of the total body in the making of art and architecture. Again Pallasmaa uses the phenomenological as a way to extol the virtues of craft and to criticize computer-assisted design. He draws on sources ranging from prehistoric cave art to Cezanne, and from Marcel Marceau to Igor Stravinsky. Material-sensitive architects such as Aalto, Ando, Kahn, and Zumthor loom large in his vision, as do the Finnish craftsmen Kain Tapper and Tapio Wirkkala. Ultimately Pallasmaa's message is cautionary and conservative, but the final three chapters--"Body, Self, and Mind," "Emotion and Imagination," and "Theory and Life"--represent an attempt to elevate the concerns of the volume to the level of a holistic worldview. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. J. Quinan University at Buffalo, SUNY