It’s time to put on a spot of tea and snuggle into a warm blanket - I am going to begin by telling you a fairy-tale fable. I read about this in a book once called, The Master and his Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist. I am, however, going to retell it in my own words… and the story goes a little something like this: 

Once upon a time, in a far-off land, there lived a King. The King was a good man. An empathetic man. A fair man. He brought all kinds of wonderful things into his kingdom; including astuteness, and meaning, and magic. He did not rule with an iron fist, as most monarchs typically do – but rather, he led the small Kingdom with wisdom; thus cultivating an ideal dwelling for its inhabitants. And so, it was to be, that the subjects grew in numbers. People came from remote lands, and they spread out far and wide within the realm. With such great numbers, comes even greater responsibilities. So, the King, in his prudence, decided he needed agents, in order that they might do that which he could not. Vigilantly, he picked his emissaries, trained them and set them off – always trusting that they would know their place, take their responsibilities, and cultivate as part of a cohesive network – allowing for the great King to remain in his ignorance, so that he might go about his important duties. All seemed to be in rule – until one day, one of his cleverest and impious of delegates, decided to conspire against the great King. The rebellious emissary sneered at his temperance and forbearance; and saw them as weaknesses. He believed that he would be better capable at regulating the throne. So, he began to work tirelessly to seize the entire kingdom for himself – and seize, he eventually did. Chaos plagued the entire province, the King was overthrown, the subjects were in dismay; and now, they found themselves in the pits of a tyrannical empire. The king was locked away in the lowest chambers of the castle; the same castle, in which he had once reigned supreme. Buried in the rubble of despair: desolation and dreariness fell upon him. He continues to spend his days – chained up and residing in the dank, cold floors of the chambers – staring out into the abyss, and contemplating: how, in all of his embodied perceptiveness, could he have not foreseen such an occurrence. Years passed by, and the subjects forgot all about their beloved King. Under the despotic rule of the emissary; magic was lost, responsibility had gone away, and like an infectious disease; conformity plagued the hearts and minds and lands of this once great kingdom. 

This is a story about us… about our brains, in particular. 

Our brains? What does a king and his kingdom, and his tyrannical emissary have to do with our brains?

Well, I’m glad you asked. 

As you probably already know, our brains are divided into two hemispheres: the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. Most people attribute the right hemisphere to be the one that is the slighter. The one that deals with the “fluffy” ideas – like emotions, and feelings, and all the “arty” stuff… you know, the “least” important and fickle things. The left hemisphere, however, is seen as the more important hemisphere. It is the one that deals with the “serious” stuff – the essential things… all that is “adult.” But what if I told you, we have gotten the hierarchy of the two hemispheres all wrong. What if I told you, that the right hemisphere, is actually more important than what we have typically believed; and that its resemblance is something that is more analogous to that of the wise King. And what if I told you, that the left hemisphere, as we experience it in our culture, is that which is more akin to the usurper, the conspirator, the traitor… in a word, the emissary.

We are currently experiencing unprecedented times; in a culture that is ever-more steeped in technology, the changes taking place are of epic proportions. From the dawn of the industrial revolution – we have seen, and continue to see, the emergence of technology, and of recent, artificial intelligence, infiltrating all facets of our lives: from the invention of the washing machine, to the replacement of the “check out chick,” to Amazon’s plans for driverless trucks. All of these, and much more, carrying with it, the connotation of quicker, better, efficient and more cost-effective methods of doing things. We also see this, most aptly, in architecture and design. From the transition of the drafting board, to the rise of BIM software – I get an intimation, that we might, perhaps, be relying a little too heavily on technology to guide us in the design process. One need only look at some of the recent monstrosities occupying our cities. Taken the time to stop and reflect upon these sterile and noisy places, one might quickly draw the conclusion, that perhaps, it came not from the mind of a talented designer; but rather, one might concede, that a computer… maybe, just maybe, could perhaps be the culprit. If this heavy reliance on technology is proliferating the industries; and occupying our cities, then of what use do we have for a person. Are we not becoming ever more like cogs in a machine –designing, using machines, and creating places for… machines? 

Let’s go back to the right and left hemisphere. Iain McGilchrist, in his book, the master and his emissary, argues that our notions of the roles of the two hemispheres of the brain have been grossly inverted. He says, “the right knows things the left doesn’t, the left knows things the right doesn’t, but the right is in direct contact with the embodied lived world, the left hemisphere is, by comparison, a virtual, bloodless affair. It does not have life; its life comes from the right hemisphere.” 

He reports, “Novel experience induces changes in the right hippocampus, but not the left. So it is no surprise that phenomenologically it is the right hemisphere that is attuned to the apprehension of anything new. This difference is pervasive across domains. Not just new experience, but the learning of new information or new skills also engages right-hemisphere attention more than left, even if the information is verbal in nature. However, once the skills have become familiar through practice, they shift to being the concern of the left hemisphere… it is similar with problem solving. Here the right hemisphere presents an array of possible solutions, which remain live while alternatives are explored. The left hemisphere, by contrast, takes the single solution that seems best to fit what it already knows and latches onto it.”  Quoting V.S Ramachandran, he continues. “studies of anosognosia reveal a tendency for the left hemisphere to dent discrepancies that do not fit its already generated schema of things. The right hemisphere, by contrast, is actively watching for discrepancies, more like a devil’s advocate.” 

To put it simply, the right hemisphere is in direct contact with the world. I imagine it to be like that of a vacuum with a malleable and wide mouth; opening itself up as a portal, connecting the world to our minds and the flourishing experiences of the lived and embodied environment. It explores and is always trying to take things in – to understand them and provide solutions. The right hemisphere, in my view, seems to be the humble one – because it admits it doesn’t know, and so it is always exploring, seeking out answers and contending with the unknown. The left hemisphere knows what it knows and doesn’t seek; but rather, takes on a more rigid approach to problem solving. Iain McGilgrist says, “the left hemisphere views offer simple answers. Its mode of thinking prizes consistency above all and claims to offer the same mechanistic models to explain things that exist… the left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome.”

 So how does all this relate to architecture and design; and more importantly, how does it relate to the “thinking hand?” 

 In Betty Edward’s book, ‘drawing from the right side of the brain,’ she argues, that in order to tap into the rich problem solving and innovative possibilities that the right hemisphere has to offer, we need to “trick” the left hemisphere (the emissary), so that it may not interfere with the right hemisphere’s (the king) work. In her portraiture drawing classes, she explains to her students that they should not name things; such as eyes, ears and nose – because when we name things, we yield preconceived ideas; and thus, execute according to the perception of the lived object. This is what the left hemisphere does – it deals with what it already knows, and so produces accordingly. The right, however, is always exploring, so it is more acute to not yielding to preconceived ideas. She says, when we stop naming things, and we shift from left hemispheric mode to right hemispheric mode, “…we see the shapes and the areas of light and shadow, but the image doesn’t call forth the immediate naming that we are used to” – allowing for greater perception.

 In her drawing classes, she requires her students to partake in an exercise, whereby they are asked to draw a sketch upside down. A master sketch is presented, then turned upside down, and the student begins drawing accordingly. This shifts the task from being the trade of the left hemisphere to the trade of the right: the left hemisphere becomes confused; thus allowing for the transfer to take place. She explains a scenario, where one of her students was instructed to participate in this exercise. The student must have misunderstood, because he drew the master copy right side up (see fig. 1). The student was required to do the exercise again – but this time, upside down. To the great astonishment of the student, he was able to produce a much better representation of the drawing (see fig. 2). This cognitive shift from left to right hemisphere, allowed him to “open his mind” – so to speak, and to draw on new acuities and not preconceived ones that are usually held by the left hemisphere. 

Fig 1. Fig 2.

Iain McGilchrist says, “Imitation is imaginatively entering into the world of the one that is imitated… even to attend anything so closely that one can capture its essence is not to copy slavishly. To Ruskin it was one of the hardest, as well as one of the greatest human achievements, truly to see, so as to copy and capture the life of, a single leaf – something the greatest artists had managed only once or twice in a life time: ‘If you can paint one leaf, you can paint the world.’ Imitating nature may be like imitating another person’s style; one enters into the life. Equally that life enters into the imitator. In imitation one takes up something of another person, but not in an inert, lifeless, mechanical sense; rather in the sense of its being aufgehoben, whereby it is taken into ourselves and transformed.”  Juhani Pallasmaa, reiterates this biologically in his book, ‘The Thinking Hand: “every act of sketching and drawing produces three different sets of images: the drawing that appears on the paper, the visual image recorded in my cerebral memory, and a muscular memory of the act of drawing itself.”

A non-drawing example would be that of a soccer player. Through his training off-field, he acquires all the necessary skills and then embodies those skills. When that soccer player enters the field, he is better able to exert these skills in the game without having to really think about it. Their bodies, through the acquired skill, is, so to speak, doing the “thinking.” In the same way, when we learn how to draw, we learn how to see things; and so, when we learn, through mimeses, how to see things, we then store up embodied wisdom through that skill. That embodied wisdom manifests itself when we proceed to generate design solutions. The exertion of ideas are able to be developed without really thinking – our hands do the thinking. In an interview with Australian architect and Pritzker prize winner, Glenn Murcutt, so passionately argues, “we are creatures of the eyes, yes – but behind the eye, is a mind.” He points out, that to draw is to draw out the embodied wisdom of the mind. If you have a splinter, he says, you use drawing ointment to bring it out – in the same way that we use our hands to draw out ideas. To draw out is to reveal; to reveal is to understand; to understand is the beginning of knowing. Our hands, in turn, have this amazing capacity for problem solving. Juhani Pallasmaa states “Your hand reaches a solution before you know it has happened. Architectural ideas arise ‘biologically’ from unconceptualised and lived existential knowledge rather than from mere analyses and intellect.” To quote Iain McGilgrist again, “the model of the machine is the only one the left hemisphere likes; remember it is specialised in dealing with tools and machines.” This might explain why we are seeing a proliferation of mechanistic type buildings.

If we are honest with ourselves, we have to concede the architecture of today is depraved. We need to go back to the drawing board (pun intended), and seriously reconsider the approach we take to design. The computer is a great tool, but we must remember that we are designing for human beings.  We must take seriously the fruits that could be borne out of drawing as it relates to creating great architecture; and we need to develop the skill. For when we develop our skills in drawing, we will be able to better see the beauty in real things and store up a rich database within. When we draw, we tap into the Right Hemisphere; the side of the brain that is thirsty to learn new things - we widen our perceptions and we see in new ways and open up new vistas. 

If our brains have this amazing capacity to produce great insight into things that we never thought we knew, then why, as architects and designers, have we given away the sacred task of drawing as a means to problem solving and a mode of thinking?  

I think the time has come. To rise up. To call for revolution. The rebellious emissary must be stopped. The subjects must take up arms and usurp his totalitarianism ways. Today is the day. Where we break the shackles of the great king; and allow him to reign supreme once more. To be given his place… his rightful place: back on his throne!

I’ll finish up by giving the final word to Honore De Balzac:

“A hand is not simply part of the body, but the expression and continuation of a thought which must be captured and conveyed […].”