Spooky Architecture

[Sleeping in EQ]

Tooblue, with your training in art and spaces, this might be up your alley...

Certain spaces seem spookier than others. A-frame homes and cabins where the 2nd level can be seen from the first (and vice versa), loft spaces, long hallways with mirrors, unfinished basements and so on. I'm aware of a psychoanalytic explanation (that front rooms and ground level rooms are ego spaces, upper rooms are superego spaces, and basements and play rooms are id spaces), but it doesn't explain that some spaces feel spookier. Although watching Psycho with the psychoanalysis in mind can be quite the experience.

I've noticed this on shows like Ghosthunters. Basements are "haunted"--especially unfinished and/or old ones with rubbish in them. Attics and ballrooms are good candidates for "hauntings." So are libraries, museums, and lighthouses. Rooms with chandaliers and fireplaces are a little spookier. People see "ghosts" in long hallways and on spiral stair cases, but not, say, in front rooms.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Tooblue, with your training in art and spaces, this might be up your alley...

Certain spaces seem spookier than others. A-frame homes and cabins where the 2nd level can be seen from the first (and vice versa), loft spaces, long hallways with mirrors, unfinished basements and so on. I'm aware of a psychoanalytic explanation (that front rooms and ground level rooms are ego spaces, upper rooms are superego spaces, and basements and play rooms are id spaces), but it doesn't explain that some spaces feel spookier. Although watching Psycho with the psychoanalysis in mind can be quite the experience.

I've noticed this on shows like Ghosthunters. Basements are "haunted"--especially unfinished and/or old ones with rubbish in them. Attics and ballrooms are good candidates for "hauntings." So are libraries, museums, and lighthouses. Rooms with chandaliers and fireplaces are a little spookier. People see "ghosts" in long hallways and on spiral stair cases, but not, say, in front rooms.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I occaisionally will watch Cities of the Under World on the history channel ... it's a fun spooky show.

Maybe such spaces are analogous to the absurd corners of one’s own mind where one throws the refuse and rubbish of unconventional thinking –akin to scifi flic story lines when the collective suppressed hate, guile, selfishness of a utopian community assembles as a vengeful, dangerous beast that terrorizes the outlying areas of the village.

Many of the spaces you noted are transitory spaces where one rarely rests, sits, has a chat etc. The activities and conversations held there are always transported to and meant for another room. These spaces are always seen in our peripheral vision as we pass through, along with glimpses of shadows etc. that inhabit them … fireplaces cast strange light and result in dancing/animated shadows. Chandeliers relfect light and create strange shadows.

I think such notions motivate people to embrace open concept homes and spaces versus the highly modular spaces of past design conventions … returning to the spaces of past design conventions is literally visiting the skeletons in the closet?

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by tooblue

I occaisionally will watch Cities of the Under World on the history channel ... it's a fun spooky show.

Maybe such spaces are analogous to the absurd corners of one’s own mind where one throws the refuse and rubbish of unconventional thinking –akin to scifi flic story lines when the collective suppressed hate, guile, selfishness of a utopian community assembles as a vengeful, dangerous beast that terrorizes the outlying areas of the village.

Many of the spaces you noted are transitory spaces where one rarely rests, sits, has a chat etc. The activities and conversations held there are always transported to and meant for another room. These spaces are always seen in our peripheral vision as we pass through, along with glimpses of shadows etc. that inhabit them … fireplaces cast strange light and result in dancing/animated shadows. Chandeliers relfect light and create strange shadows.

I think such notions motivate people to embrace open concept homes and spaces versus the highly modular spaces of past design conventions … returning to the spaces of past design conventions is literally visiting the skeletons in the closet?

One of the spookiest movies I like to watch again and again, that most people would not classify as spooky is Field of Dreams.

It is a disturbing film on many levels, and not because it embraces Reagan and Bush trickle down economic principles

[tooblue]

Originally Posted by tooblue

One of the spookiest movies I like to watch again and again, that most people would not classify as spooky is Field of Dreams.

It is a disturbing film on many levels, and not because it embraces Reagan and Bush trickle down economic principles

Does anyone else find corn fields spooky? Such chaos of sound, shape and shadow amidst such order? Row upon row of order.

I found the Louvre spooky in mid-day on a warm June afternoon. I also find The R.O.M. (Royal Ontario Museum of natural history) here in T.O spooky. Museums really are great big, albeit more tidy, atics and cellars where we store remnants of the past.