Notions about Gestalt

Research questions

What constitutes gestalt, and why it is important for human beings in conceiving spaces at all?

Projects

• Exhibition Ideal Spaces, Venice 2016, https://www.idealspaces.org/projects/ideal-spaces/ 
• Exhibition Community and Place, Moscow 2020: places for communities as gestalten in their own, https://www.idealspaces.org/projects/community-and-place/

Publications

• Gehmann, Ulrich/Johansson, Michael/Reiche Martin (2015): Gestalt Thinking, in Maragiannis, A. (Ed.) Final Paper/Proceedings of the Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts conference, DRHA2014, London

• Gehmann, Ulrich/Johansson, Michael/Reiche, Martin: gestalt. Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts, Dublin 2015

Findings

• Gestalt is essential for orientation in space
• It is not identical with pattern, form, or shape
• Gestalt can be technically expressed as a system, but is not identical with it
• One can conceive gestalt as a specific kind of order
• Planned vs. unplanned gestalten, relating to made (planned) vs. evolving (unplanned, spontaneous) orders
• Gestalt delivers identity
• Gestalt presents a structured whole
• Impression of wholeness essential for making believable worlds

People involved

U. Gehmann, M. Johansson, M. Reiche, Dominik Rinnhofer, Andreas Sieß

References internal

• Exhibition Ideal Spaces 2016, 
• DRHA Dublin Conference 2015, DRHA Greenwich Conference 2014

References external

• Troll, Wilhelm (1926): Goethes Morphologische Schriften. Jena; Eugen Diederichs
• Lynch, Kevin (1960): The Image of the City. Cambridge, Mass.; MIT Press
• Schimmel, Hanno, Hrsg. (2000): Gestalt. Erscheinungsformen in Architektur und Kunst. Frankfurt/Main; Anabas
• Ungers, Oswald M. (2011): Morphologie (City Metaphors). Köln; Walther Kön