Time for Juhani Pallasmaa and Steven Holl, Peter Zumthor, Martin Heidegger...
I'd have to say that the most influential book I've read during my time as an architecture student has been the colleciton of essays by Juhani Pallasmaa, Steven Holl and Alberto Perez Gomez in Questions of Perception. Phenomenology of Architecture. Part of the reason it resonated so strongly was a shared experience I felt I had with Steven Holl in his description of his experience of the Pantheon in Rome. The powerful interior of this building had such a huge impact on me, in part because of totality of the experience - not just a visual but a spatial and temporal experience - but also the snippets of memories it provoked and what it represented to me. Memories of school art history classes mingled with the ancient, timeless impression of the interior, the tomb of Raphael, the sparkling shaft of light. The astonishing contrast between this interior and the surrounding haphazard lanes and stone walls, cars and scooters. This was 'architecture', a total experience. Something I was looking for to anchor my designs.
The architectural spaces described in this book are ones in which you are truly present in that moment, the spaces may trigger a memory which stops your mind skipping ahead and thinking about where you have to be. You're more aware of your breath and the quality of the air. The smells, the textures and sounds all combine to provide that unique, brief moment in time that gives you pause. Those are the moments that give you space to think of esoteric things like your place in the world, your smallness but also your value and meaning to others.
The importance of details, the things you touch everyday (handles, taps) is articulated well - I've always loved Pallasmaa's description of the door handle being the handshake of a building. It's true that I feel less of a connection with spaces that don't require any effort to enter, with generic automatic glass doors. You've entered those spaces without any acknowledgement, no trace (except perhaps a video surveillance image).
This book gave me a renewed appreciation of materials that collect a patina of age, displaying their ability to represent history and human use; glancing at a wooden hand rail may thus make you pause to recollect past events represented in the scratches and grooves.
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