Embodied Spaces in Digital Times: Exploring the Role of Instagram in Shaping Temporal Dimensions and Perceptions of Architecture

Author: Felicia Wagiri, Deser Christian Wijaya & Ronald Hasudungan Irianto Sitindjak
Year: 2024
Source type: article (peer-reviewed, phenomenological + digital/mixed-methods study)
Raw file: raw/articles/wagiri-et-al-2024-embodied-spaces-digital-times.md

Summary

This study examines how Instagram influences sensory and experiential engagement with architecture, framing the platform as a contemporary "third space" (after Soja's real/imagined) where physical and virtual realms intersect. Combining a phenomenological framework (Norberg-Schulz, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa, Holl) with quantitative analysis of Instagram engagement for two iconic buildings — Tai Kwun (Hong Kong) and Kunsthaus Graz (Peter Cook & Colin Fournier) — it argues Instagram reshapes spatial and temporal perceptions of architecture, both enabling new forms of engagement and riskily reducing architecture to curated, visual, "Instagrammable" spectacle that compresses its lived, temporal layers.

Key Claims

• Instagram as a "third space": building on Soja and Lefebvre, the platform merges real and imagined space, enabling users to engage with architecture beyond physical limits and facilitating virtual "place-making" (Pink). Geotagging and hashtags extend place beyond the physical site.
• Temporal reshaping: through feeds, stories, highlights, reels, filters and AR, Instagram compresses or extends architecture's time — "reducing architecture to a momentary spectacle rather than a lived, evolving space," but also allowing revisiting and collective memory.
• Instagrammable' architecture: architects increasingly design for shareability (e.g., interactive installations at the Color Factory, TeamLab Borderless); this "raises concerns about the commodification of architectural spaces" and may "prioritize spectacle over substance." Digital representations can create "fabricated nostalgia" (Borges-Rey) and distort authenticity.
• Spectacularity and symbolism: following Jencks's "enigmatic signifiers," iconicity combines spectacularity (visual distinctiveness) and symbolism (meaning beyond form), both intensified by digital image circulation.
• Mediatization: building on Colomina (photography displaced architectural attention to images), Frampton, Rattenbury (buildings designed to align with their "digital portraits"), and Brott ("digital paradigm"), the study notes digital platforms can reduce architecture to images. Elsaesser: many buildings "cater more to the camera's eye than to the lived experience."
• Findings/risks: visual dominance, curated or idealized representations, homogenization of styles (algorithmic), temporal simplification, and pressure on architects to prioritize "popular demand over thoughtful design"; AI-generated images further blur authenticity; data privacy concerns arise.
• A balanced view: against "digital dualism" (Jurgenson), physical and digital experiences are increasingly intertwined; the study affirms phenomenology as a counterbalance to preserve "the multisensory richness and temporal continuity of architectural experiences."

Connections

Concepts: Instagrammability · Iconic Architecture · Spectacle · Atmosphere · Dwelling
Authors: Charles Jencks · Simone Brott · Beatriz Colomina · Christian Norberg-Schulz · Juhani Pallasmaa
Debates: Spectacle vs. Function
Related source notes: Visuality Peaks, Function Lasts (Alaily-Mattar et al.) · Viral Architecture (Essen) · Building the Picture (Baan) · Spectacle, Simulation, and the Selfie (O'Sullivan)

Direct Quotes

"Instagram transforms traditional architectural experiences into dynamic visual narratives that integrate real and virtual elements, altering our understanding of space and time." (Abstract)

"Designing for social media may prioritize spectacle over substance, potentially undermining the functional and social responsibilities of architecture."

"Social media's emphasis on visual representation compresses these temporal layers, reducing architecture to a momentary spectacle rather than a lived, evolving space."

Open Questions

• Its two case studies (Tai Kwun, Kunsthaus) are museum/heritage and "star" architecture — does the "third space"/temporal reading generalize to everyday, non-iconic architecture, or is it specific to the iconic/Instagram economy?
• Does the phenomenological emphasis (against visual dominance) align with the anti-ocularcentric critique of Pallasmaa and, in the wiki, the atmosphere/dwelling literature?