Transformations of Perception. The Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Paris in the 19th Century

Abstract

The transformation of contemporary Western perception can be analyzed in the historical period in which photography and cinematography arise. Walter Benjamin studies the relationship between art and the masses through these new media and points out the capital importance of architecture for the understanding of this relationship. This communication is located in the space and time where it takes place. Look at the stage of the biggest theatre in the Western world: 19th-century Paris and its oldest hospital, Hôtel-Dieu. The development of this institution exemplifies the dissertation and extends it by its correlation with the political, economic and social framework of the transformations of Paris. The debate about the reconstruction of this hospital cannot be dissociated from the emergence of new technologies in the image. The unconscious, inhabiting, unmasks the spaces domesticate, in the sense in which Michel Foucault points out the deeper meaning that harbours all domesticity: domination. The artefact of the lens, like architecture, amplifies the optical unconscious, just as Sigmund Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis reveal the drive unconsciously. The involuntary memory is an instrument of knowledge of architecture and perception.