Published: Psychoanalytic Review, October 2016.
Abstract: Psychoanalysis has long been interested in the creative process, and yet architecture has rarely been studied from a psychoanalytic perspective. This paper examines the creative process of architecture in which the space between an existing problem and a physical, occupiable building is bridged. I follow the story of Daedalus, the mythic first architect, and suggest that the architect’s creativity depends on the ability to utilize multiple modalities of the human mind and body and to allow them to converse with one another in what Philip Bromberg called a moment of “standing in the spaces.”I use the notion of sublimation to reestablish the place of the body in the artistic process and to remind us that the physi- cal and the psychic are intertwined, jointly participating in the creative process. I conclude by demonstrating the participation of inner and outer selves—minds and bodies—in my design process for the Czech National Library International Competition.