Hearing the Eyes of the Skin

First published in 1996, the book makes one of the most searching arguments in architectural thought: that the dominance of vision in modern culture has impoverished our experience of the built environment, and that architecture reaches us most fully through touch, sound, smell and the moving body. 

The audiobook, produced by Thin Ice Productions, was conceived with the argument of the book in mind. Producer James Mason, who is dyslexic, wanted the text to be genuinely accessible: to readers for whom print creates distance rather than entry, and to the broader audience that architectural discourse too rarely reaches. 

The evening opened with a yoiking performance by Plumm. Yoiking is a musical tradition of the Sámi people: a yoik does not describe its subject but evokes its essence, sound as direct apprehension. Mason worked closely with Plumm to make yoiking central to the audiobook’s soundscape. Heard live, the choice was immediately legible.