The Hidden Dimension

Whenever people talk, they supply only part of the message. The rest is filled in by the listener. Much of what is not said is taken for granted. However, cultures vary in what is left unsaid.People who "live in a mess" or a "constant state of confusion" are those who fail to classify activities and artifacts according to a uniform, consistent, or predictable spatial plan.The problem facing us today in designing and rebuilding our cities is understanding the needs of large numbers of people.We shape our buildings and they shape us.-- Winston Churchill

Author's PrefaceTwo types of books interest the serious readers:Content oriented: designed to convey a particular body of knowledgeDeal with structure: the way which events are organized.Information overload increases the need for organizing frames of reference to integrate the mass of rapidly changing information.The Hidden Dimension attempts to provide such an organizing frame for space as a system of communication, and for the spatial aspects of architecture and city planning.As an anthropologist I have made a habit of going back to the beginning and searching out the biological substructures from which human behaviour springs.All of my books deal with the structure of experience as it is molded by culture, those deep, common, unstated experiences which members of a given culture share, which they communicate without knowing, and which form the backdrop against which all other events are judged.“Silent Assumptions in Social Communication”