1. Introduction

“Architecture is the art of memory. The experience of a building is not just visual, it is also about feeling, touching, hearing, and even smelling.” — Peter Zumthor.

Architecture, in this sense, is not static; it is lived, felt, and remembered. This positions memory as a central player in how we perceive, experience, and interpret our built environment.

Memory, as it applies to architecture, exists on multiple levels. On one hand, there is individual memory, a person’s subjective, often emotional connection to a space, forged through personal experience, sensory cues, and perception. On the other hand, collective memory represents shared histories and identities, often embedded in architecture through monuments, public spaces, or culturally significant structures. These collective memories shape social narratives and are usually preserved or disrupted through architectural interventions.

Memory is also bifurcated into conscious and subconscious dimensions. While we might consciously recall a landmark or associate a building with a past event, our subconscious memory works through ambient cues-light, texture, acoustics, or smell-that quietly shape our comfort, alertness, and emotional states within a space.

Further, memory in architecture can be understood through the dichotomy of embodied vs constructed memory. Embodied memory refers to the way our bodies ‘remember’ spatial rhythms, such as the repetitive act of walking down a familiar corridor, while constructed memory refers to the external curation of memory through material, narrative, and representation in architectural form. These distinctions are critical when considering how environments become repositories of personal and communal histories.

1.1. Aim of the Paper

This paper aims to explore the interrelationship between memory, cognition, and architectural experience by drawing upon insights from neuroscience, psychology, and spatial design. The intent is to deepen the understanding of how built environments affect human memory, both at the level of neurological response and emotional perception, and to consider how architectural design can be consciously shaped to engage memory as a design tool (Movilă, 2018).

Recent developments in neuroarchitecture have opened new avenues for investigating these interactions. Technologies such as EEG (electroencephalogram) monitoring, fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans, and virtual reality simulations have allowed researchers to examine how the brain reacts to spatial environments in real time. This emerging field reinforces the argument that memory is not an abstract concept for architects to ignore; it is a physiological, psychological, and social phenomenon that spatial design can actively shape.

1.2. Key Research Questions

The investigation is guided by the following questions:

  • How does architecture evoke memory through spatial experience?

  • What role does cognitive and emotional memory play in design?

  • How can designers incorporate memory-sensitive strategies?

2. Theoretical Framework

Understanding how memory operates requires a nuanced grasp of its various types, each of which is deeply intertwined with architecture.

2.1. Types of Memory and Their Relevance to Space

Episodic, semantic, procedural, and spatial memory are distinguished in cognitive neuroscience by their different functions and neural substrates (Maguire et al., 1998; Tulving, 1985). Episodic memory refers to personal, autobiographical experiences, often tied to specific places, like remembering the scent of a grandmother’s kitchen or the sound of school bells. Semantic memory involves factual knowledge and cultural meaning (e.g., the symbolic importance of a temple or monument). Procedural memory governs motor skills and habits, such as navigating stairs or using familiar hand gestures. Spatial memory, meanwhile, enables orientation in space, remembering routes, layouts, and environmental structure.

Each of these memory types is profoundly influenced by architectural space. For instance, episodic and spatial memories are shaped by multisensory place-based experiences, which anchor memories through light, sound, materiality, and rhythm. Semantic memory links space to collective narratives and heritage, while procedural memory is often embedded in repeated spatial practices, like rituals, habits, or daily navigation routines.

As discussed in adaptive design theory (Jäger, 2016), enactive environments, those which require movement, perception, and interaction, enable users to co-create spatial meaning. Architecture in this sense is not static; it participates in shaping how we remember and relate to the world. The layering of sensory stimuli and spatial transitions contributes to a cognitive map that links emotion with memory, reinforcing long-term encoding.

2.2. Architecture as a Mnemonic Device

The idea of architecture as a mnemonic device is not new. From ancient times, memory was spatialized through the Method of Loci, a technique where orators imagined placing information within the rooms of a familiar building. This practice, rooted in classical rhetoric and used for centuries as a cognitive technique, illustrates how deeply memory and space are intertwined (McCabe, 2015; Yates, 1966).

Monuments, ruins, and heritage sites embed collective memory within their materiality. Memorials like Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., harness minimalism, spatial progression, and material tactility to evoke reflection and remembrance. Lin’s design has been widely studied in memorial architecture for its affective use of spatial immersion and non-verbal symbolism, evoking memory through somatic presence rather than textual or iconic representation (Doss, 2010).

Conversely, the erasure of architecture, through war, gentrification, or environmental disaster, is often experienced as a form of memory loss, both individual and cultural. As Adrian Forty (1999) argues, memory in architecture is not just about what is built but also how we interpret and narrate space. Buildings become mnemonic when they resonate with stories, whether explicit (through inscriptions and symbols) or implicit (via atmospheres, absences, or material traces).

3. Methodology

This paper adopts a qualitative, case-based reflective methodology grounded in interdisciplinary theoretical analysis. It draws from phenomenology, embodied cognition, neuroscience, and environmental psychology to examine how spatial experiences across cultural and architectural contexts shape memory and emotional response (Vardouli & Voyatzaki, 2014).

The selected case studies, ranging from memorial architecture to vernacular housing and ritual spaces, were deliberately chosen to illustrate diverse modes of spatial memory activation: traumatic recollection, cultural continuity, sensory familiarity, and sacred embodiment. These examples span varied geographies (Europe, India, Japan) and typologies (memorials, studios, stepwells, and townhouses) to reflect how memory is inscribed, triggered, and embodied differently across socio-cultural and temporal contexts.

The analytical framework used integrates:

  • Phenomenological interpretation of spatial rituals and bodily engagement,

  • Cognitive mapping theories from neuroscience (e.g., place and grid cells),

  • Environmental psychology principles, particularly place attachment and sensory memory.

Rather than empirical generalization, the goal is theoretical insight: to explore how design choices interact with perception, emotion, and memory across diverse built environments. Each case is thus read as a mnemonic landscape, where material, rhythm, and symbolism serve as catalysts for remembering.

4. Architecture and Cognitive Memory: Case-Based Reflections

Architecture acts as a repository and catalyst for memory, not only offering shelter but engaging the senses, body, and emotions. It evokes, stores, and reconstructs both personal and collective narratives through material, movement, atmosphere, and cultural symbolism. The following case studies illustrate how architectural design interacts with different types of memory (episodic, semantic, procedural, and spatial), guided by the framework of embodied cognition, affective neuroscience, and environmental psychology.

4.1. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Peter Eisenman, Berlin, 2005)

Theme: Spatial trauma, abstraction, and disorientation

Peter Eisenman’s Holocaust Memorial exemplifies how minimalist spatial abstraction can evoke collective trauma through sensory disorientation. The 2,711 concrete stelae, arranged in a shifting grid over uneven terrain, lack inscriptions or symbolic identifiers, thus relying solely on bodily experience to elicit memory.

As visitors move through narrowing paths, the monolithic blocks rise around them, obstructing horizon lines and muffling ambient sound. The sloped base and visual monotony disorient proprioception, the unconscious sense of body position and movement, inducing instability and unease. This spatial destabilization creates an affective atmosphere that mirrors the emotional and psychological rupture associated with Holocaust memory.

From a neuroscientific lens, such immersive environments may trigger episodic memory encoding by engaging the limbic system, where emotions like fear, confusion, and grief are processed. As Krueger et al. (2009) suggest, emotionally salient environments heighten long-term memory consolidation. Eisenman’s design, by eschewing direct narrative in Favor of sensorial ambiguity, leverages embodied affect to activate memory recall, particularly of historical trauma through symbolic spatial voids.

Figure 1
Figure 1.Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Credits: ©Eisenman architects, 2005

4.2. Sangath Studio (B.V. Doshi, Ahmedabad, 1981)

Theme: Embodied tradition, sensory memory, and spatial familiarity

B.V. Doshi’s Sangath Studio exemplifies multisensory design as a trigger for embodied cultural memory. Rather than a direct replication of vernacular forms, Sangath reinterprets elements like sunken pathways, tiled vaults, water channels, and shaded courtyards to invoke familiarity. The word Sangath, meaning “moving together,” reflects both collective practice and shared memory.

Figure 2
Figure 2.Sangath Studio

Credits:© Ayda Ayoubi, Architect Magazine, 2018.

Here, the term “synaesthetic landscape” refers not to literal synaesthesia (where one sensory input involuntarily triggers another), but to the layering of sensory inputs, tactile mosaic tiles, filtered light, ambient water sounds, and vegetative aroma, that together create affective resonance. This aligns with Pallasmaa’s idea of the “tactile unconscious”, where bodily memory is accessed through environmental cues (Pallasmaa, 2005).

Visitors unconsciously adjust their pace to the uneven terrain, invoking procedural memory. Simultaneously, episodic memory is triggered through spatial cues reminiscent of childhood, ritual, or sacred space. The design activates archetypal spatial memory, deep-seated cultural imprints not explicitly learned but passed through embodied rituals and shared heritage. Doshi’s statement that “architecture is an extension of life’s rituals” supports this embodied reading of memory as movement, rhythm, and cultural continuity.

4.3. Japanese Machiya Houses (Kyoto, 17th–20th century)

Theme: Layered space, seasonal ritual, and intergenerational memory

Traditional Machiya townhouses illustrate how temporal adaptation and spatial layering embed memory into everyday life. Composed of modular partitions (fusuma, shoji), narrow fronts, and deep interiors, their layout gradually reveals spaces, mirroring how memory is constructed: layered, filtered, and sequenced.

What distinguishes Machiya is their ritual responsiveness to seasons. Interior layouts shift with temperature and festival cycles: reed mats replace tatami in summer, alcove displays evolve with cultural calendars, and walls adjust to control light. These micro-adjustments instill procedural and semantic memory, anchoring identity in place through ritualized behavior and collective meaning.

Figure 3
Figure 3.Japanese Machiya Houses

Credits: ©Photo by 663highland, 2006. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Environmental psychology supports this link between ritual, space, and identity formation, emphasizing how repeated spatial practices deepen place attachment (Proshansky et al., 1983). Neuroscience also confirms that emotionally charged routines, particularly those rooted in family and cultural tradition, build strong long-term memory traces. In this sense, Machiya is not merely lived spaces but mnemonic devices, structured to carry cultural knowledge across generations.

4.4. Indian Stepwell: Rani-ki-Vav (Patan, 11th century)

Theme: Ritual descent, spatial memory, and sacred symbolism

Rani-ki-Vav embodies how architecture becomes a cognitive map of transcendence. Its spatial design, sequential steps, sculptural rhythms, and symbolic descent, engages ritual movement as a memory-forming act. Unlike vertical monuments, this stepwell inverts space, guiding the body downward through increasingly ornate chambers to sacred water.

The descent simulates a spiritual transition: from daylight to shadow, surface to subconscious. This physical movement fosters procedural memory, reinforced through repetition of ritual descent, while the iconographic sculptures encode semantic memory tied to spiritual and mythological narratives.

Research in neuroarchitecture indicates that ritualized bodily movement through symbolically charged spaces, such as religious or sacred sites, can activate parasympathetic responses, leading to enhanced memory consolidation and emotional grounding (Biedermann & Vartanian, 2016; Zeisel et al., 2003).

Figure 4
Figure 4.Rani-Ki-Vav, Patan, Gujarat

Credits: ©News Bharati, 2021

In Vedic and Tantric cosmology, such descent symbolizes ego dissolution and inner reflection. Architectural arrangements evoke meditative brain states, slowing breath and focus, aiding neurobiological memory encoding through repetition and emotion. According to environmental neuroscience, environments designed for ritual engagement, especially those activating symbolic association and movement, deepen both spatial and emotional recall (Zeisel et al., 2003).

Thus, Rani-ki-Vav operates not just as infrastructure but as mnemonic architecture, a place where memory is choreographed through ritual, symbolism, and bodily descent into meaning.

5. Design Tools and Technologies for Memory Mapping

The convergence of neuroscience, digital technology, and spatial design is giving rise to new methodologies for understanding how architecture interacts with human memory.

5.1. Virtual Reality (VR): Simulating Memory and Spatial Experience

Virtual Reality (VR) is emerging as a powerful tool in architecture, especially for studying experiential and spatial memory. By immersing users in lifelike simulations, VR allows researchers to observe real-time responses to design elements like light, texture, and sound. Studies have shown its effectiveness in testing wayfinding, emotional connection, and spatial recall, critical for spaces tied to memory such as homes, heritage sites, and religious settings. VR also supports temporal design by simulating seasonal changes and rituals. When combined with neurofeedback, it enables emotionally intelligent design that resonates both cognitively and culturally.

Studies using VR in architectural cognition have shown that immersive simulations improve spatial recall and emotional engagement, particularly when multisensory cues are embedded (Kuliga et al., 2015).

5.2. Brain Imaging and fMRI in Neuroarchitecture

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and other brain imaging technologies such as EEG (Electroencephalography) are increasingly employed in neuroarchitecture to understand how different architectural stimuli influence cognitive and affective states. These tools provide empirical evidence of how environments are perceived, processed, and remembered by the brain.

fMRI studies have identified that spaces with biophilic elements, natural light, or rhythmic symmetry activate the hippocampus and para hippocampal gyrus, regions closely associated with spatial memory, navigation, and emotional processing (Robinson & Pallasmaa, 2015). Moreover, spaces that are perceived as oppressive or chaotic tend to trigger heightened amygdala activity, indicating stress or discomfort.

Researchers at institutions like the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) are exploring how these findings can translate into evidence-based design for therapeutic environments, dementia care facilities, or trauma-informed spaces, where memory deficits or sensitivities are pronounced.

Although brain imaging is typically used in clinical or academic settings, its findings are paving the way for design guidelines that promote cognitive clarity, emotional comfort, and long-term place attachment. By quantifying the neurological impact of spatial experiences, designers can move beyond intuition toward data-informed empathy.

5.3. AI and Machine Learning: Pattern Recognition in Cognitive Feedback

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to analyze complex datasets generated through user interaction with spaces, be it through motion tracking, eye movement, biometric sensors, or VR simulations. These tools can identify patterns in spatial behavior, such as how often users revisit certain zones, where they feel most oriented, or what triggers memory recall.

For example, AI can be trained to detect correlations between spatial configurations and user-reported emotions or cognitive responses. This is particularly powerful in co-design processes, where feedback from diverse users, including neurodiverse or elderly populations, can be interpreted to refine spatial strategies for inclusivity and familiarity.

Machine learning applications in spatial design are being developed to model emotional responses in real time, aiding architects in anticipating user needs through predictive behavioural analytics (Coburn et al., 2017; Eberhard, 2009).

In cultural or heritage contexts, AI has also been employed to reconstruct fragmented architectural memory, such as rebuilding lost urban forms using historical data and oral narratives. These reconstructions can serve not only as archival tools but as interactive memory environments, immersive platforms where collective memory is spatialized and re-experienced.

Furthermore, AI can aid in anticipatory design, predicting how future users might interact with evolving spatial environments based on cognitive behavior patterns.

5.4. Toward Emotionally Intelligent, Memory-Centric Design

The integration of VR, neuroimaging, and AI technologies signals a shift toward emotionally intelligent environments, spaces designed with a nuanced understanding of human cognition, perception, and memory. These tools allow architects to simulate and prototype not just form, but feeling, inviting memory and emotional wellbeing into the design brief.

Key applications include:

  • Therapeutic design: Memory-sensitive spaces for dementia care, trauma healing, or sensory integration.

  • Cultural continuity: Heritage-inspired architecture that evokes collective memory through material, form, and ritual.

  • Personalized environments: Adaptive architecture that responds to individual memory patterns and emotional needs.

This technological ecosystem also supports decolonizing design, allowing underrepresented voices to map, simulate, and reclaim lost spatial narratives.

6. Memory as Time

“Architecture is not about space but about time.” – Vito Acconci

Memory, as it functions in architecture, is not a fixed imprint but a temporal phenomenon, constructed and reconstructed through experience, erosion, ritual, and reinterpretation. Just as memory in the human mind is non-linear, layered, and subject to evolution, so too are how architectural spaces are perceived and remembered over time.

In cognitive science, memory is rarely a perfect retrieval of past events. It is dynamic, selective, and often reconstructed in the present. Similarly, in architecture, spatial memory is not a mere recollection of a built form, but an embodied experience that is constantly shaped by movement, context, and social engagement. This aligns with Henri Bergson’s theory of duration (la durée), where time is not a sequence of measurable instants but a qualitative flow, in which memory and perception are inseparable from lived experience.

Memory is inscribed in architecture through use and repetition. Rituals, be they daily habits or cultural ceremonies, anchor memory in specific gestures and spatial routines. A traditional Japanese Machiya, for instance, embodies memory not only through its architectural elements but through the cyclical domestic rituals, the sliding of shoji screens, or the shifting of light during tea preparation, each motion reinforcing a temporal loop of memory.

Architect Bernard Tschumi once argued that “There is no architecture without event.” His works explore the disjunction between space and time, suggesting that architecture is activated through movement and shaped by events rather than by form alone. Such views promote non-linear spatial narratives, where memory is co-produced by the user and the built form over time.

Buildings that have lived multiple lives, repurposed, reinterpreted, and reinhabited, offer powerful insights into memory as a temporal construct. Adaptive reuse practices recognize that architecture is not an isolated moment of creation, but a continuum of meaning, layered across historical, cultural, and social transformations.

An old industrial building transformed into an art gallery, a colonial house adapted into a public library, or a sacred ruin converted into a contemplative space, each carries forward a palimpsest of memory, where past and present co-exist in tension and dialogue. The material erosion, traces of previous function, and juxtaposition of new interventions all contribute to a thickened experience of time.

This approach challenges linear conceptions of design, where buildings are often judged by their origin or completion. Instead, it embraces the unfinished, the mutable, and the performative, architectures that live through time, not despite it.

In the digital age, design often treats time as linear, but space is experienced non-linearly. Inspired by thinkers like Bergson and designers like Tschumi and Scarpa, this approach explores space as a temporal narrative. It values decay, sequential perception, cycles, and memory traces, making architecture a vessel for both remembrance and future anticipation.

7. Discussion

Neuroscience and psychology affirm that memory is multimodal: spatial, emotional, episodic, procedural, and semantic forms of memory operate together, often triggered by sensory cues like light, temperature, material texture, and sound. These cues, when intentionally integrated into architectural design, can create emotionally resonant, memorable environments. This explains why certain spaces, like a cool stepwell or a sunlit corridor, leave lasting imprints, not through visual dominance alone, but through synesthetic interplay.

Also, place-based memory, linked to the hippocampus and place cells, underscores the neurological basis of orientation and familiarity in space. Spaces that support cognitive mapping, via legible layouts, rhythmic transitions, and symbolic markers, aid in spatial memory formation and emotional anchoring.

Figure 5
Figure 5.A Cognitive Model of Spatial Memory in Architecture

Credits: ©Author

7.1. Future Architectural Approaches

Understanding the cognitive dimensions of space calls for a paradigm shift in architectural design, one that transcends function and form and embraces experiential resonance. The model encourages a user-centered and memory-sensitive design practice, where emotional impact and spatial cognition are embedded from conceptual stages.

Designers can leverage this in several ways:

  • Ritual Mapping: Designing for memory-forming rituals, like light ceremonies, seasonal shifts, or sensory transitions, helps create lasting cognitive and cultural impressions.

  • Narrative Architecture: Spaces can be choreographed like stories, using sequences of movement, surprise, or contrast to imprint emotional and episodic memory.

  • Technological Integration: Tools like VR and EEG/fMRI can simulate and analyze spatial responses, enabling pre-occupancy cognitive testing for memory-rich environments.

  • Adaptive Reuse and Time-Conscious Design: Retaining material or symbolic layers from a building’s past encourages memory continuity and collective identity.

  • Inclusive Design: For aging populations or neurodivergent users, memory-sensitive spaces improve navigation, orientation, and well-being, bridging neuroarchitecture and social inclusion.

8. Conclusion

Memory in architecture is not merely a mental function; it is spatial, embodied, and lived. This paper has argued that architecture is both a container and a catalyst for memory, where environments are not passive backdrops but active agents in shaping how we remember, feel, and navigate the world. From individual recollection to collective rituals, and from episodic impressions to long-term spatial familiarity, memory is embedded in material, light, rhythm, and form.

By engaging with interdisciplinary insights from neuroscience, environmental psychology, and phenomenology, this study reframes architecture not just as a visual or technical act, but as a cognitive and emotional interface. (Movilă, 2018) Concepts like embodied cognition, spatial memory encoding, and sensorial memory triggers reposition the architect as a sculptor of experience, not only across space, but across identity, time, and affect.

The case studies demonstrate how architecture can evoke, preserve, and reconstruct memory through diverse cultural and environmental logics, from disorientation in Eisenman’s memorial to ritual descent in Rani-ki-Vav. These examples highlight the ways in which architectural design choices directly engage with neural, emotional, and symbolic systems to influence how memory is encoded and recalled.

This paper proposes a cross-cultural, cognitive framework that integrates embodied cognition and collective ritual memory as core design parameters, especially relevant for:

  • Trauma-responsive urban spaces

  • Heritage-sensitive interventions

  • Memory-friendly environments for aging and neurodiverse users

Unlike traditional architectural theory, which often treats memory as symbolic or metaphorical, this study offers a model grounded in affective neuroscience, spatial cognition, and culturally embedded spatial practices. It invites future researchers and practitioners to approach architecture as a multisensory memory interface, where form, behaviour, and meaning are inseparably linked.

9. Future Research and Design Implications

As we move forward, this cognitive approach opens up several pathways for future inquiry and innovation:

  • Dementia care and aging design: How might architecture support memory retrieval and orientation for patients with memory loss?

  • Trauma-informed spatial strategies: Can built environments aid in healing psychological wounds or prevent retraumatization?

  • Cultural memory and erasure: In contexts of colonization or urban displacement, how can memory be ethically preserved, reimagined, or reconstructed in space?

Further collaboration between architects, neuroscientists, clinicians, and cultural theorists is essential to deepen this inquiry and develop practical tools for memory-sensitive, emotionally intelligent environments (Vardouli & Voyatzaki, 2014).