Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension, Chapters IX & X

In Chapter 9, Hall starts by discussing the senses, that is, the “physiological base shared by all human beings.” After giving caution as to how best to properly organize/translate the various categories that can come out of analyzing the relation of the senses with culture.
Later on in the chapter, Hall makes the interesting assertion that “whenever people talk, they supply only part of the message. The rest is filled in by the listener.” I found that to be intriguing. In other words, it is as though there is much interpretation that goes on in our daily lives that involves what I would call “faith”, or more commonly, “trust”.
As Hall continues his discourse on fixed-feature space and architecture, he makes a very interesting comment on people who live “two lives”: “I have observed that many men have two or more distinct personalities, one for business and one for the home. The separation of the office and home in these instances helps to keep the two often incompatible personalities from conflicting…” I found this to be a very interesting note. How long can a double-life society thrive? Is architecture really the “cure” for taming humans to cope with our various lives?
Later, Hall makes another interesting note when he critiques modern day architecture/construction trends: “We are building huge apartment houses and mammoth office buildings with no understanding of the needs of the occupants.” To me, this note only further points out the inhumanity of the typical corporate America form of business. There is just something more natural about more traditional blue collar jobs e.g. farming, building with your own two hands, etc.
Towards the end of the chapter, Hall provides numerous pictures of various social interactions, architectural setups and styles, etc. He made an interesting assertion when he pointed out that “the French tendency to pack together…suggest the resulting high sensory involvement evident in many aspects of French life.”
The end of the chapter involves a discussion on “semifixed feature space”, which as I understand, is basically the concept of sociofugal and sociopetal spaces; that is to say that semifixed feature space involves the study of spaces that are attractive for social interaction or not.
Chapter 10 more specifically delves into a study of how people personally operate with spaces. In other words, I suppose it’s more of a personal look at spaces than Chapter 9. Hall divides the “distances of man” into 4 categories (which he had simplified from his original, overly complex 8 categories): intimate, personal, social, and public. Hall then proceeds to elaborate upon each of these categories with much precision. He even enumerates various distances for each categories as well as the biological senses involved, etc. Hall says that humans, like the rest of the animals, exhibit territoriality. He notes that his 4-part classification is based upon observation.
Hall says that “The ability to recognize these various zones of involvement…has now become extremely important. The world’s populations are crowding into cities…” While I find that Hall lists some interesting points about human space, I feel that there are more worthwhile issues with which to be concerned. To classify the recognition of these zones as being “extremely important” is, in my opinion, a little bit overkill. Nevertheless, city planners, etc. who take these sorts of zones studies into account will most likely design better cities.