Aesthetic emotions and the evaluation of architectural design styles

The research studied aesthetic emotions and their relationship to architectural design styles. The goal was to see how people assess two contrasting design styles, namely Renaissance and Contemporary styles, by considering aesthetic and emotional aspects. Participants were 35 students, who were presented with 10 digitalized images of building facades of both architectural styles, projected on a computer screen. They were requested to assess each picture using a semantic questionnaire containing 11 bipolar themes organized into 4 categories. Results showed different aesthetic, comprehension, structural and emotional characteristics promoted by each design style. Renaissance design style was perceived as more figurative, more relaxing, simpler, typical, familiar and easy to understand. In contrast, Contemporary design style was found more interesting, and most liked. On the other hand, no differences were observed in the assessment of both architectural design styles regarding their positive or negative valence and their aesthetic value. Findings from this study can be applied for improving engineering and product design practice, and design education.