ON THE ISSUE OF THE SYNESTHESIA IN THE SPATIAL PERCEPTION OF ARCHITECTURE AND INTERIOR DESIGN

This article examines the phenomenon of synesthesia as a fundamental factor in the perception of architectural space and in the formation of the object-spatial environment of the interior. The study is theoretical and synthetic in nature and aims to systematize philosophical, psychological, phenomenological, and art-theoretical approaches to spatial experience. Particular attention is given to the proposition that space, as experienced by a human being, is not reducible to a geometrical or purely physical dimension. Rather, it emerges through the interaction of sensory systems, bodily awareness, emotional response, memory, and imaginative cognition. The article argues that the perception of architectural and interior space is rooted in the multimodal integration of sensation. Vision, touch, proprioception, balance, muscular tension, kinaesthetic orientation, and affective response do not function separately in the constitution of spatial experience. Their interaction forms a synthetic image of the environment that becomes the basis for spatial thinking and, subsequently, for design activity. In this regard, synesthesia is considered not merely as an exceptional neurological condition, but as a broader cognitive principle that reveals the interdependence of sensory modalities in the formation of spatial imagery. The theoretical framework of the article brings together the ideas of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Shaun Gallagher, Richard E. Cytowic, Julia Simner, Heinrich Wolfflin, Oleksii H. Gabrichevskyi, Yurii H. Lehenkyi, and Rudolf Arnheim. On this basis, the article identifies three principal figurative models through which human beings project bodily spatiality into the built environment: the model of wrapping or enclosure, the anthropomorphic model of space, and the model of space constituted by objects and visual forces. Each of these approaches demonstrates a distinct mode by which bodily sensation is transformed into architectural and interior form. A separate section addresses the interaction of color and form in interior design, especially in the context of a healthcare environment. This example illustrates how synesthetic mechanisms influence emotional atmosphere, spatial perception, visual hierarchy, and the psychological comfort of users. The article concludes that synesthesia is of major theoretical and practical importance for architecture and environmental design because it explains how space becomes meaningful, inhabited, emotionally charged, and aesthetically articulated within human experience.