Zibaldone 6

Since we experience life with more than just our visual sense, it is fair to say that we understand architecture and place through smell. In this case the smell of popcorn is signature to movie theatres. Of course this is a generalization that most of us automatically understand and it is arguable that popcorn is in most in not all theatres. However I worked at this theatre, AMC Shore 8 in Huntington NY. After a few months of working there I actually stopped noticing the smell of the popcorn and it wasn't until I went to another theatre on Long Island that I smelled the overwhelming smell. Although the popcorn was probably made the same way, there are subtle difference that might me accentuated by other smells in that theatre or by the age or size of the space compered to my own. Therefore even thought there are smells that we can generalize as similar they are actually different or specified by the life and architecture around them actually designating different places and proposing  that smells are eclectic like architecture. Smells then become specific to place and become way finding devices to understand where we are. Thus there is a difference between my movie theatre and say the Regal Fenway 13 here in Boston.