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The Architecture of Atmosphere
... This double path implies that our relationship with atmospheres is not just incidental, pointing to the possibility of producing atmospheres intentionally. Wigley (1998) even suggests that the central objective of the architect is the construction of atmospheres: "To construct a building is to construct such an atmosphere. . . . [and] to enter a project is to enter an atmosphere. ...
... 45 (Böhme, 2016;Griffero & Moretti, 2018;Leatherbarrow, 2015;Loos, 1898;Wigley, 1998;Zumthor, 2006) Architects are already using VR in their design processes to test solutions, layouts, or even to make the architectural project compatible with other disciplines, such as structural, electrical projects, etc. From a designing standpoint, it is an intelligent use of VR, but it still seems significantly associated with a logic of designing that is linked to a search for the most 'correct' solution. It seems evident that this use can result in interesting projects with their atmosphere, but the resulting atmosphere is still incidental. ...
... As Wigley (1998) affirms: "The very rejection of atmosphere constructs a particular atmosphere" (Wigley, 1998, p. 29). ...
This research investigates the production and experience of immersion in architecture and virtual reality (VR), aiming to disclose VR’s cognitive effects and to understand why architects still underuse it for designing. Assuming that cognition is not restricted to a subject’s brain, this study adopts an enactivist perspective on cognition, implying that it extends through the entire organism, including its sensorimotor coupling with the environment. Immersion is approached from a phenomenological standpoint, prioritizing, whenever possible, the author’s first-hand experiences. Some theoretical aspects that emerged were investigated through practice, whether experiencing third-party immersive experiences or producing the two ‘practice studies’ developed for this thesis. The concepts of technology and immersion were studied to evaluate the pertinence of the term ‘immersive technologies’ and to ground theoretically the possibility of an ‘art of immersion’. Immersion in architecture and VR is analysed, arriving at the concept of atmosphere as a possible common ground between experiences. The notion of representation, in its turn, guides the discussion on the production of architecture. The relationship between body and architectural representation is also investigated, disclosing how efficiency became increasingly the standard, which implied the reduction of subjective aspects and the disengagement of the body in designing. The findings show that the software available for developing VR immersive experiences are either too complex, demanding the development of skills that are not usually part of the architects’ domain, or too limited, restricting experimentation. The analysis of the perception of immersion and atmosphere disclosed some subjective aspects related to the instrumentalizing of architects’ imagination, which hinders the perception of alternative uses of VR. Finally, it is argued that the most significant potential of VR for architects is related to the unlikely atmospheres it can bring to presence, allowing architects to experience and be affected by spatialities that are not only a digital reproduction of the look and/or behaviour of a physical environment.
... Light can stimulate any surface, having an immediate effect on the perception of space by creating an atmosphere from a range of luminous intensity and contrast. These variable atmospheric conditions create a series of microclimates that emanate from the architectural object, yet they are perceived to envelop the people and not the building (Wigley 1998). The generation of optical effects from fragments of images was developed in catoptric boxes starting in the seventeenth century. ...
... (Bressani, 2013) The formless nature of atmosphere is a result of a clearly defined set of rules to manipulate environmental conditions, creating a meteorological cartography of atmospheric effects. (Wigley, 1998) The juxtaposition of reflected daylight, receiving surfaces, mathematics, and mood generates an architecture of informed and intelligent formless atmosphere. ...
... Atmosphere may be the main aim of the architect that is slightly unreachable (Wigley, 1998). It can be compared with the French word "ambiance", meaning a »"cheerful" to "melancholy, " "light" to "oppressive"« activity (Pérez-Gómez, 2016, p. 27). ...
Public space is an essential element of human wellbeing and the overall development of the city and society. This paper presents a brief outlook of the past and present situations related to the planning and use of public spaces in urban environments. In doing so, this paper addresses the finding that public spaces gradually lose the focus of quality in them, and as time goes by, these spaces are reshaping even in human-unfriendly places. The purpose of this presented research is to find out what are the key elements that create a quality public space. To achieve it, it is used a comparative–descriptive method comparing two relevant pieces of literature or authorial approaches, Henaff and Strong's “Public Space and Democracy” and Pérez-Gómez's “Attunement”. These two examples fulfill the criteria of having different interdisciplinary approaches toward public space, explained through different periods and backgrounds. It is found that the crucial elements these authors suggest for building qualitative space are well-grounded. As such, they can be implemented in an integrated physical form because they base on the human factor or the physical presence and experience in space. In the conclusion part, a suggestion was made to include these elements in the process of planning and designing public spaces in the context of the challenges of modern living culture.
... En concreto, este autor focaliza su mirada en el conjunto de aspectos sensoriales, corporales, arquitectónicos, emocionales y espaciales que conforman nuestra realidad. Así pues, tal como afirma Wigley (1998), las atmósferas intervienen en las experiencias de cada persona, condicionando sus dictámenes. El carácter único e irrepetible en la vida cotidiana (de Certeau 1984) de todas las personas ha interesado a un gran número de disciplinas de las ciencias sociales (Degen et al. 2015;. ...
En los últimos años, las políticas neoliberales relativas a la educación superior han condicionado a las universidades a ser espacios mercantilistas, invisibilizando las diferencias étnico-culturales. Este artículo presenta una investigación de docencia universitaria realizada en el grado de educación social en una universidad española. El proyecto utilizó las contra-cartografías con el fin de visibilizar la dimensión cotidiana de las atmósferas del espacio urbano y, así, reflexionar críticamente sobre él. Se obtuvieron cuarenta y seis contra-cartografías a través de un enfoque visuales-sensorial y, estas, fueron analizadas a través del prisma de la pedagogía crítica. Los resultados evidencian cómo generar prácticas sociales situadas en un contexto sociocultural específico mejora la docencia y formación universitaria, posibilitando a los futuros educadores tomar consciencia de sus entornos y realidades sociales.
... Atmosphere refers to 'something spatial and at the same time something emotional' (Bö hme, 2016;p.22); it involves attending to senses, bodies, architecture, feelings and space together and simultaneously. While we are mostly unaware of them, atmospheres mediate our experience and judgements and so, as Mark Wigley (1998) has written, 'atmospheres must be seen as the most real things of all' (p. 18). ...
In recent years, neoliberal government policies relating to higher education have diminished universities as spaces of learning and encounter with difference. This article discusses a teaching project that occurred on social work qualifying programmes in two universities in Britain and Spain. The project aimed to produce new opportunities for students to encounter and critically reflect on how power relations are produced and maintained in social work practice, by engaging students in mapping the atmospheres of stigmatised urban spaces. Students used counter-mapping techniques, which aim to make visible power relations and inequalities, in order to critically reflect on their experiences of and practices in such spaces. The article evaluates data in the form of students’ cartographies and narratives, and educators’ photographs and reflections on teaching, arguing for the benefits of moving teaching outside of the classroom and engaging with the material, sensed realities of places where social workers work. The article builds on recent conceptualisations of atmosphere and space in social work literature, contributes to discussions of critical reflection and critical pedagogy in social work and provides examples of the use of counter-mapping as a pedagogical tool in higher education contexts.
... (Wigley 1998). For Wigley, atmosphere, is what is experienced by the users of architecture and not the matter of the building itself. ...
This paper explores the intangible aspects of space through a series of sound-mappings that took place in Edinburgh and Athens between 2006-08. One of our main conclusions is that sound is a rich and provocative tool for exploring space, due to the fact that it reveals qualities and information that a visual representation wouldn't had been able to. A significant remark we made is that the exploration of space through sound does not predetermine the findings; we did not pose questions about pre-decided aspects of the places under investigation. On the contrary, within each different environment, the study of sound brought out different kinds of information. We also realized, that the experience of sound of a place lies in the tension between our attempt to grasp, and possibly map it, and the fact that sound-and atmosphere in general-naturally resists these endeavours.
... In the fields of urban studies, the main problem is that some architects have used the word "atmospheres" to refer to the product of architecture (Pallasmaa, 2014;Wigley, 1998;Zumthor, 2006Zumthor, , 1998, while others to measure the change of people's feeling, emotions, and moods in the outdoor spaces of the city (Abusaada, 2019;Abusaada & Elshater, 2020;Adams et al., 2019;Backer, 2019;Bissell, 2010). Urban designers have preferred to use the term "sense of place," which includes the perceptual dimension (Guthey et al., 2014;Jackson, 1994;Jorgensen & Stedman, 2001). ...
This chapter investigates the ambiguity of the word “atmospheres” in the fields of urban studies. It examines the justifications (plausibility) beyond its uses, with the terms that are focusing on the perceptual qualities. The author investigated the uses of the word “atmospheres” from the beginning of the 17th century to the year 2020, a period which he divided into four stages. The investigation covered the work of 27 thinkers in the fields of natural sciences and humanities, including 10 in architecture disciplines, in addition to 28 manuscripts that addressed the relationship between atmospheres in the areas of architecture, particularly urban planning and design and urban landscape architecture between 1998 and 2020. The outcomes were developed through a comprehensive literature review by gaps analysis and a deductive online survey with 58 specialized participants, using SurveyMonkey. This chapter contributes to the rationale that an urban designer can use to study people's changing feelings, emotions, and moods according to the understanding of the terms related to atmospheres.
... It is that interaction that cumulatively provides both the overall (possibly dynamic) atmosphere and those details that are essential to the way we act. "[A]rchitecture is but a stage set that produces a sensuous atmosphere" says Wigley (1998); and Griffero comments that "buildings produce therefore a wide range of atmospheres and as authentic scripted spaces [my italics] force the perceiver to immerse themselves in them". ...
"From Affordances to Atmosphere" provides extracts from the March 2020 Draft of Chapters 2 and 4 of Michael Arbib's book "When Brains Meet Buildings," to be published by Oxford University Press in 2021.
From Chapter 2, "An action-oriented perspective on space and affordances," it includes:
2.1. In an art gallery: From wayfinding to contemplation
2.2. Affordances and effectivities
From Chapter 4, "Atmosphere, affordances and emotion," it includes:
4.1. Atmosphere exemplified
4.3. Atmosphere as a non-Gibsonian affordance
... Bei off en geführten Stationen könnte überlegt werden, inwieweit ein klassischer institutioneller Stationsstützpunkt künftig mehr Ähnlichkeiten mit einer Hotelrezeption haben könnte, um den Willkommenscharakter mehr zu betonen, ohne natürlich dabei auf Praktikabilität, Funktion und Datenschutz zu verzichten. Atmosphäre defi niert, so Wigley (1998), den Raum zwischen Bauwerk und seinem Kontext. Hoff mann (2017) postuliert, wie Patienten, Angehörige, Besucher und Personal die Station wahrnehmen, beeinfl usst auch deren Verhalten in der Klinik. ...
... 32 The social psychologist Margaret Wetherell goes further in arguing that the concept of affective atmosphere, though promising as a broad descriptor of "context," is incapable of recognizing the details and particularities of our banal lived encounters with(in) the manifold 255 environments, places and events that constitute emotional-social life. 33 In particular, the notion of atmosphere cannot register the privilege and inclusion/ exclusion of particular subjects/viewers, who are excluded and included from particular scenes, as "not quite belonging." Nor can it account for mixed or contrary affective responses (for example, anxiety and visual pleasure) or the 260 reactions of viewers who may experience the same physical space in a markedly different affective fashion. ...
The burgeoning literature on street art and graffiti tends to have a broader focus on a range of works in a particular area or on the works of a particular street artist. Seldom do scholars engage in detailed interpretation, or sustained analysis of the reception of a particular work of street art.1 Fiona Hillary and Shanti Sumartojo are to be commended in presenting a rare example of a detailed analysis of a particular work of street art, and its place-based reception.2 However, while their article represents a promising sea change in terms of a clear shift in the focus of analysis in the literature, Hillary and Sumartojo’s study of Adrian Doyle’s Empty Nursery Blue is compromised by several factors, not least among which is the largely unacknowledged and unexamined investment and involvement of the authors as the commissioners and curators of the work. Further, Hillary and Sumartojo’s uncritical adoption of the concept of affective atmosphere paradoxically operates to exclude contradictory responses to the work, as it cannot take account of the detailed particularities of viewers’ social-emotional experiences. In addition, while the authors’ self-described autoethnographic methods are laudable, in practice this seems to bear little resemblance to the established and critically reflexive practice of autoethnography as it is enacted in the social and human sciences and indeed, this “autoethnography” appears to operate as a rhetorical device that enables the authorial animation of key concepts from the literature (e.g., political theorist Jane Bennett’s notion of “enchantment”) central to the authors’ interpretation of Empty Nursery Blue. It is argued that the liminal status of Empty Nursery Blue as apparently uncommissioned street art and as commissioned public art presents an unacknowledged yet potentially productive analytic tension at the heart of Hillary and Sumartojo’s interpretation.
... Sensuous and stirring gaseous and ever changing bodies of light, humidity, air pressure, and trajectories. Fading light, increasing levels of heat, reverberating acoustic events that shake and impart influence on the human body (Wigley 1998). ...
This paper proposes virtual spaces designed in Game Engines promote a form of inhabitant hyperactivity. Allowing quick navigation between distant spaces the Game Engine fosters an appreciation of movement over pause, which may be to the detriment of architectural visualisation. This paper presents a series of three case studies that explore the notion of Real-Time Streaming Data within RTVE to
enrich and enhance Virtual Environments. This paper proposes the notion of ‘Digital Ephemera’ can help produce a more immersive virtual environment. Based on the examination of these case studies, the paper concludes on a motion that breaking down the inherent ‘stillness’ of traditional RTVE’s can be avoided by developing an environment that taps into data streaming and monitoring services to enhance the inhabitant experience.
... I am particularly interested in the notion of surface as a minimum act of architecture. Departing from Semper's argument that the full force of architecture is to be found in the outer surface, the decorative layer through which the atmosphere seemingly percolates, Mark Wigley suggests that this may be just enough to construct architecture: simply to pop up a surface that produces an atmosphere (Wigley 1998). In this respect, superficial modifications of the existing building shell that are small-scale, lightweight and temporary bare the potential to acquire high architectural impact. ...
Within the financial glacier that has been settling into crisis stricken Greek urban centers the aging building stock of devalued and abandoned sectors has evolved into an experimental testing ground for architectural research. In this context the paper investigates small-scale and short-term interventions that challenge and upgrade current urban renewal strategies. The research hypothesis assumes that architectural operations which engage the building shell can acquire urban effects.
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Figures 3-6 comprise visual material from the projects developed in the intensive design studios "Shell" and "Urban Poché Reloaded" the author has taught at INSTEAD - Post Graduate Program in Architectural Design of the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly in the academic years 2013-14 and 2014-15.
... That was the only specific scripting they received -no blue. Additionally, they were required to read texts about atmosphere by (Böhme 2010(Böhme , 2012Zumthor 2006;Wigley 1998); required to read texts on architecture and media (Colomina 2000;Čeferin 2003;Ahlava 2002), and they were shown examples of photography which depicted grey spaces. Many of those examples came from the 'Helsinki School' of photography. ...
The emergent status of practice-based research within the arts is surprising, given the long tradition of research and reflective practice as the working methodology of artists. Stranger still is the scepticism towards its application in arts education. This article will address those problems via the impasse indicated by current literature on the topic of entrepreneurial learning. As one way out of that dead-end, a case study is presented which applies the practice-based learning of a doctoral thesis to the learning environment of an interdisciplinary course in architectural photography.
This book is about perception, emotion, and affect in architecture: how and why we feel the way that we do and the ways in which our surroundings and bodies contribute to this.
Our experience of architecture is an embodied one, with all our senses acting in concert as we move through time and space. The book picks up where much of the critique of architectural aestheticism at the end of the twentieth century left off: illustrating the limitations and potential consequences of attending to architecture as the visually biased practice which has steadily become the status quo within both industry and education. It draws upon interdisciplinary research to elucidate the reasons why this is counter-productive to the creation of meaningful places and to articulate the embodied richness of our touching encounters. A "felt-phenomenology" is introduced as a more -than visual alternative capable of sustaining our physical, emotional, and psychological well-being.
By recognising the reciprocal and participatory relationship that exists between atmospheric affect and our (phenomenological) bodies, we begin to appreciate the manifold ways in which we touch, and are touched, by our built environment. As such, Touching Architecture will appeal to those with an interest in architectural history and theory as well as those interested in the topic of atmospheres, affect, and embodied perception.
Architects, landscape architects and urban designers experiment with color and lighting effects in their daily professional practice. Over the past decade, there has been a reinvigorated discussion on color within architectural and cultural studies. Yet, scholarly enquiry within landscape architecture has been minimal despite its important role in landscape design.
This book posits that though color and lighting effects appear natural, fleeting, and difficult to comprehend, the sensory palette of built landscapes and gardens has been carefully constructed to shape our experience and evoke meaning and place character. Landscape Design in Color: History, Theory, and Practice 1750 to Today is an inquiry into the themes, theories, and debates on color and its impact on practice in Western landscape architecture over the past three centuries.
Divided into three key periods, each chapter in the book looks at the use of color in the written and built work of key prominent designers. The book investigates thematic juxtapositions such as: natural and artificial; color and line; design and draftsmanship; sensation and concept; imitation and translation; deception and display; and decoration and structure, and how these have appeared, faded, disappeared, and reappeared throughout the ages. Richly designed and illustrated in full color throughout, including color palettes, this book is a must-have resource for students, scholars, and design professionals in landscape architecture and its allied disciplines.
Table of Contents
Part I: Pre-Modernism 1. Structural Color: Uniform Verdure, Humphry Repton (1752–1818) 2. Artificial Color: Bright and Complementary, J. C. Loudon (1783–1843) 3. Color as Impression: Graduated Harmony, William Robinson (1838–1935) and Gertrude Jekyll (1843–1932)
Part II: Modernism 4. Material and Phenomenal Color: Simultaneous Contrast, Gabriel Guevrekian (1900–70) 5. Spatial Color: A-Chrome, Garrett Eckbo (1910–2000) 6. Symphony of Color: Tropical Saturation, Roberto Burle Marx (1909–94)
Part III: Postmodernism, Onward 7. Conceptual Color: Purely Synthetic, Martha Schwartz (b. 1950) 8. Affective Light Color: Translucence, Petra Blaisse (b. 1955) 9. Color Now: Gender, Skin, and Screen Postscript: Color Prospects
This essay advances an affective agenda in urban geopolitics that studies the everyday felt experience of urban terrorism. It takes as examples the relations between the spatial politics and affective atmospheres of Place de la République (Paris) and Place de la Bourse/Beursplein (Brussels) in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2015 and 2016. Intersecting feminist geopolitics and non-representational geographies, the essay bridges geographical studies of experience and affective atmospheres with experiential accounts in urban geopolitics. It argues for a renewed conceptual engagement and scholarly focus on the affective dimensions of urban geopolitics and security, that highlights the contested and unequal topographies of everyday experience in the aftermath of terrorism in urban Europe.
This paper proposes four methodological tools for investigating architectural atmospheres: objective experience, holistic measure, computational simulation and atmospheric visualization. These tools have emerged from a broader PhD research agenda based on the hypothesis that ephemeral effects of light, heat, sound, odor, carried on or in the air, present a scientific basis for precise construction of atmospheres in architecture. By describing my own atmospheric methodology over a series of individual case studies, I will argue that architectural atmospheres can be scientifically investigated and precisely constructed, and that atmospheric approach to architectural research and design offers new invaluable knowledge about the invisible aerial behaviors that determine basic human experience of space.
This paper explores how to begin interior architecture education and provides a fertile ground on which students can tackle design departures. Narratives are studied as a vehicle and an opportunity for self‐expression and discovery for first‐year students to explore and produce atmospheres. The project Staging Poe draws its narrative inspirations from Edgar Allan Poe's poems. It proposes to approach atmosphere through a narrative method, by translating words into materiality. Narratives of literary works are proposed to novice students as starting points while stepping into the not‐yet‐familiar ways of the design process. Staging Poe further envisions a first‐year design studio rooted in ongoing contemporary debates on the theory and practice of atmosphere and materiality in tandem with technology. The objective is to inspire a new generation of interior architecture students. This paper begins by discussing the theory of atmospheres and the potential role of narratives in exploring atmosphere within the Basic Design studio. Next, we examine Poe's The Philosophy of Composition as a guide to translating narrative into atmosphere before discussing the design of the Staging Poe project and the two consecutive phases of its methodology. Student progress is reviewed through an analysis of weekly reports and followed by an examination of the students' overall performance in the course. The findings of the analysis demonstrate how the structure of the studio advances student design thinking and performance in relation to their understanding of atmosphere and its material and quasimaterial agents. The study concludes that there is room for the exploration of alternative and field‐specific methods in the education of interior architecture discipline.
In this article, we use an entry to an international architectural student competition on future care to explore how social norms about older bodies may be challenged by designs that are sensitive to the spatial contexts within which we age. The power of the ‘My Home’ design by Witham and Wilkins derives from its hand drawn aesthetic and thus we consider the architects’ insistence on drawing as a challenge to the clear and unambiguous image making typically associated with digitally aided architectural designs. The hand drawn images of ‘My Home’ prompt a focus on care as enacted through the relations between material environments and things, and the atmospheric qualities these relations evoke. Throughout our analysis, we argue for greater attention to the ways in which embodied practices, everyday affects and materialities can be represented within architectural design, and the role of hand drawing as a creative methodology in this process.
In this chapter the author asks whether the theme of atmosphere is only a short-term cultural trend or whether it hides something deeper concerning our lives as human beings. Griffero notices that the humanities use the notion of atmosphere as a heuristic device to empirically research affects whenever it is necessary to pay attention to the vague and qualitative “something-more” that one experiences. He then traces a history of the emergence of the concept of “atmosphere”. Lastly, he sums up his personal “atmospherological” perspective on the topic.
Recent architectural theory has increasingly identified the importance of atmosphere as a primary aesthetic concept in architecture. Architectural meaning is indeed dependent on atmospheric qualities, on their compatibility and appropriateness to human situations and habits framed by physical structures, these being far more important than specific styles or formal syntaxes, yet the complexities associated with postulating atmosphere as a central architectural category are considerable. This essay takes clues from the German concept of Stimmung and its philological associations with harmony: αρμονία (armonía Gr.), translated as concentus or consonantia (Lat.), and temperance: κεράννυμι (keránymi) in Greek), which translates as temperare (in Latin), to understand properly the importance of musical analogies in architectural theories throughout Western history. Architectural beauty and meaning was often understood in analogy to the harmonious effects of music. Clarifying how such analogies were not merely an issue of formal transposition of proportions and formal relations, but rather stood for the emotional and aesthetic effect conducive to a good life, the essay clarifies how the concept of atmosphere can transcend its usually negative associations as a merely subjective orchestration of effects and thus become useful in contemporary practices. There is in fact no aporia in the understanding of architectural musical atmospheres as both emotional and intelligible, structured and ephemeral; they are in fact perfectly amenable to an architecture demanding fixity and tectonic coherence in dialogue with a topographic situation and programmatic deployment, one that should at best offer humanity psychosomatic attunement for a wholesome life.
In this debate, we claim that few Egyptian scholars are considering issues of phenomenological critiques addressing adequately the atmosphere of cities and places, and that Egyptian urban design education does not address the possibility of teaching through commentary of this kind. This article examines the dilemma of using the term “atmospheres” in urban design education. It theorises the nature of this relationship, developing an analytical framework creating the architecture of the city as similar as the artworks through which to investigate them related through their aspects—ideas, themes, and dramatic text—and those overarching effects of the technical elements. The question is: how can one use the artworks in urban design teaching? This article discusses the atmospheres in many artworks of Western and Egyptian thought to explore the effect of the architecture of cities in creating the atmospheres of the cities. The conclusion aims to reach some of the lessons learned by analysing artworks that have achieved a different atmosphere in specific places.
How do digital media (mobile phones, GPS, iPods, portable computers, internet, virtual realities, etc.) affect the way we perceive, inhabit and design space? Why do architects traditionally design, draw and map the visual, as opposed to other types of sensations of space (the sound, the smell, the texture, etc.)? Architecture is not only about the solid, material elements of space; it is also about the invisible, immaterial, intangible elements of space. This book examines the design, representation and reception of the ephemeral in architecture. It discusses how architects map and examine the spatial qualities that these elements create and questions whether - and if so, how - they take them into account in the designing process. Karandinou argues that current interest in the ephemeral in contemporary culture and architecture is related to the evolution of digital media; and that it is related to the new ways of thinking about space and everyday situations that new media enables. With sound and video recording devices now being embedded in everyday gadgets and mobile phones, capturing sounds or ephemeral situations and events has become an everyday habit. New animation techniques allow designers to think about space through time, as they are able to design dynamic and responsive spaces, as well as static spaces explored by someone over time. Contemporary video games are no longer based on a simple visual input and a keyboard; they now involve other senses, movement, and the response of the whole body in space. This book therefore argues that the traditional binary opposition between the sensuous and the digital is currently being reversed. Subsequently, new media can also function as a new tool-to-think-with about space. Designers are now able to think through time, and design spaces accordingly. Time, temporality, ephemerality, become central issues in the designing process. The notion first claimed by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, that the emergence of new di.
Originally published by Ashgate 2013; reprinted as Routledge in 2017
This chapter develops the questions of separation that is established by the fair-line by considering the fair as an inside without an outside. The experience of the fair as an interior space is traced with reference to other radically interiorized spaces developed during the nineteenth century such as world’s fairs, expos and the particular case of the panorama. Momentary challenges to this interiority are provided by particular opportunities for spectatorship that are elevated above the horizontality, and the horizon, of the fair by rides such as the Helter Skelter and Ferris Wheel. These are discussed and contrasted with what De Cauter refers to as ‘vertigo machines,’ high-speed rides that offer elevation but no panorama.
Borrowing and reframing a chapter title from Douglas Spencer’s recent book on The Architecture of Neo-liberalism, this final chapter synthesizes some of the main issues that have run through the book (showfront, boundary, crowd and atmosphere) and draws out broader connections to contemporary debates concerning the architectural surface. It returns to the philosophical work of Andrew Benjamin and Avrum Stroll, and discusses in particular Stroll’s conceptual ‘point of zero resolution,’ where an observer can apprehend only surface. It argues that in front of the ‘good frontage,’ there is always interference, even though Bostock’s good frontage set out to provide a single surface effect that could harness the full attention of a fair-going crowd.
This book offers an extended consideration of the fairground showfront. It combines archival material, contemporary examples of fairs, and a sustained theoretical engagement with influential philosophies of surface, including recent work by Avrum Stroll and Andrew Benjamin, as well as the nineteenth century author Gottfried Semper. Semper’s work on the origin of architectural enclosure —formed from woven mats and carpets— anticipates the surface and material history of the showfront. Initial chapters introduce these philosophies, the evolution of showfronts, and the ways in which individual fairground rides and attractions are arranged to form an enclosing boundary for the whole fair. Later chapters focus on issues of spectacle and illusion, vast ‘interior’ spaces, atmosphere, crowds and surface effects. Informed by a wide range of work from other design and cultural studies, the book will be of interest to readers in these areas, as well as architecture and those curious about the fairground.
The ‘fair-line’ is a notional setting-out datum used by fair organizers to plan the locations of rides and attractions that make up the fair. This chapter provides an introduction to the ‘fair-line’ as the outer boundary of the travelling fair. It explains its histories, the drawings used in its planning and implementation, the practicalities of installing rides and attractions along this line and the consequences this arrangement has on the experience of the fair. Three key ingredients of this experience are discussed—boundary, crowd and atmosphere—and their inter-relationships identified. The complexities of these inter-relationships structure the main text in the remainder of the book.
This chapter examines various ‘exceptions’ that were made by architectural theorists of surface, particularly Semper and Ruskin. Focusing on the trompe-l’œil or ‘imitation,’ which is frequently dismissed as unworthy of serious thought, the discussion of surface effect is broadened to consider theatricality, crowd experience and the provision of, and engagement with, illusion along the fair-line. It examines the tensions that illusion introduces between the body and the intellect, and how the good frontage might generate and sustain such tension. The chapter also discusses the contribution illusion makes to fairground atmosphere with reference to the work of Gernot Böhme, and the consequences this has on the unified subject or split spectator.
This chapter provides a close reading of significant philosophies of surface developed by Andrew Benjamin, Avrum Stroll and Gottfried Semper. Semper’s well-known re-writing of architectural history begins with the decorative woven rug or carpet used as an enclosure. Semper’s studies occurred at around the same time that the ‘good frontages’ began to change significantly, with cloth fronts becoming more and more elaborately decorated. Benjamin revisits Semper’s theory in light of contemporary interest in surface motivated by new material, fabrication, construction and associated design technologies. He argues that surface effect is neither merely structural nor merely decorative, but a product of the internal logic of the surface. Stroll’s interest in perceptual theories of surface moderates and extends Benjamin’s work.
Horror films are “atmospheric” compared to most other genre films. But what is horror film atmosphere? Any attempt to answer this question must ask what parts of a film contribute to its atmosphere. This chapter explores this question, paying particular attention to the role narrative plays in atmosphere's creation, a role that has, to date, been undervalued and misunderstood. One should also ask what sorts of things an atmosphere can evoke. The author's approach to problems, and a definition, will consist mostly of examining statements that have been made about the atmosphere in various horror films. It takes only a couple of alterations to bring Carl Dreyer's description into line with Hitchcock's. Imagine this is a scene in a film and that viewers are told there is a corpse behind a door.
The article joins literature on urban geopolitics and on affective atmospheres to trace the intensities of feeling that propagate during escalation and de-escalation of urban conflict in Beirut. Based on two months of fieldwork in 2010 in the Lebanese capital, it considers the deadly clashes of May 2008 between government- and opposition-affiliated militias. Political decisions and deliberate interventions involving the urban built environment before and after the clashes, contributed to propagating affective atmospheres of (de)escalation, which in turn impacted on the residents’ practical and emotional responses to violence. The paper proposes an atmospheric urban geopolitics that moves away from techno-centric, disembodied approaches to urban conflict, and that instead takes seriously the lived experiences of urban (de)escalation.
This paper seeks to trace the genealogy between two different terms of ‘atmosphere’. On the one hand, the term is primarily understood as a meteorological phenomenon. On the other hand, the word ‘atmosphere’ has found its way into the field of aesthetics, as the spatial diffusion of a certain mood. But, as Tim Ignold remarks, current aesthetic approach to atmosphere is mostly all about sensory experience, with no mention of meteorology at all. Similar to this exclusion, current attitudes to climate change often reduce nature-culture relations to a merely technical concern. The purpose of this paper is to permeate these two divergent positions through three different architectural concepts. The first one – Flying refers to Derek McCormack’s theoretical concept of balloon flight, combining the imaginative force of flying with balloon’s technical ability to enable this desire. This position is further reviewed through balloon-like architecture of 1960s, as in its contemporary revival. The second concept – Sensitivity starts from the premise that our imaginative and perceptual activities are forced – not in the static beauty of ideal weather conditions, but in their constant oscillation and contingency. This state is elaborated in the work of architect Philippe Rahm. Finally, the third concept Breathing is a critical response to a meteorological idealization, which is manifested in technical perfection of Le Corbusier’s exact air. As opposed to such intellectual air control, postmodern approach explores imaginative force of an anti air – dust, pollution, fog.
Article received: December 14, 2016; Article accepted: January 18, 2017; Published online: April 20, 2017
Original scholarly paper
How to cite this article: Vignjević, Ana. "Dialectic Atmosphere of Architecture: on Aesthetic Experience and Meteorology." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 12 (2017): 41-54. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i12.166
Gernot Böhme proposes the concept of atmosphere as the basic concept of a new aesthetics without a point of departure in art. This article speculates on some possible urban implications of this concept. To start with, I present various ontological and epistemological aspects of the concept and specify some atmospheric dimensions of art and architecture. Then, I discuss Georg Simmel’s concept of landscape, which seems to refuse the presence of atmosphere in the metropolis, as an overture to the next section on urban atmospheres. Urban atmospheres are multi-sensorial and demonstrate considerable variation from densely built inner-city areas to the modern spaces of urban sprawl. Mobility is a significant factor in relation to modern urban regions, the atmosphere of which might be thought of as a picturesque landscape for cyborgs. Urban communities may be of a primarily atmospheric kind. The historical city may have an atmosphere of age that can be sensed without much historical knowledge, and atmosphere may be the source of urban political struggle. Finally, I examine the atmospheres of the urban center and the urban region with a focus on Dag Østerberg’s recent work on Oslo, arguing that atmospheric aspects of the socio-material action fields within the urban region may modify Østerberg’s conclusions regarding the imaginary status of the center and the urban identity of the region. The pivotal argument of the article is that atmosphere is an important but overlooked dimension of both human relations in urban environments and the relationship between the human and the built environment.
This paper explores the use of atmosphere within a digital space to evoke complex emotional response from virtual inhabitants of the space. Within architectural representation a shift to architectural visualisations in digital mediums have lost the prominence of the sensual communication of atmosphere and emotion in the abstract component of space. Sentimentality and the Digital Expanse constructs a methodology to reintroduce this sensuality into digital space, that draws from knowledge of both the unfamiliar atmosphere and the technical Presence to allow an iterative articulation of objective atmospheric design within digital space.
In this article, we analyse changes in the circulation of advertisements of policing products at security expos between 1995 and 2013. While the initial aim of the research was to evidence shifts in terrorist frames in the marketing of policing equipment before and after 9/11, our findings instead suggested that what we are seeing is the rise of marketing to police as “vulnerable warriors”, law enforcement officers in need of military weapons both for their offensive capabilities and for the protection they can offer to a police force that is always under threat.
“Music is not only what we hear and listen, but everything that happens”. George Brecht .
In the new perspective of considering sound like another building material, the paper illustrates some recent architectural installations conceived as experimental work with spatial-sound characteristics.
SoundART and SoundARCHITECTURE are measurable entities in form of augmented-reality installations strictly linked to performing new geometries but also related to a new interpretation of simple, archetypical Euclidean geometry.
How do digital media (mobile phones, GPS, iPods, portable computers, internet, virtual realities, etc.) affect the way we perceive, inhabit and design space? Why do architects traditionally design, draw and map the visual, as opposed to other types of sensations of space (the sound, the smell, the texture, etc.)? Architecture is not only about the solid, material elements of space; it is also about the invisible, immaterial, intangible elements of space. This book examines the design, representation and reception of the ephemeral in architecture. It discusses how architects map and examine the spatial qualities that these elements create and questions whether - and if so, how - they take them into account in the designing process. Karandinou argues that current interest in the ephemeral in contemporary culture and architecture is related to the evolution of digital media; and that it is related to the new ways of thinking about space and everyday situations that new media enables. With sound and video recording devices now being embedded in everyday gadgets and mobile phones, capturing sounds or ephemeral situations and events has become an everyday habit. New animation techniques allow designers to think about space through time, as they are able to design dynamic and responsive spaces, as well as static spaces explored by someone over time. Contemporary video games are no longer based on a simple visual input and a keyboard; they now involve other senses, movement, and the response of the whole body in space. This book therefore argues that the traditional binary opposition between the sensuous and the digital is currently being reversed. Subsequently, new media can also function as a new tool-to-think-with about space. Designers are now able to think through time, and design spaces accordingly. Time, temporality, ephemerality, become central issues in the designing process. The notion first claimed by Marshall McLuhan in the 1960s, that the emergence of new digital media caused a 'shift in the sensorium', is more relevant than ever, and can be expanded in order to accommodate the new emerging technologies. Through analysis of theoretical concepts, design case studies, and real-life observations, this book challenges and inspires architects, theorists, researchers and students both about the above-mentioned series of questions, and also about possible methodologies for addressing them.
A rise in social science scholarship on atmospheres has raised questions on how to articulate complex material and imperceptible events and encounters. Responding to Peter Adey’s Air Affinities, this review proposes the need to traverse geopolitics and geopoetics to more fully engage these. Going further, it argues that such traversals are key to approaching specific situations and devices of what we call ‘atmospheric policing’. Exploring recent examples of tear gas and sound warfare deployment in occupied Palestine, the review shows how discourses on atmospheres may be used to bring accountability into ecologies of violence.
This paper, taking its cue from Gottfried Korff's theory of museum display, reflects upon the atmospherics of museum objects. When Korff develops his idea that museums provide a ‘brokering service’ to do with the regulation of distance, he invokes Walter Benjamin's formulation of ‘aura’, which is understood to arise out of an interplay of proximity and distance, emanating from what Theodor Adorno would describe as the ‘more of the phenomenon’ that exceeds its raw facticity. Benjamin's concept is also taken up by the philosopher Gernot Böhme in his influential theorisation of atmospheres as aesthetic phenomena. Böhme clearly understands Benjamin's ‘aura’ as atmosphere, albeit in a theoretically undifferentiated form, and locates it within his overall therapeutic programme to develop an expanded conception of aesthetics that overturns the Kantian schema and returns it instead to Baumgarten. While Böhme advances his idea of atmosphere with a view to a recovery of the totality of the body and its senses for aesthetic theory, this paper questions to what extent atmospheric experience in fact turns out to be in concert with environments that strategically limit or restrain sensory experience, often in ways that participate in the kind of assumed hierarchy of the senses that Böhme wants to reject. And here the museum, an institution that Susan Stewart has described as an ‘elaborately ritualized practice of refraining from touch’, seems a particularly interesting example, not least in the way it emerges as one of the sites within modernity in which the structure of ritual auratic art, as theorised by Benjamin, comes to be re-performed. The paper concludes by reflecting on some of the anxieties that attend distance—social alienation and estrangement from objects—and examines two cases in which atmospheric manipulation is solicited in an attempt to overcome it.
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