ATMOSPHERE AS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ARCHITECTURE Gernot Bahme The Difficulty of Talking about Architecture Talking about art is always difficult, as demonstrated not only by the sorry state of catalogue essays and art criticism but also by the fact that two whole disciplines must be enlisted in that discourse: aesthetics and art history, whose social function is to overcome the speechlessness of beholders by way of professionals who furnish the relevant categories of discussion. Talking about architecture seems an even more troubled practice, at least when architecture is treated as art ~ that is, when a building is not only func- tional but has a surplus of some kind, as Adorno puts it, providing speech- lessness its specific occasion. It is especially difficult to talk about archi- tecture by relying upon classical aesthetics, according to which buildings should, at one and the same time, be functional and, as works of art, be fue- tional without possessing a function. This contradiction, ot rather the dialec- tic that it generates, was boldly exploited by Hegel to posit a three-phase history of architecture since antiquity." Presuming that it is correct to argue that the architect ~ quite unlike artists of other genres ~ creates a work of art that must couple the artistic with the useful, then one is naturally tempted to interpret the artistic character of architecture by borrowing from other arts and drawing comparisons with sculpture, painting, literature, and music. A building is like a sculpture; the architect proceeds in his sketches like this or that painter; a space speaks a poetic language; a construction has a structure like a Bach fugue. Such talk is, of course, meant to applaud, and yet one wonders if it is not simply the product of discomfiture or even condescension. Does architecture really have nothing to call its own? L GW.R. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Ar, tant, TIM, Knox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), vol. 2, 633-34eT ATMOSPHERE AS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ARCHITECTURE The affinity and the exchange between the arts is no doubt both impor- tant and noteworthy. But the disposition to speak about architecture in 4 way derived from the other arts is not only detrimental to the reception of architecture, because it obscures its own genuine concerns in a fog of metaphors; it is also a danger to architects. It leads them astray with a bor- rowed self-image; it beguiles them into basing their work on an understand- ing of the artistic that has been lifted from other arts. Having come full circle, the discourse now coheres: one architect designs his buildings like sculptures, another tries a painterly approach, a third wants buildings to be like texts, and a fourth like music. And why not? Why shouldn't the draw- ing of such relationships be a fruitful heuristic procedure for the architect and an enlightening metaphor for the beholder? They are. But they could also be excuses ~ a means of sidestepping what really counts in architecture, So, what does really count? If we briefly review the basic implications of the comparison with other arts - form and content, expression, mean- ing, harmony ~ then sculpture seems to be the closest to architecture. Don't the two fields, inasmuch as they both shape matter, work in the domain of the visible? ~ at which point the architect, by working for visibility and treating design as lending form to mass, has already succumbed to the seduc- tion of the arts. But, then, is seeing really the truest means of perceiving architecture? Do we not feel it even more? And what does architecture actually shape ~ matter or should we say space? The Perception of Architecture Hegel, who classifies the arts in terms of the senses, assigns architecture to the visual arts without giving the matter much thought - possibly influ- enced by a partiality to vision inherited from the Greeks. Today there are entirely different reasons for classifying architecture as a visual art. This view is now based largely on self-representation or rather the presentation | of works of architecture. Long before construction starts, the presentation of architectural projects in drawings, models, and, more recently, com- Puter simulations and animations has become essential, for competitions and for clients. And afterwards, once the project has been finalized and the building completed, the representation of the work in photographs has become just as important as, if not more important than, the build- ing itself. The skill with which architects are presented in trade journals, catalogues, newspapers, and brochures is vital to establishing a reputation and depends upon the successful photographic representation of their 399BEAUTY AND ATMOSPHERE 1 Jonathan Borofsky ‘Man Walking to the Sky in front of the Fride during documenta 9, Kassel, 1992 Fiberglass, aluminum, and painted steel Pole: 24 m long, Man: 198 x 141 x 85 om 400 Courtesy documenta Archiv, KasselATMOSPHERE AS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ARCHITECTURE works. After all, how many people can travel all over the world to get an impression, in natura, of the works produced by the luminaries of archi- tecture? It is little wonder, then, that thoughts of later photographic ren- dition already enter into the design stage of an architectural project. We have hereby named the third factor that determines architectural cre- ation: architecture must not only be useful and functional, it must also be a work of art — and it must be paid for, it must have a marketable appeal. That means advertising and branding, It also means staging the architecture, which explains why architecture today has a tendency to stage its makers as well, And yet, if architecture really does consist essentially of the design of space, then it does not belong to the visual arts. You cannot see space. One is tempted to argue the viability of this statement on the basis of the inad- equacy of perspectival representation, but that would involve jumping to the conclusion that what one actually sees (namely a picture) is flat - which in turn leads to the banal conclusion that no amount of illusion can ade- quately reduce three dimensions to two. The fallacy lies in the fact that we conventionally consider the camera a model of seeing with the cyes ~ with one eye! But vision obviously involves two eyes, and no amount of techno- logy has ever succeeded in replicating what it shows us without recourse to the eyes. So we see space after all, because we see with two eyes. But what do we actually see? And what is the feat of binocular vision? Once again, we tend to define its achievement in technical terms, namely, on the model of the binocular telemeter, which determines the distance of objects by calculating from a fixed base with reference to the two end points of that base. And this is the way vision estimates distances as well. But there is another important effect of seeing ~ one that, incidentally, radically con- tradicts perspectival vision. The art historian Ernst Gombrich was quite jus- tified in treating the superimposition of one object on another as a central issue of perspective: painting in perspective means painting so that noth- ing appears that cannot be seen by an eye fixed on a particular point, But binocular vision undermines that very principle: one can see around obsta- cles to a certain extent and the fuzziness that is thereby generated invests things with the quality of floating in space. Add to this the movement of the eyes: through the constant change in perspective, things become quasi experimentally displaced. As paradoxical as it: may seem, the impression that things are in space is conveyed by the very fact that their location is indeterminate. 401402 BEAUTY AND ATMOSPHERE Apparently, a distinction must be made between the physicality of things and their existence in space, that is, their ability to establish space through form or arrangement. Perspective is clearly capable of representing the phy- sical nature of things, but not their spatiality or space itself, We can get an impression of the latter through binocular vision or the movement of the eyes, but this is an impression that assumes a curiously phantom-like as- pect when acquired in isolation. This becomes apparent when watching projections in 3-D. The spatial image is filled with more life when anoth- er aspect of vision comes into play, namely that of focusing on different distances. Thus, by means of our gaze, we can wander around virtually, in spatial depth, and only then do we realize that space is something in which we are. This changes the scene. Space is genuinely experienced by being in it, through physical presence. Since the simplest and most compelling means of ascertaining our bodily presence in space is movement, those elements of vision that contain motion ~ changes of perspective and focal point ~ are best suited to conveying an impression of space. But seeing itself is not a sense that defines being-in-something but rather a sense that establishes difference and creates distance. There is another sense specifically for being- in-something; it is a sense that might be called ‘mood.’ A mood contributes to sensing where we are. By feeling our own presence we feel the space in which we are present. Our presence, where we are, can also be topologically understood as a determination of place. Indeed, sensing physical presence clearly involves both physical distance from things, whether they are oppressively close or very remote, and also spatial geometry, in the sense of a suggestion of movement, reaching upwards or bearing down. But a sense of ‘whereness? is actually much more integrating and specific, referring, as it does, to the character of the space in which we find ourselves. We sense what kind of space surrounds us. We sense its atmosphere. That affects the perception of architecture. If it is true that architecture shapes space, then one must move about in these spaces in order to eval- uate them. We must be physically present. Naturally, we will then look at the building and its construction, we will study its scale and shape, but such investigations do not actually require our physical presence. The decisive experience takes place only when we take part through our pres- ence in the space formed or created by architecture. This participation is an affective tendency by which our mood is attuned to the nature of aATMOSPHERE AS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ARCHITECTURE space, to its atmosphere. And this demonstrates the truth of the proposi- tion, ascribed to Polykleitos and explicitly noted by Vitruvius, that man is the measure of architecture - though in a different sense than original- ly intended. Architecture and Space Peter Zumthor once said that there are two basic possibilities of spatial composition in architecture: the closed architectural body, which delimits, and the open body, which embraces an area that is connected with infi- nite space? He apparently means such things as a hall, on the one hand, and a loggia or a square, on the other. But are those the only ways architec ture composes space, or only the most fundamental? One need not even abandon the idea of space implied by Zumthor in this passage in order to imagine possibilities outside the dichotomy of delimiting and embracing. What does a medieval fortress do on top of a mountain? What did Jonathan Borofsky’s Man Walking to the Sky do in front of the Fridericianum during documenta 9 (09.1)? What does an airplane do in the sky? They concentrate space, open space, create space. The fact that two of these examples are not architectural is irrelevant, since the possibilities they address apply no less to architecture. They merely stand on the edge of a geometrical or more generally speaking 2 mathematical treatment of space, in the transition to a space of physical presence. The classical, mathematically predicated concept of space dealt with two basic types: fopos and spatinm. Space as opos is a spatial locus, the space of contiguity and surroundings; space as spatium is the space of distance and scale. A medieval fortress on a mountain, for instance, creates a place; it articulates open expanses and concentrates space in one place. Here, one can see how the experience of this space is incorporated in physical presence. When we are in the vicini- ty, we sense that the space acquires orientation, a focal point, through the fortress. Borofsky’s Man Walking to the Sky is simply an explicit rendition of what lines, beams, ledges, or ridge turrets do to space: they furnish it with a suggestion of movement, which is likewise not subsumed under the notions of delimiting or embracing. Suggestions of movement are inscribed in nothingness, as it were, and tend to open up space. Devices of this kind are not new to architecture. Think only of the flaming sweep of Japanese roofs. An airplane in the sky also articulates space ~ creates space by marking itself as a dot in the indeterminate expanse of the sky. 2 Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architctare, trans. Maureen Oberli‘Turmer (Basel: Birkhiuser Verlag, 1998), 21404 BEAUTY AND ATMOSPHERE Gao 2 Herzog & de Mouron Coneert Hal European Month of Music, Messe Basel, Basel (2000-2001 -+188) Fotografie: Ruedi Walt, 2001ATMOSPHERE AS THE SUBJECT MATTER OF ARCHITECTURE On studying these examples, one notices that they involve a concept of space, or rather an experience of space, that does not require things, whereas the spaces of place and distance are essentially defined by things. But space as the space of physical presence is at first nothing but a pal- pable, indeterminate expanse out of which variously constituted spaces can be formed through articulation. Orientation, suggestions of movement, markings are such forms of articulation. They create concentrations, direc- tions, configurations in space. Since these articulations do not presuppose objective space but are rather inscribed in a void, as it were, they must rely on the cognitive subject or, more precisely, on the physical presence of people. It is the space of bodily feeling ~ feeling that reaches out into inde- terminate expanses ~ which acquires shape through articulation of this kind. Once it is determined that this space is fundamental to architecture, more fundamental even than fopos and spatinm ~ because architecture does not make buildings and constructions in isolation but for people ~ then it is easier to accept architecture’s involvement with non-classical, i.e., non- objective means of constituting space, above all, light and sound. Light can create a space, as in the cone of light from a street lamp into which one can step. Sounds, noises, and music can also create spaces ~ self-contained, non-objective ones ~ as is most impressively illustrated by listening to music with headphones. Architects have always made use of these means, but one has the impression that the age of such devices has only just dawned. This may be related to the fact that by technical production of light and sound architecture no longer depends on the vagaries of seasons and days or festive occasions. Though Abbot Suger made architectural use of light as early as the twelfth century, such effects were, of course, dependent on the weather and the time of year. Today it is possible to make lighting and acoustics fixed constituents of architecture When one speaks of light and sound as aspects of spatial design, one thinks initially of their use as objective factors. In Axel Schultes's buildings, for instance, one finds capitals of light and walls of light. But this under- estimates the spatial significance of light and sound, for they also create spaces of their own or give a space a distinctive character. Light that fills a room can make that room serene, exhilarating, gloomy, festive, or eerie. Music that fills a room can make it oppressive, exciting, or fragmented. The character of such spaces is experienced by the mood they convey, which takes us back to the beginning again, to atmosphere.405 BEAUTY AND ATMOSPHERE Architecture or Stage Design? Recognition of the space of physical presence as the actual subject matter of architecture moves perilously close to stage design. The latter has always known that the spaces it creates are spaces of atmosphere. And stage design has always made use not only of objects, walls, and solids, but also of light, sound, colour, and a host of other conventional means: symbols, pictures, texts. All of these factors are relevant not because of their objec- tive properties but because of what emanates from them, what they active- ly contribute to the scene as a whole and to the atmosphere with which it is suffused (rg. 2). Should the architect learn from the stage designer and perhaps even develop a new awareness of his art? Hasn't the architect always looked down upon the stage designer as a younger brother or even as a frivolous disciple of his own art? But why should this affinity between architecture and stage design be so threatening? Is it because architecture might melt entirely into the postmodern art of staging? That will not hap- pen. Life is serious; art serene. And that continucs to distinguish architecture from stage design. Architecture does not build for the sake of the engaged or detached spectator watching a play, but rather for people who experi- ence, in spaces, the seriousness of life.