Izabela Wieczorek
Izabela Wieczorek is an architect, researcher and educator. She graduated with a MSc in Architecture and Urban Design from Politechnika Krakowska (1998, with Honours), and earned a PhD from ETSAM UPM (2016, Cum Laude). She is currently a Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Reading and had taught previously in Spain (UAH, IEDM, UFV, UPSAM) and Denmark (Arkitektskolen Aarhus).
Her research is situated at the nexus of academia and practice and focuses on relational aspects of architecture, with a special interest in the reception and production of atmospheres, questioning atmosphere’s environmental and perceptual as well as societal and political dimensions.
From 2013 to 2017 Izabela was a co-director of the Madrid-based Gálvez +Wieczorek arquitectura whose work has been awarded prizes as well as published and exhibited internationally. G+W’s projects range from interior design, building design to landscape and urban planning, exploring tools and methodologies of sensory design and experiences in urban living.
Building on the previous research and following G+W’s ethos, Izabela is currently working on a project of Atmospheric Architecture Agency. Conceived as a design based research laboratory, AAA aims to further examine the applied aspects of atmospheres, defining theoretical frameworks and practical vocabularies for architectural, critical and collaborative practice as well architectural alternative pedagogies.
Supervisors: PhD supervisors: Iñaki Ábalos and José Miguel de Prada Poole
Her research is situated at the nexus of academia and practice and focuses on relational aspects of architecture, with a special interest in the reception and production of atmospheres, questioning atmosphere’s environmental and perceptual as well as societal and political dimensions.
From 2013 to 2017 Izabela was a co-director of the Madrid-based Gálvez +Wieczorek arquitectura whose work has been awarded prizes as well as published and exhibited internationally. G+W’s projects range from interior design, building design to landscape and urban planning, exploring tools and methodologies of sensory design and experiences in urban living.
Building on the previous research and following G+W’s ethos, Izabela is currently working on a project of Atmospheric Architecture Agency. Conceived as a design based research laboratory, AAA aims to further examine the applied aspects of atmospheres, defining theoretical frameworks and practical vocabularies for architectural, critical and collaborative practice as well architectural alternative pedagogies.
Supervisors: PhD supervisors: Iñaki Ábalos and José Miguel de Prada Poole
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or distorting qualities, mirrors and glass also entail a shift of emphasis away from materiality as a merely tectonic or expressive medium, towards matter as an activator and catalyst of effects and experiences.
Unravelling the magical force and transformative quality of glass and mirrors requires an inquisitive journey, spanning different disciplines as well as historical, socio-cultural and technological contexts. Reflecting the myriad effects and affects of mirrors and glass, a kaleidoscopic range of examples will establish multidirectional dialogues. Although from different eras, the selected works, each one a ‘catoptric theatre,’ will provide the opportunity, not only to reimagine spatial relationships and boundaries, but also to decode the essence of atmospheric staging, suggesting a
material pre-history to contemporary concerns for atmosphere and its production. From the enchanting effects of the Baroque Gallery of (fragmented) Mirrors at Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, via Sir John Soane’s unprecedented use of tinted glass and mirrors in his House-Museum in London, to the twentieth century light modulating machines of László Moholy-Nagy, Adolf Luther’s kaleidoscopic assemblages, and twentieth-century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s belief in the performative nature of glass, the reader will discover multiplicities of meanings and ambiguities of reflections, exploring their atmospheric potentiality.
Keywords: atmosphere, ambiance, praxeology, situationists
In this regard, the coupling of dispositif with atmosphere is not arbitrary, for the latter similar to dispositif “can arise from the free interplay of heterogeneous elements” – as Sigfried Giedion already noted in his accounts on mechanisation in the mid-20th century, when the term ‘atmosphere’ was not yet so firmly embedded in an architectural discourse. However, what is at the stake here is that Giedion intuitively identified atmosphere also with “intensity”. [2] We might say, a particular intensity of affect that connotes specific bodily responses, if we refer to intensity in a Spinozian sense. [3]
Consequently, if we approach atmosphere as a dynamically engaging spatial phenomenon, one that conjuncturally acts as a detonator of action and interaction in both individual and collective terms, then the space wherefrom it emerges needs to be discussed as a relational milieu. Namely, a dispositif that draws out the dynamics of everyday life and experience, translating them into a graspable form, and shaping these relations through specific pre-scripted sensuous encounters.
Alongside these conceptual frameworks, this study aims at revealing agency implicit in architectural materializations, offering an expansion of the operational field of architecture through relational entanglements between theory and practice. Added to this must be a reconsideration of medium specificity and the transformation of disciplinary boundaries in thresholds that enable the emergence of what Rolf Hughes defined as “transverse epistemologies”. [4]
The intended argumentation has a twofold dimension. Firstly, through the scrutiny of the notion of atmosphere as a spatial phenomenon, the aim is to reflect upon its implications for architectural production. That is, to explore ways of thinking and shaping reality, this through relations that acknowledge a complexity of the material universe disclosed through human and non-human as well as material and immaterial forces. It also aims at rendering how this context emerges from the integration of other disciplines, thus fostering a reconceptualization of perceptual experience and a redefinition of spatial epistemologies.
Secondly, in doing so the objective is to expand the range of knowledge of atmospherics, presenting it as a material practice as well as arguing that despite the fact that it has flourished over the last few decades, strongly influenced by writings of contemporary philosophers such as Gernot Böhme, or Peter Sloterdijk – to mention but a few – the conceptual foundations and protocols for the production of atmosphere might be found beneath the surface of contemporary debates.
Moreover, unlike many accounts of atmosphere, which primarily revolve around its perceptual dimension from a theoretical standpoint, this study focuses on what might be denominated as techniques of the atmospheric. That is, it aims at providing an inventory of tools and methodologies deployed in the production of atmosphere, exploring a multiplicity of conditions that constitute their resonant origins – i.e. the production sites from and within they have emerged. Nevertheless, the aim is not to compose a linear historiographical narrative, neither to present a complete atmospheric taxonomy. The intention is rather to use selected works and practices as instruments for illuminating what has remained overlooked or hidden – i.e. for mapping the fleeting shadows of forgotten knowledge.
Accordingly, among many examples that might be identified with proto-atmospheric praxis, it is the oeuvre of German architect Werner Ruhnau that comes to the fore as paradigmatic for illustrating previously outlined assumptions. Situated broadly within the field of trans-disciplinary collaborations, Ruhnau’s work operates on a number of levels, or rather within intermediate realms. That is, between the material and the immaterial, art and architecture, body and environment, action and performance, promoting what his friend and collaborator Hugo Kükelhaus – philosopher, artist and educator – defined as “differential states of experience”. [5] Along these lines, joint projects with artists such as Yves Klein – with whom Ruhnau worked initially on “aerial architecture” – or Adolf Luther – who searched for a method for rendering the impalpable – create a laboratory for decoding the meaning of atmospheric dispositifs.
Through the analysis of selected works and processes and their theoretical and historical contextualisation, the aim is to reveal how aforementioned collaborations led Ruhnau to think about space as a contingent construction and field of engagement. Namely, to engage with new possibilities of experience by exploring its perceptual and social dimensions through a playful evolvement of space, in which movement and action are orchestrated by variable spatial configurations and material strategies.
In conclusion, since the central theme of this paper is the productive entanglement between heterogeneous elements, disciplines and processes, the intention is to present atmosphere as a site of co-production open to contingencies and affective interplay on multiples levels: at the moment of its conceptualisation, at the moment of its construction, and, finally, at its emergence – converting those immersed in it into co-producers through bodily and social engagement.
References:
[1] Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings. 1972-1977, trans. Colin Gordon, ed. Colin Gordon et al. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 194-198.
[2] Sigfried Giedion, Mechanisation takes command. A contribution to anonymous history (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 499, 303.
[3] Baruch Spinoza, Complete Works, trans. Samuel Shirley (Cambridge, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2002), 278.
[4] Rolf Hughes, “The Art of Displacement: Designing Experiential Systems and Transverse Epistemologies as Conceptual Criticism,” In Footprint. Delft School of Design Journal. Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality in Theory and Practice no. 4, ed. Kenny Cupers and Isabelle Doucet (2009): 49-64.
[5] Hugo Kükelhaus, Inhuman Architecture. From Animal Battery to Information Factory, trans. Elmar Schenkel (Auroville: Studio Naqshbandi, 2007), 15.
The paper discusses the notoriously ambiguous nature and twofold dimension of atmosphere – meteorological and aesthetical – and embedded in them heterogeneity of meanings. In this context, the notion of atmosphere is presented as parallactic for designing experience in architectural fields, since it transgresses formal and material boundaries of bodies, opening a new gap that exposes the orthodox space-body-environment relationships to questions. It leads to the dissolution of the architectural ‘object’ and its fixity and offers a new understanding of context and space – approached as a field of dynamic relationships. It calls for a re-evaluation of perceptual experience, offering to architecture an expanded domain in which architecture manifests itself, including qualities – besides poetics and beauty – that architecture has long resisted. That is, it defines space as a contingent construction, performative and intensely affective.
Accordingly, the intention is to critically analyse what the term atmosphere entails in architecture, and to expand its notion in terms of affective qualities – often concealed by its poetic potential and far less considered in architectural discourse. In this context, atmosphere is to be presented as a dynamically engaging spatial phenomenon that conjuncturally acts as a detonator of action and interaction in both individual and collective terms. In doing so, analysing the Crystal Palace – recognised as the epitome of controlled immersive experience as well as of atmospheric engineering (Sloterdijk 2008 (2005) – in parallel with other examples and theoretical explorations, will provide a canvas for discerning the means of creation of atmosphere and for defining space as a relational milieu – that is, a conductive environment and field of engagement.
Moreover, since atmospheres are not free floating phenomena, but can be strategically created – ‘staged’ (Böhme 2005, 2013) – this paper invites a critical reflection upon the instrumental and hence potentially dystopian character of atmosphere, that becomes a powerful tool for affecting, for instance, the experience of the cities, for inducing particular behaviors, and, hence, for achieving specific societal and political objectives (Borch 2014).
References:
Borch, Christian, ed. 2014. Architectural Atmospheres. On the Experience and Politics of Architecture. Ba-sel: Birkhäuser.
Böhme, Gernot. 1993. “Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics.” Thesis Eleven 36: 113-26.
⎯. 1995. “Staged materiality,” Magic of Materials, Daidalos n56, June 1995, 36-43
⎯. 2013. “Atmosphere as Mindful Physical Presence in Space.” Oase #91, Building Atmosphere, 21-33
Sloterdijk, Peter. (2005) 2008. “The Crystal Palace.” Translated by Michael Darroch. Public 37: Public?, 12-15. Originally published in Peter Sloterdijk. Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals: Für eine philoso-phische Theorie der Globalisierung, 265-76. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005)
Jonathan Crary explored the vast field in which perception and its understanding were transformed, tracing a particular taxonomy of visual apparatuses, where the immersive experiences relocate the vision within a “carnal density” (1992: 150), regaining all sensory modalities. Diverse perceptual apparatuses also defined a larger disciplinary expansion in the field of architecture and design. Conceived as sensorial activators, intensifiers of phenomena, or orchestrators of emotions, many of these apparatuses were meant to be vehicles for regaining the consciousness of the body and the environment. Apparatuses that expand into space complete this particular genealogy – space itself becoming a mediating and conductive device capable of engendering these embedding situations, Sloterdijk remarks.
Situated within the field of trans-disciplinary collaborations, the oeuvre of Werner Ruhnau comes to the fore as paradigmatic for illustrating these aspects. The joint projects with philosopher, artist and educator Hugo Kükelhaus, or artists such as Yves Klein and Adolf Luther, constitute a framework for a re-invention of perceptual worlds, providing a basis for tracing the conceptual contours of atmospheric perception, as well as for discerning the means of the production of space understood as an immersive field of experience.
References:
Böhme, G. (1993). "Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics". In Thesis Eleven, 36. MIT Press, pp. 113-126
Crary, J. (1992). Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press
Sloterdijk, P. (2011 (2006)). "Architecture As an Art of Immersion" (A. Chr. Engels-Schwarzpaul, Trans.). In Interstices. Journal of Architecture and Related Arts. Unsettled Containers: Aspects of Interiority, 12, pp. 105-109
By expanding the notion of atmosphere in terms of its affective qualities, often concealed by its poetic potential and far less considered in architectural discourse, the intention is to present Atmospherology – to borrow Tonino Griffero’s terminology (2014 (2010)) – as a particular material practice based on the effects by which it lays claim to affective and, hence, societal orders. In doing so, a series of paradigmatic works of atmospheric engineering will provide a canvas for discerning the means of creation of that thick and almost viscous spatiality analogous to the dense mist composed of bubbles of affects – that is, the particles that are charged with power and normativity.
References
Grtiffero, T. (2014 (2010)). Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces. Ashgate
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. (2013). Atmospheres of law: Senses, affects, lawscapes, in Emotion, Space and Society 7, 35-44.
Thibaud, J-P. (2011). The Sensory Fabric of Urban Ambiances, in The Senses & Society. Vol. 6, 2, 203-215
Wölfflin, H. (1994 (1886)). Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture, in Mallgrave, H. (Ed.) Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893. Santa Monica: The Getty Center For The History of Art and the Humanities, 149-190
However, the atmospheric turn calls for a specific manner of understanding materiality. The atmosphere is not defined through the isolated entities. It is rather a sum of effects – an ephemeral occurrence – that leads to an integral and synesthetic perception of our surroundings, where the environmental qualities are implicit and conditions and phenomena are bound together in a reciprocal dependence. Therefore, material is neither seen as an isolated element, nor as mere substance expressing tectonic character. Transcending its tectonic potential and focusing on its performative significance, the material is to be understood rather as an entirely dynamic category, a complex and active system of fields, including the intangible ones – such as light, air, sound, temperature – and conditions: environmental, meteorological, technical, social or historical. In this multifaceted relationship materials are: carriers of effects and phenomena, encoders of our reminiscences and memories, detonators of physical, physiological and emotional contingencies, activators of the aesthetic occurrence. This reading defines materiality as an active and operative force – as a means of an aesthetic engagement and a phenomenological manifestation.
The enduring need to interact with the body and the surroundings through experience has nourished a wide range of design techniques and material experimentation that identify the inherent conditions of materials and constantly changing environmental parameters as a data upon which projects develop. Thus, the aim is to illustrate this particular projective genealogy, one that builds upon ‘atmospheric awareness’ where seeking an effect and affect is implicit and foregrounding perceptual and emotional engagement is conscious – i.e. one that defines so called ‘active materiality’.
Böhme sees in the creation of atmospheres a magical materialisation (1995: 42). Alison and Peter Smithson similarly stress such magical qualities, explaining how architecture can invite affection and stimulate activities (1979). This might provide an insight into the affective qualities of atmospheres – bearing in mind that they evoke not only feelings and emotions, but also responses – action and bodily impulses. Since sensing atmosphere is related to the sense of “whereness”, referring to the character of space in which we find ourselves (Böhme 2005: 402), to design considering an atmospheric approach means to focus on how space is going to appear, to be experienced or to be felt. Hermann Schmitz defines atmosphere as a sum of ephemeral occurrences contributing to an integral and synesthetic perception of our surroundings, where environmental qualities are implicit and conditions and phenomena are bound together in a reciprocal dependence (1995 (1980)). These assumptions imply shifting attention away from expression towards effects and intensities, enlarging the domain in which architecture manifests itself and revealing that the relation between the material and the immaterial is not accidental and extrinsic, but internal and meaningful already in the design process. In this context, architectural space is conceived as a contingent construction – a space of engagement that appears to us as a result of continuous and complex interferences revealed through our perception.
The use of the word ‘atmosphere’ in architectural discourse is mainly associated with contemporary examples. However, there is a need to read back into previous architectural conceptualisations, our contemporary understanding and concern with atmospheres. In this context, Bruno Taut’s belief in the affective capacity of the materials, Gio Ponti’s concern for their performative qualities, Arne Jacobsen’s obsession with ambivalent interiors, Aldo van Eyck’s modes of involving phenomena, or Werner Ruhnau’s notion of ‘scenic qualities’, are to be used – among others – to illustrate this particular projective genealogy, one that builds upon ‘atmospheric awareness’– i.e. a projective genealogy that defines the immersive field of experience.
Literature
Böhme, G. (1993). Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics, in: Thesis Eleven33, MIT Press, pp. 113-126
Böhme, G. (1995). Staged materiality, in: Magic of Materials, Daidalos n56, June 1995, pp. 36-43
Böhme, G. (2005). Atmosphere as the subject matter of architecture, in: Ursprung, P. (ed.). Herzog & de Meuron. Natural History, Zurich: Canadian Center for Architecture and Lars Müller Publishers, pp. 388-406
Schmitz, H. (1995 (1980)). Nowa Fenomenologia, (Andrzejewski, B. trans.). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe IF UAM, (original edition: Neue Phänomenologie, Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1980)
Smithson, A. and P. (1979). Signs of occupancy, Pidgeon Audio Visual Library, World Microfilms Publications Ltd, London, Retrieved from: http://www.pidgeondigital.com
Wigley, M. (1998). The Architecture of Atmosphere, in: Constructing Atmospheres, Daidalos n68, June 1998, pp. 18-27"
Articles in Magazines and Journals
Ph.D. dissertation
Book Chapters
Architecture’ as a vision and guiding principle for the future. In late 2014, the PhD School at AAA engaged with this theme and asked PhD students and 2 professors for contributions, which would highlight how their PhD research was connected to this overall vision. The result is a substantial overview of ongoing doctoral research projects.
It was felt that Engaging through Architecture is not only about giving answers but that it is maybe even more important to ask interesting questions. This is reflected in this publication where we took the position to have an openness and inclusiveness for a variety of ways and levels of engaging.
Books
Pamphlets
/// Call for Contributions
By focusing on the intertwinement between sensory perception, affect and aesthetic practices, this two-day workshop/seminar aims to bring into dialogue researchers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines to re-examine potentials and limitations of bodies experiencing sensory realm. Our research question explores how our bodily abilities can inform design and how design can have either an intensifying or diminishing effect on our sensory abilities. We want to think of sensory perception otherwise, developing new ways of moving towards the understanding of disability as ableness. In doing so, we want to exchange experiences, skills and knowledge, addressing diverse ways of creating inclusive environments that operate beyond what we can or cannot perceive, providing a possibility for action and interaction for All Bodies.
We invite abstracts of up to 300 words outlining the intended contribution to the event, either in the format of an academic paper or performative demonstration. Due to limited numbers, we welcome also expressions of interest in attending as a participant, summarising interests in the seminar topic.
Please submit your abstract or expression of interest by email to info@psaap.com by October 5th 2018, 12:00 pm (CET). Email subject: AAB call for contributions.
Announcement of acceptance by October 22nd 2018.
More information at http://psaap.com/en/we-are-all-able-bodies-from-sensory-deprivation-to-sensory-augmentation-2/ and in the attached document.
Papers
or distorting qualities, mirrors and glass also entail a shift of emphasis away from materiality as a merely tectonic or expressive medium, towards matter as an activator and catalyst of effects and experiences.
Unravelling the magical force and transformative quality of glass and mirrors requires an inquisitive journey, spanning different disciplines as well as historical, socio-cultural and technological contexts. Reflecting the myriad effects and affects of mirrors and glass, a kaleidoscopic range of examples will establish multidirectional dialogues. Although from different eras, the selected works, each one a ‘catoptric theatre,’ will provide the opportunity, not only to reimagine spatial relationships and boundaries, but also to decode the essence of atmospheric staging, suggesting a
material pre-history to contemporary concerns for atmosphere and its production. From the enchanting effects of the Baroque Gallery of (fragmented) Mirrors at Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, via Sir John Soane’s unprecedented use of tinted glass and mirrors in his House-Museum in London, to the twentieth century light modulating machines of László Moholy-Nagy, Adolf Luther’s kaleidoscopic assemblages, and twentieth-century architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s belief in the performative nature of glass, the reader will discover multiplicities of meanings and ambiguities of reflections, exploring their atmospheric potentiality.
Keywords: atmosphere, ambiance, praxeology, situationists
In this regard, the coupling of dispositif with atmosphere is not arbitrary, for the latter similar to dispositif “can arise from the free interplay of heterogeneous elements” – as Sigfried Giedion already noted in his accounts on mechanisation in the mid-20th century, when the term ‘atmosphere’ was not yet so firmly embedded in an architectural discourse. However, what is at the stake here is that Giedion intuitively identified atmosphere also with “intensity”. [2] We might say, a particular intensity of affect that connotes specific bodily responses, if we refer to intensity in a Spinozian sense. [3]
Consequently, if we approach atmosphere as a dynamically engaging spatial phenomenon, one that conjuncturally acts as a detonator of action and interaction in both individual and collective terms, then the space wherefrom it emerges needs to be discussed as a relational milieu. Namely, a dispositif that draws out the dynamics of everyday life and experience, translating them into a graspable form, and shaping these relations through specific pre-scripted sensuous encounters.
Alongside these conceptual frameworks, this study aims at revealing agency implicit in architectural materializations, offering an expansion of the operational field of architecture through relational entanglements between theory and practice. Added to this must be a reconsideration of medium specificity and the transformation of disciplinary boundaries in thresholds that enable the emergence of what Rolf Hughes defined as “transverse epistemologies”. [4]
The intended argumentation has a twofold dimension. Firstly, through the scrutiny of the notion of atmosphere as a spatial phenomenon, the aim is to reflect upon its implications for architectural production. That is, to explore ways of thinking and shaping reality, this through relations that acknowledge a complexity of the material universe disclosed through human and non-human as well as material and immaterial forces. It also aims at rendering how this context emerges from the integration of other disciplines, thus fostering a reconceptualization of perceptual experience and a redefinition of spatial epistemologies.
Secondly, in doing so the objective is to expand the range of knowledge of atmospherics, presenting it as a material practice as well as arguing that despite the fact that it has flourished over the last few decades, strongly influenced by writings of contemporary philosophers such as Gernot Böhme, or Peter Sloterdijk – to mention but a few – the conceptual foundations and protocols for the production of atmosphere might be found beneath the surface of contemporary debates.
Moreover, unlike many accounts of atmosphere, which primarily revolve around its perceptual dimension from a theoretical standpoint, this study focuses on what might be denominated as techniques of the atmospheric. That is, it aims at providing an inventory of tools and methodologies deployed in the production of atmosphere, exploring a multiplicity of conditions that constitute their resonant origins – i.e. the production sites from and within they have emerged. Nevertheless, the aim is not to compose a linear historiographical narrative, neither to present a complete atmospheric taxonomy. The intention is rather to use selected works and practices as instruments for illuminating what has remained overlooked or hidden – i.e. for mapping the fleeting shadows of forgotten knowledge.
Accordingly, among many examples that might be identified with proto-atmospheric praxis, it is the oeuvre of German architect Werner Ruhnau that comes to the fore as paradigmatic for illustrating previously outlined assumptions. Situated broadly within the field of trans-disciplinary collaborations, Ruhnau’s work operates on a number of levels, or rather within intermediate realms. That is, between the material and the immaterial, art and architecture, body and environment, action and performance, promoting what his friend and collaborator Hugo Kükelhaus – philosopher, artist and educator – defined as “differential states of experience”. [5] Along these lines, joint projects with artists such as Yves Klein – with whom Ruhnau worked initially on “aerial architecture” – or Adolf Luther – who searched for a method for rendering the impalpable – create a laboratory for decoding the meaning of atmospheric dispositifs.
Through the analysis of selected works and processes and their theoretical and historical contextualisation, the aim is to reveal how aforementioned collaborations led Ruhnau to think about space as a contingent construction and field of engagement. Namely, to engage with new possibilities of experience by exploring its perceptual and social dimensions through a playful evolvement of space, in which movement and action are orchestrated by variable spatial configurations and material strategies.
In conclusion, since the central theme of this paper is the productive entanglement between heterogeneous elements, disciplines and processes, the intention is to present atmosphere as a site of co-production open to contingencies and affective interplay on multiples levels: at the moment of its conceptualisation, at the moment of its construction, and, finally, at its emergence – converting those immersed in it into co-producers through bodily and social engagement.
References:
[1] Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings. 1972-1977, trans. Colin Gordon, ed. Colin Gordon et al. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 194-198.
[2] Sigfried Giedion, Mechanisation takes command. A contribution to anonymous history (Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press, 2013), 499, 303.
[3] Baruch Spinoza, Complete Works, trans. Samuel Shirley (Cambridge, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2002), 278.
[4] Rolf Hughes, “The Art of Displacement: Designing Experiential Systems and Transverse Epistemologies as Conceptual Criticism,” In Footprint. Delft School of Design Journal. Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality in Theory and Practice no. 4, ed. Kenny Cupers and Isabelle Doucet (2009): 49-64.
[5] Hugo Kükelhaus, Inhuman Architecture. From Animal Battery to Information Factory, trans. Elmar Schenkel (Auroville: Studio Naqshbandi, 2007), 15.
The paper discusses the notoriously ambiguous nature and twofold dimension of atmosphere – meteorological and aesthetical – and embedded in them heterogeneity of meanings. In this context, the notion of atmosphere is presented as parallactic for designing experience in architectural fields, since it transgresses formal and material boundaries of bodies, opening a new gap that exposes the orthodox space-body-environment relationships to questions. It leads to the dissolution of the architectural ‘object’ and its fixity and offers a new understanding of context and space – approached as a field of dynamic relationships. It calls for a re-evaluation of perceptual experience, offering to architecture an expanded domain in which architecture manifests itself, including qualities – besides poetics and beauty – that architecture has long resisted. That is, it defines space as a contingent construction, performative and intensely affective.
Accordingly, the intention is to critically analyse what the term atmosphere entails in architecture, and to expand its notion in terms of affective qualities – often concealed by its poetic potential and far less considered in architectural discourse. In this context, atmosphere is to be presented as a dynamically engaging spatial phenomenon that conjuncturally acts as a detonator of action and interaction in both individual and collective terms. In doing so, analysing the Crystal Palace – recognised as the epitome of controlled immersive experience as well as of atmospheric engineering (Sloterdijk 2008 (2005) – in parallel with other examples and theoretical explorations, will provide a canvas for discerning the means of creation of atmosphere and for defining space as a relational milieu – that is, a conductive environment and field of engagement.
Moreover, since atmospheres are not free floating phenomena, but can be strategically created – ‘staged’ (Böhme 2005, 2013) – this paper invites a critical reflection upon the instrumental and hence potentially dystopian character of atmosphere, that becomes a powerful tool for affecting, for instance, the experience of the cities, for inducing particular behaviors, and, hence, for achieving specific societal and political objectives (Borch 2014).
References:
Borch, Christian, ed. 2014. Architectural Atmospheres. On the Experience and Politics of Architecture. Ba-sel: Birkhäuser.
Böhme, Gernot. 1993. “Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics.” Thesis Eleven 36: 113-26.
⎯. 1995. “Staged materiality,” Magic of Materials, Daidalos n56, June 1995, 36-43
⎯. 2013. “Atmosphere as Mindful Physical Presence in Space.” Oase #91, Building Atmosphere, 21-33
Sloterdijk, Peter. (2005) 2008. “The Crystal Palace.” Translated by Michael Darroch. Public 37: Public?, 12-15. Originally published in Peter Sloterdijk. Im Weltinnenraum des Kapitals: Für eine philoso-phische Theorie der Globalisierung, 265-76. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005)
Jonathan Crary explored the vast field in which perception and its understanding were transformed, tracing a particular taxonomy of visual apparatuses, where the immersive experiences relocate the vision within a “carnal density” (1992: 150), regaining all sensory modalities. Diverse perceptual apparatuses also defined a larger disciplinary expansion in the field of architecture and design. Conceived as sensorial activators, intensifiers of phenomena, or orchestrators of emotions, many of these apparatuses were meant to be vehicles for regaining the consciousness of the body and the environment. Apparatuses that expand into space complete this particular genealogy – space itself becoming a mediating and conductive device capable of engendering these embedding situations, Sloterdijk remarks.
Situated within the field of trans-disciplinary collaborations, the oeuvre of Werner Ruhnau comes to the fore as paradigmatic for illustrating these aspects. The joint projects with philosopher, artist and educator Hugo Kükelhaus, or artists such as Yves Klein and Adolf Luther, constitute a framework for a re-invention of perceptual worlds, providing a basis for tracing the conceptual contours of atmospheric perception, as well as for discerning the means of the production of space understood as an immersive field of experience.
References:
Böhme, G. (1993). "Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics". In Thesis Eleven, 36. MIT Press, pp. 113-126
Crary, J. (1992). Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London: MIT Press
Sloterdijk, P. (2011 (2006)). "Architecture As an Art of Immersion" (A. Chr. Engels-Schwarzpaul, Trans.). In Interstices. Journal of Architecture and Related Arts. Unsettled Containers: Aspects of Interiority, 12, pp. 105-109
By expanding the notion of atmosphere in terms of its affective qualities, often concealed by its poetic potential and far less considered in architectural discourse, the intention is to present Atmospherology – to borrow Tonino Griffero’s terminology (2014 (2010)) – as a particular material practice based on the effects by which it lays claim to affective and, hence, societal orders. In doing so, a series of paradigmatic works of atmospheric engineering will provide a canvas for discerning the means of creation of that thick and almost viscous spatiality analogous to the dense mist composed of bubbles of affects – that is, the particles that are charged with power and normativity.
References
Grtiffero, T. (2014 (2010)). Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces. Ashgate
Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. (2013). Atmospheres of law: Senses, affects, lawscapes, in Emotion, Space and Society 7, 35-44.
Thibaud, J-P. (2011). The Sensory Fabric of Urban Ambiances, in The Senses & Society. Vol. 6, 2, 203-215
Wölfflin, H. (1994 (1886)). Prolegomena to a Psychology of Architecture, in Mallgrave, H. (Ed.) Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893. Santa Monica: The Getty Center For The History of Art and the Humanities, 149-190
However, the atmospheric turn calls for a specific manner of understanding materiality. The atmosphere is not defined through the isolated entities. It is rather a sum of effects – an ephemeral occurrence – that leads to an integral and synesthetic perception of our surroundings, where the environmental qualities are implicit and conditions and phenomena are bound together in a reciprocal dependence. Therefore, material is neither seen as an isolated element, nor as mere substance expressing tectonic character. Transcending its tectonic potential and focusing on its performative significance, the material is to be understood rather as an entirely dynamic category, a complex and active system of fields, including the intangible ones – such as light, air, sound, temperature – and conditions: environmental, meteorological, technical, social or historical. In this multifaceted relationship materials are: carriers of effects and phenomena, encoders of our reminiscences and memories, detonators of physical, physiological and emotional contingencies, activators of the aesthetic occurrence. This reading defines materiality as an active and operative force – as a means of an aesthetic engagement and a phenomenological manifestation.
The enduring need to interact with the body and the surroundings through experience has nourished a wide range of design techniques and material experimentation that identify the inherent conditions of materials and constantly changing environmental parameters as a data upon which projects develop. Thus, the aim is to illustrate this particular projective genealogy, one that builds upon ‘atmospheric awareness’ where seeking an effect and affect is implicit and foregrounding perceptual and emotional engagement is conscious – i.e. one that defines so called ‘active materiality’.
Böhme sees in the creation of atmospheres a magical materialisation (1995: 42). Alison and Peter Smithson similarly stress such magical qualities, explaining how architecture can invite affection and stimulate activities (1979). This might provide an insight into the affective qualities of atmospheres – bearing in mind that they evoke not only feelings and emotions, but also responses – action and bodily impulses. Since sensing atmosphere is related to the sense of “whereness”, referring to the character of space in which we find ourselves (Böhme 2005: 402), to design considering an atmospheric approach means to focus on how space is going to appear, to be experienced or to be felt. Hermann Schmitz defines atmosphere as a sum of ephemeral occurrences contributing to an integral and synesthetic perception of our surroundings, where environmental qualities are implicit and conditions and phenomena are bound together in a reciprocal dependence (1995 (1980)). These assumptions imply shifting attention away from expression towards effects and intensities, enlarging the domain in which architecture manifests itself and revealing that the relation between the material and the immaterial is not accidental and extrinsic, but internal and meaningful already in the design process. In this context, architectural space is conceived as a contingent construction – a space of engagement that appears to us as a result of continuous and complex interferences revealed through our perception.
The use of the word ‘atmosphere’ in architectural discourse is mainly associated with contemporary examples. However, there is a need to read back into previous architectural conceptualisations, our contemporary understanding and concern with atmospheres. In this context, Bruno Taut’s belief in the affective capacity of the materials, Gio Ponti’s concern for their performative qualities, Arne Jacobsen’s obsession with ambivalent interiors, Aldo van Eyck’s modes of involving phenomena, or Werner Ruhnau’s notion of ‘scenic qualities’, are to be used – among others – to illustrate this particular projective genealogy, one that builds upon ‘atmospheric awareness’– i.e. a projective genealogy that defines the immersive field of experience.
Literature
Böhme, G. (1993). Atmosphere as the fundamental concept of a new aesthetics, in: Thesis Eleven33, MIT Press, pp. 113-126
Böhme, G. (1995). Staged materiality, in: Magic of Materials, Daidalos n56, June 1995, pp. 36-43
Böhme, G. (2005). Atmosphere as the subject matter of architecture, in: Ursprung, P. (ed.). Herzog & de Meuron. Natural History, Zurich: Canadian Center for Architecture and Lars Müller Publishers, pp. 388-406
Schmitz, H. (1995 (1980)). Nowa Fenomenologia, (Andrzejewski, B. trans.). Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe IF UAM, (original edition: Neue Phänomenologie, Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1980)
Smithson, A. and P. (1979). Signs of occupancy, Pidgeon Audio Visual Library, World Microfilms Publications Ltd, London, Retrieved from: http://www.pidgeondigital.com
Wigley, M. (1998). The Architecture of Atmosphere, in: Constructing Atmospheres, Daidalos n68, June 1998, pp. 18-27"
Architecture’ as a vision and guiding principle for the future. In late 2014, the PhD School at AAA engaged with this theme and asked PhD students and 2 professors for contributions, which would highlight how their PhD research was connected to this overall vision. The result is a substantial overview of ongoing doctoral research projects.
It was felt that Engaging through Architecture is not only about giving answers but that it is maybe even more important to ask interesting questions. This is reflected in this publication where we took the position to have an openness and inclusiveness for a variety of ways and levels of engaging.
/// Call for Contributions
By focusing on the intertwinement between sensory perception, affect and aesthetic practices, this two-day workshop/seminar aims to bring into dialogue researchers and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines to re-examine potentials and limitations of bodies experiencing sensory realm. Our research question explores how our bodily abilities can inform design and how design can have either an intensifying or diminishing effect on our sensory abilities. We want to think of sensory perception otherwise, developing new ways of moving towards the understanding of disability as ableness. In doing so, we want to exchange experiences, skills and knowledge, addressing diverse ways of creating inclusive environments that operate beyond what we can or cannot perceive, providing a possibility for action and interaction for All Bodies.
We invite abstracts of up to 300 words outlining the intended contribution to the event, either in the format of an academic paper or performative demonstration. Due to limited numbers, we welcome also expressions of interest in attending as a participant, summarising interests in the seminar topic.
Please submit your abstract or expression of interest by email to info@psaap.com by October 5th 2018, 12:00 pm (CET). Email subject: AAB call for contributions.
Announcement of acceptance by October 22nd 2018.
More information at http://psaap.com/en/we-are-all-able-bodies-from-sensory-deprivation-to-sensory-augmentation-2/ and in the attached document.