ATMOSPHERES
How important is the atmosphere of a building? interior and exterior...
The atmosphere of a building has to do with many components, but the three that stood out to me in Zumthor’s writing, Atmospheres, were the level of intimacy, the sound of a space, and the body of architecture. When reading this, these three stood out because I think that these are the ones that catch my attention the most when observing a new building. The atmosphere doesn’t necessarily just focus on the interior or the exterior, even though it seems to be most easily experienced in an interior space. The atmosphere doesn’t have to focus on if the building looks cool or not, this is more about how you feel in the space or around it.
Levels of Intimacy: How intimate can a space in architecture get? “.. something more bodily than scales and dimensions, it refers to the various aspects-- size, dimension, scale, the buildings mass by contrast with my own. The fact that it is bigger than me, far bigger than me.” A building, interior and exterior, can make people feel something that is so intimate and somewhat intimidating. Buildings that are scaled so much bigger than the human body make people a little uncomfortable being in those spaces, they are meant to make people feel this way. And spaces that are meant for comfort are always made more to the scale of the human body, in no way intimidating for the person.
The Sound of a Space: this specifically talked about the interior, “ Interiors are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere. That has to do with the shape peculiar to each room and the surfaces of the materials they contain, and the way those materials have been applied... The sounds we associate with certain rooms; speaking personally, what always comes first to my mind are the sounds when I was a boy, the noises my mother made in the kitchen. They made me feel happy.” The sounds that you associate with architecture are typically coming from the interior of a building, but I think that the atmospheres that we create on the exterior are just as important. Take the wind and trees, the atmosphere that one creates with the exterior of a building can become something that is memorable.
The Body of Architecture: The presence of materials that make people feel something when they are around them. “that kind of thing has a sensual effect on me. and that is what I would call the first and greatest secret of architecture, that it collects different things in the world, different materials, and combines them to create a space like this.” architecture, brings together materials in different ways to create its own body. This body that forms and a body that can touch others.
Hailey, I was drawn to similar parts of Zumthor's article, specifically "the sound of a space". I feel like it opened my eyes to how a building is never experienced in a vacuum. Of course we think about how a building can fit into its surrounding physical, and even social, environment. But we never talk about how the surrounding environment enters the interior of a building too. We continue to experience the context of a building even when we cannot see it. It adds so many dimensions to space and experience that complicate design even further.
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