103First, participating in every > situation that is experi-
enced through architecture, and going beyond the static pres-
ence of the building, is a multiplicity of dynamic processes
and influences, including > movements and > use, extensions,
conversions and interventions. Within a building, there are
the > furnishings, with items of furniture and objects of utility,
which shape everyday life in continually new constellations
just as strongly as the constructed space. Among the influ-
ences of the superordinate > contexts, architectural situations
as fields of interaction for social praxis also assume changing
conditions. Dependent upon diverse practices in this way, ar-
chitecture appears as a changeable substance that is not em-
bodied in an object, but is only realized in momentary form.
The object itself constitutes only a kind of ‘hinge’ (Kwinter,
1993) of relationships.
Second, the eventfulness of architecture is evident in the
fact that in it, one always experiences a situation as being
singular. The building defines certain framing conditions. But
the contribution of the above-named dynamic factors to the
formation of these continually different and always at least
partially unpredictable situations, to their ‘emergence’, and to
the experiences that emerge from them, can never be fully
determined through architecture. This perspective is opposed
by a functionalist architecture that compels a single, unam-
biguous usage. Instead, uses result in events through scenarios
formed by the contingent and changing superpositions of var-
ious activities, external influences, and interactions. A room
becomes a contingent space of possibilities in expectation of
a use that may ultimately contradict it, since contradictory
functions may intersect, and hybrid combinations are possi-
ble. Fundamental here is the fact that a spatial situation only
becomes what it is through concrete acts of use.
This does not mean, that architectural design is unim-
portant for the event. The line separating functional deter-
mination from architecture as a faceless container in which
anything can take place is characterized by the concept of