113The word facade is derived from facies, the Latin word for
face, and refers to the outside wall of a building. The term’s
anthropomorphic provenance is suggestive of various analo-
gies, all related to that which a facade conveys to someone
standing across from it. A facade’s space-shaping and com-
municative functions are inseparable; particularly relevant
are its independent spatiality, which has an impact on both
interior and exterior, its projection of a spatial zone of influ-
ence into the outside space, and its contribution to delimiting
streets and squares.
Facades are highly visible outside walls that are capable
of addressing those who face them, of shaping an address,
and of reflecting a building’s unity. To serve these functions
requires a painstaking design that maintains a strong identity
when viewed as a whole as well as close up and in detail.
By emphasizing its division into storeys, and articulating the
pedestal and attic zones, the facade facilitates the readability
of the building’s tectonic structure. The facade, however, is
also the location of the artful treatment of the planarity of
the outer wall: decisive for perforated facades is the weight-
ing and > proportions of the wall surfaces and openings, and
for curtain wall facades, the structuring of the facade grid.
The relationship between height and breadth as a whole and
the arrangement of the parts may for example give expres-
sion to a vertically striving > directionality, while a recumbent
> gesture is suggestive of a horizontal gliding movement.
With its planar > composition, three-dimensional arti-
culation, relief-like > layering of wall levels, and configura-
tions and rhythms of the individual elements, the facade of-
fers an initial impression of the building that is set behind
it. Suppressing such a relationship, however, is the media fa-
cade, which functions as an independent image or projection
screen.
The impression made by a facade depends upon its lo-
cation and surroundings. Viewed frontally, it confronts us
directly (> confrontation) in ways that incidental viewingFacade