117exchanged for another figure. In the other type of field, this
playing field characteristic becomes the principal feature.
- In those instances where buildings assume no nota-
ble role as actors on the playing field, it is less a question of
the play of forces involving the heightening and relaxation
of tension or of attraction or repulsion between masses, and
more of the positions on the field that one assumes, traverses,
or towards which one strives. Inscribed onto fields via the
traversal of positions are the spatial figures of movement that
are executed through one’s own movements according to an
individual or collective choreography of everyday life. In the
absence of the pronounced presences of buildings, the char-
acteristic field experience is generated solely by one’s own ac-
tions, by the choice of position, orientation and movement in
relation to a field geometry. Structurally, such a field charac-
ter is dependent upon the circumstance that in contradistinc-
tion to a force field, the architectural masses exercise only a
minimal spatial influence, for example by virtue of their in-
conspicuous, neutral design, or of the substantial distances
between them, as on the expanses of unarticulated surfaces
of some public squares, as well as in nondirectional, homo-
geneous, or loosely organized structures, such as the prayer
halls of mosques, with their uniform subdivision by means of
columns.
In its most reduced form, a field is delimited only by non-
material boundaries like a soccer field. Here, the ground is the
plane upon which positions with various properties are locat-
ed. But this playing field is endowed with certain properties
of a force field. Even on an open rectangular surface, gradi-
ents emerge from edges, corners, diagonals, midlines and cen-
tre. Through distance and alignment, all of the positions on
the field are oriented towards these. They are superimposed
through individual or collective positionings and through the
movements of people, which may in turn bring a variety of
orders into play. On this stage, one’s own body is a mere play-
ing figure that takes up positions, generates directional refer-