Fundamental Concepts of Architecture : The Vocabulary of Spatial Situations

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though one had been inserted into an image by the architec-

ture. Corresponding to the pictorial act, through which the

observer delimits a stable image field from the diffuse flow

of perceptions, is the fundamental architectural function of

contouring a situation spatially, of screening off inner from

outside in the broadest sense in a way analogous to a picture

frame. Through its performative character, moreover, such

an image of a city or architectural structure itself becomes a

> scene.

This conception of the architectural image has various

consequences: spatial situations can be structured in such a

way by architecture that they attain the power to mould im-

ages, so that we are emboldened to create an ‘image’ from

them, which is to say: to grasp the total situative context ac-

curately by going beyond the isolated standpoint, which is

itself in turn embraced in its changing state by the context.

That to which the image alludes does not lie outside of archi-

tectural reality, but reflects it through self-referential atten-

tion. If this is the intention of the architectural design, even

the everyday reality of the city and of the architecture ac-

quires an iridescent significance, an aura of the remarkable,

through this image status. Within this image perspective, and

by exiting a purely functional attitude towards our surround-

ings, we experience our actions as remarkable. Objects ap-

pear strange, our interest is heightened, we are suddenly able

to experience things that previously seemed insignificant. Our

perception is now unconstrained by rules, by a fixation on the

purely instrumental; through dispersed attentiveness, it can

now allow itself to be seized by the richness of the whole, and

even by its > beauty.

> dwelling, experience, interior, residence, virtuality

> movement, time

> intermediate space

Immersion
Immovable property
In-between