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mean, however, that we experience space from an arbitrary
assortment of interchangeable angles of vision. Instead, the
various systems that are present in space have their own cen-
tres, into which we enter through the imagination, without
occupying them in reality.
As the goal of our wandering attention and orientation,
it forms a changeable focus. Emerging from it is the per-
spective from which, in turn, we experience our own bodies
(> body, human).
Literature: Holenstein 1985; Pahl 1963; Panofsky 1927/1991> facade, form character, roofArchitecture can be considered either architecturally or in
scenic or picturesque terms. A work of architecture must not
necessarily be regarded architecturally. Dagobert Frey has re-
marked that, ‘in many cases, the layman tends more strongly
towards a picturesque outlook, that he seeks out and favours
contingent groupings and overlapping, pictorial details, the
‘picturesque angle’.’ (1925/1946, 99) Painting is distinguished
from architecture through its presentation of a self-enclosed,
ideational aesthetic reality; as beholders, we do not partici-
pate in a painting the way we do in architectural reality, but
instead confront it as a spectator. Our picturesque perspective
of architecture, then, tends to suspend the architectural point
of view, so that we approach a building in a distanced way
like a planar > image. This illusionistic point of view, which
reduces reality, is offered in particular by a camera viewfinder,
which is tied to a fixed standpoint, and is not supplemented
by physical movement through an actual space.
In picturesque perceptions of architecture, we are
charmed by traits that resemble those that are familiar and
valued in the realm of painting. Differently from a realistic
depiction executed in the medium of drawing, a painting gen-Physiognomy
Picturesque