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ments they are capable of dissolving buildings or walls into
a permeable structure. Moreover, they offer a multiplicity of
options for entering, abiding, concealment and withdrawal.
Porosity becomes more explicit in the finer grain of shelving,
storage compartments, and open fixtures. When wall divi-
sions are effected as a dense texture of slits, joints and small
apertures, the gaze may get lost in them.
On the scale of surface structure and > materiality, fi-
brous wood, porous stone, coarse meshwork, and textiles
are typical examples – even the thick Japanese paper of shoji
screens has a soft porosity. The continuous ornamentation
and sculpting can create the impression that a solid mass of
a surface is disintegrating, examples being the stucco embel-
lishments of the Rococo, Plateresque ornamentation in Spain,
or the sculptural dissolution of structural elements in Hindu
temples. In special instances, such as the finely sculptured
alabaster columns in the Adinath Temple of Ranakpur, the
plastic structure creates an impression of porosity; the pores
are also open towards the light from various sides. With a
capillary ramification into the smallest caverns, they seem to
capture the light and the gaze. Like a sponge, they manifest a
permeability that loses itself somewhere in the depths of the
mass or of the space.> arcade, column, door and gate, facade, hall, ingress and exitStanding (1), sitting (2) and reclining (3) are the most com-
mon poses suggested to us by buildings as spatial settings.
In their > form character, they seem at times to adopt such
postures themselves.- Standing requires the resistance of the > ground; the
horizontal > plane makes a stable standpoint possible. Our
feet create a broadened base that corresponds to the founda-
tion and the > base in architecture. Uneven ground, on the
Portico
Postures