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Occurring in architecture primarily are two types of
rhythm, which at times coincide. First, rhythm serves as a
means of visual design that subdivides, enlivens and inte-
grates structural forms. Second, rhythm serves as the basis for
real movement, that is to say: a rhythm that is articulated in
spatial forms, and which has an impact on our movements or
immediate bodily sensations.
In the first instance, rhythm in architecture is actually
perceived in a frozen state, that is to say, as rhythmical sugges-
tion. With reference to the Greek temple, Heinrich Wölfflin,
for example, distinguishes between strictly bounded and light,
floating rhythms, the difference between them being depend-
ent upon the distribution of triglyphs in relation to the row of
columns (1886/1999, 32). The visual appearance of rhythmic
subdivisions is read this way, from individual ornaments to
the animated contour of a roof, or even the silhouette of an
entire cityscape. In such static images, of course, the rhythm
comes alive mainly through the scanning activity of the eye.
But rhythm in architecture is experienced adequately
only actively, through one’s own (at least imagined) move-
ment. In walking itself, movement is composed of multiple
rhythmical-polar elements, whether forward, backward or
sideways, of rising and falling motions, alternations between
right and left, all of them characterized by variations of dura-
tion and emphasis. In concrete instances, the length, rhythm
and velocity of our steps overlap with the rhythmic traits of
architecturally interrelated spaces. Through the specific se-
quence of room forms and sizes, with its alternation between
narrowness and expansion, ascent and descent, brightness
and darkness, our movements are influenced in such a way
that we adjust ourselves in relation to this spatial rhythm, fol-
lowing it, sensing the way it pervades our movements.
In a rhythmic sequence, variously interconnected spaces
influence one another reciprocally allowing an adequate over-
all image only when they are traversed successively, whether
this involves the linking together of interiors, or a coherent