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Architecture is experienced primarily through the atmos-
pheres it generates. What surrounds us in a work of archi-
tecture is not just a building, with its structural and spatial
forms, but also the atmosphere of a total > situation. A land-
scape is endowed with an atmospheric identity, and a town is
not simply subdivided into a sequence of buildings or streets,
but even more so into characteristic atmospheres; and the
transition between interior and exterior spaces, or between
individual interior rooms, is also a transition between con-
trasting atmospheres.
An atmosphere is the expressive force through which a
situation that has been engendered by architecture seizes us
in affective terms all at once and as a totality. In contrast,
the expression of individual contributory forms, its > form
character, comes into effect initially only through the total
atmosphere of the situation; their impact is secondary.
Atmospheres form a peculiar relationship between object
and subject. On the one hand, they have their points of de-
parture in special situations and their elements; on the other,
they are characters that condition our own mental states, and
which we experience in principle subjectively, even when we
share them with others. We may perceive atmospheres con-
sciously, but we are particularly receptive to them in states
of undirected attentiveness. There exists no specialized sen-
sory organ for perceiving spatial atmospheres, for they are
not seen, heard or tasted, but instead sensed bodily in an all-
inclusive way; we are submerged in them and moved by their
character or mood. It can also occur, however, that we find
our own frame of mind to be opposed to a spatial atmosphere
we encounter in a specific situation, one with which we have
no desire to engage. Of course, we sense this atmosphere as
clearly as ever, but we experience it in opposition to our own
mental states as tension.
The following types of spatial atmospheres are the most
common: the dynamic aspect of spatial > gesture shapes a
situation, which potentially makes an impression of beingAtmosphere