271other hand, it is possible for a building that looks large to
fail to convey a feeling of size’, says Geoffrey Scott (1914).
This author considers ‘scale’ in relationship to ornamentation
or details that are subordinate in relation to larger elements:
because we instinctively take the detailing of the building as
our standard of comparison, the largeness and simplicity of
unbroken architectural masses make an even stronger impres-
sion on us in relation to them.
In instances of scalar enlargement, not all of the parts of
the building can grow proportionately. When the span of gird-
ers is increased, for example, the height of the girders must be
increased disproportionately. Spatial perception too is altered
through increases of scale, as Rudolf Arnheim (1977/2009)
demonstrated. Because a volume grows more quickly than the
surface of its envelope, the spatial envelopes of larger build-
ings seem weaker and offer less stability – even where wall
thicknesses grows proportionately as well. For the same rea-
son, the walls of a large room press into the interior more
strongly than in smaller ones, despite the fact that freedom of
movement is enhanced with the increase of space. ‘Form does
not follow increase in size so simply,’ Paul Valéry has Eupal-
inos say, ‘neither the solidity of the materials, nor the directing
organs, could endure it. If one quality of the thing increases
according to arithmetical ratio, the others crease otherwise.’
(1923/1956, 139)
Literature: Boudon 1991Scenographic architecture is always the stage upon which we
present something – including ourselves – for the purpose of
watching it, or of being watched. This type of architecture
has a wide-ranging set of instruments for illusionistic display,
for example, the resources of perspectival legerdemain or at-
mospheric defamiliarization. It provides a platform and stage
setting for the grand ceremony or the minor > entrance, for
theatrical performances, for staging liturgical ritual, as well asScene