67sitional assembly and its relationship to an overarching form
idea, in turn, is the architectural > concept. Bruno Reichlin
and Martin Steinmann (1976) characterize the genuine for-
mal and compositional structures of architecture as an ‘inner-
architectural reality’. This reality is based on poetic procedures
that are specific to architecture, such as the superposition of
spatial orders (> transparency) and certain rhythmic articula-
tions, which guide our attention – in ways comparable to the
rhetorical figures of oratory – towards the intentional design
of architectural configurations. Insight into the legitimacy and
intrinsic value of the composition provides a kind of plaisir
du texte, such as that prized by Roland Barthes in relation to
literature. The predictability of the architectural > order pro-
vides the senses with the pleasure found in consistently ful-
filled expectations, while the modalities of the situation (light,
atmosphere) generate sufficient contingent variations. At the
same time, the perceptual interest of a composition is often
heightened when meaning and understanding are not imme-
diately available, where recognition of the interconnectedness
of all of the elements is delayed, and understanding achieved
only through detours, processually.
Literature: Reichlin/Steinmann 1976; Wilkens 2000Concavity is an elementary resource for rendering the phe-
nomenon of spatiality in architecture accessible to expe-
rience. The prestige of the form of the vase or vessel for
containing architectural space is expressed eloquently in
Rudolf Schwarz’s tribute: ‘A constitutive element of the art
of building is architectural space, which is to say, that which
is enclosed in the vessel of the walls and ceiling, floor and sup-
ports. A gentle, continually flowing shape made of light and
life.’ (Hasler 2000, 28)
In the narrower sense, concavity is formed by a curva-
ture, but the term may also be used in an extended sense to
refer to angular forms and bent surfaces. The inner side of aConcavity and convexity