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is fairly sizable, the concavity of the walls once again frames
a circulating movement. Concave and convex forms, finally,
may also alternate in a rhythmic, sequential arrangement of
recessive and protruding forms that effect transitions between
repulsion and pull.
Literature: Bachelard 1964/1994; Schumacher 1926; Sörgel
1921/1998, 1925> cellar, depth, filter, porosity, screening, space-containing
wall, transparencyThe architectural concept is the idea that guides spatial crea-
tion and according to which a design is elaborated, and at
the same time it offers the key to adequately comprehending
the work as ultimately realized. The word’s provenance, the
Latin word concipere, implies both meanings. The concept
must also take into account the fact that the result will be
experienced not as an object, but as a situation. A series of
further terms, which are often treated as though they were
indistinguishable, including design principle, architectural
> theme, basic idea, guiding principle and conception, are also
concerned with the conceptual structure of a spatial design
that is to be accessible to experience through its realization
in built form.
The architectural concept goes beyond the fulfilment of
technical requirements and functional needs by also investing
in something that Theodor W. Adorno referred to as ‘archi-
tectural fantasy’, and is at the same time oriented towards a
building task by the postulate ‘that something can occur to
the artist out of space itself; this cannot be something arbi-
trary in space and indifferent towards space.’ (1979, 37–38)
Every conception is also an interpretation of a building task,
so that an understanding of the concept and its interpretive
intentions is hardly irrelevant to an understanding of its reali-Concealment
Concept, architectural