Fundamental Concepts of Architecture : The Vocabulary of Spatial Situations

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movement. As a permeable interior > facade, this ring of col-

umns expresses the house’s introverted character, while the

street facades of Roman houses, for example, generally re-

ceive no articulation. By virtue of its tripartite stratification,

consisting of colonnade (> arcade), ring of rooms, and outer

wall, the peristyle courtyard is emphatically screened towards

the outside. Particularly noticeable in contrast to the variabil-

ity of the facades that customarily enclose an urban square is

the homogeneity of the spatial delimitations of interior court-

yards, especially when formed by continuous rows of col-

umns or other types of highly uniform facades. Those spend-

ing time here may have the impression of being confronted

by four uniform sides, and even the sensation of being looked

at – that at any moment, a figure may emerge from between

two columns. Here, the oscillating movement (> oscillation)

typical for centralized spaces extends from the centre all the

way into the surrounding arcade; an example is the circular

courtyard of the Palace of Charles V in Granada. Inner court-

yards with elongated basic forms, on the other hand, seem

to prescribe directed movement, either towards a principal

building, or as a passageway, or in a back-and-forth motion.

Architecture can be defined as the shaping of space by means

of covering a structural framework. The decisive role is played

by the spatial covering, which provides protection and at the

same time assumes expressive and decorative functions in

ways analogous to human clothing, while the construction is

responsible for framework and support functions. This phe-

nomenon becomes an architectural > theme to the extent that

it is visualized in the design, for example through repeated

and multilayered covering, or by the articulation of the differ-

ence between covering and covered.

According to Gottfried Semper, architecture is essentially

the art of covering. Accordingly, its primary task is the crea-

tion of a spatial shell; not the constructive court core, but

Covering