83> atmosphere, light
> atmosphere, covering, ornamentation, wallA room with an especially high density appears impenetra-
ble to the gaze, and inhibits forward movement: one tends to
freeze up. Such an impression of density is generated when
room-high elements or those set at eye level, supports, pillars,
wall panels, or solid bodies are configured within a spatial
volume in large numbers and with minimal distances between
them in such a way that although it is possible to move be-
tween them, there is little space for the > gaze to make its
way around them. The room, then, extends beyond the point
the gaze can reach; its boundaries are not available to sight.
It is impossible to determine whether the room has walls at
all, whether it is open to the outside or is contained. Vision is
limited by obstacles, but is able to find its way around them
nonetheless, albeit without being able to extend much beyond
them. A telling characterization of such an experience of ex-
treme density – for example in the hypostyle hall of Ameno-
phis III at Luxor – is provided by Otto Friedrich Bollnow,
who compares it to that of a person walking through a dense
forest: ‘As soon as he penetrates into it from one side, he is
unable to evade the captivity of the gaze, and cannot look
out into an open area; instead, a constricted zone of visibility
moves along with him like a shadow: he cannot escape this
narrowness, remains enclosed within it.’ (1963, 218). A uni-
formly dense distribution of columns interferes with > orien-
tation, since no particular directionality enjoys priority.
But density is not the only result of the presence in a
room of constructive elements at minimal intervals; a sense
of ‘pressure’ between them, which takes shape in the imagi-
nation, may also result from their mass and form (Arnheim
1977/2009). Density in an architectural complex results from
a high proportion of mass in relation to empty volume, for
example in fortifications having small rooms and thick wallsDaylight
Decor
Density, spatial