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a seeming nothingness, with rooms with a vast extent or of
the most severe barrenness, as well as the experience of being
submerged in total silence, extreme darkness or blinding light,
also invoke the experience of the sublime. Alongside gran-
diose gestures such as the steep, precipitously rising spaces
of Gothic cathedrals and the dynamic whirlpools of the Ba-
roque, subtle atmospheric suggestions of the sublime can be
evoked through light and sound.
But we ought not feel exposed without protection to the
oppressiveness and irritating quality of such boundary experi-
ences. Before they can produce a shudder of fascination, aes-
thetic distance is required. Even when we feel utterly lost in
the pull of boundless extent and emptiness, or the gloom of a
darkened room, we may nonetheless be certain of remaining
unharmed. Even when the sublime casts us down through its
vastness, we should nonetheless – and despite the sensation
of smallness we must endure – participate in the sensation of
grandeur that characterizes the situation as a whole.
Literature: Boullée 1987> incorporation, inside and outside, intermediate space, space-
body continuum, transparency
> arcade, column, density (spatial), hall, heaviness and light-
ness, structureSurfaces serve a dual task in architecture. The surfaces of
walls and space-forming elements are the boundary surfaces
of their bodily masses, and at the same time the boundary sur-
faces of the space that they form. They are the places where
> body/mass and space touch one another, and serve both
as delimitations. This competition between contours is staged
on the surfaces. There, body and space become perceptible
through the senses. We probe surfaces with our eyes, follow
them in their reliefs, their projections and recessions. The eyeSuperimposition
Support
Surface