Fundamental Concepts of Architecture : The Vocabulary of Spatial Situations

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create the impression during the day of standing beneath the

starry heavens of the night sky, by having the shell of a gigan-

tic sphere perforated with holes, thereby admitting light to the

darkened space within.

We experience today’s widely prevalent virtual real-

ity very differently. This is the term for physically inexistent

(three-dimensional) spaces that are calculated by computers

and made accessible to subjects experientially through projec-

tions of spatial imagery. We speak in this context of immer-

sion, meaning the sensation of actually occupying a physical

space, although it exists only as pixels on display screens or

monitors. The user plays an active role by having his or her

control signals or movements translated simultaneously into

corresponding and constantly changing spatial imagery. At

this point, however, the experience of real architecture with

all of its sensory stimuli and the involvement of real move-

ment, that is to say, the feeling of being ‘in a space’, cannot be

replaced by virtual reality. Gaining in importance, however,

is CAD-generated advertising imagery, which anticipates the

future realization of architectural works, allowing them to be

visited and entered virtually beforehand, and presenting them

with such perfection that the actual buildings may have dif-

ficult competing.

> gaze, sensory perception

> depth, gaze, intimation, perspective, sequence

> axis, depth, directionality, gaze, route, sequence

> arcade, movement, rhythm (spatial), route, sequence

The remarkable thing about walls is that although they are

directly in front of us, most of the time, we have no notion

of what is going on just a few feet behind them. On the one

Vision
Vista
Visual target

Walking

Wall