Importance Of Atmosphere In Architecture

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5. Atmosphere and the concrete practice of building

Everyday experience tells us that different actions need different environments to take place in a satisfactory way. This fact is of course taken into consideration by current theory of planning and architecture, but so far the problem has been treated in a too abstract way. ‘Taking place’ is usually understood in a quantitative, functional sense with implications such as spatial distribution and dimensioning. But inter-human functions are not similar everywhere, they take place in very different ways and demand places with different properties, in accordance with different cultural traditions and different environmental conditions.
As happened in the early Functionalism, places cannot be …show more content…

Conclusion

“What do we mean when we speak of architectural quality? Quality in architecture […] is to me when a building manages to move me. What on earth is it that moves me? How can I get it into my own work? […] How do people design things with such a beautiful, natural presence, things that move me every single time. On word for it is Atmosphere”

Remarkably, unlike in the description of art or music, the notion of atmosphere remains largely unaddressed in architecture. Atmosphere, can be argued, is the very initial and immediate experience of space and can be understood as a notion that addresses architectural quality, but the discussion of atmosphere in architecture will always entail, by definition, a certain ambiguity. After all, atmosphere is something personal, vague, ephemeral and difficult to capture in text or design, impossible to define or analyse. Atmosphere, Mark Wigley says, “evades analysis, it’s not easily defined, constructed or controlled”.
To conclude, atmosphere exists where architecture, beyond its technical apparatus and its programmatic approach, manage to create such a strong connection bridging the gap between professionals and users, that the whole is held together by the constancy of an emotional atmosphere to be shared and

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