Space and Context

187 | SSpace

soft architecture. Sensors that trigger the opening and closing of doors and windows, the movement of walls, and even the lowering and raising of floors and ceilings produce the personalized spaces that characterize soft architecture. Theatrical stages have had this capability for some time, and thus have a lot to teach the designer seeking to produce soft architecture.

Traditional Japanese architecture is an early version of soft architecture. The ability to change the use and “feel” of a space by simply moving a rice paper screen and rearranging the mats on the floor is a manual, low-tech version of soft architecture. A more recent manifestation of softness was attempted with the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1977) (Figure 93). It was to have an interior in which many walls and floors were movable. Unfortunately that degree of flexibility was unjustified. Consequently the building was renovated in 2000 to increase its capacity and efficiency by “hardening” it.

In soft architecture each force applied to it creates content that has form, as “water poured into a vase has form” (Ezra Pound). The water- generated Blur building by Herzog and Meuron poetically illustrates the new frontier of soft or reflexive architecture. The term now refers to any architecture that is not finite or fixed.

See also: Blur • Responsive architecture • Flexibility

Figure 93 Pompidou Center

Space

The classical questions include: is space real, or is it some kind of mental construct, or an artifact of our ways of perceiving and thinking? — Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

If architecture can be understood as the construction of boundaries in space, this space must be understood as commonsense space, a space that possesses meaning and speaks to us long before the architect goes to work. — Karsten Harries

The ethereal thing about architecture is this thing called “space.” Space, as a central design concern for architects, has the interesting quality of being invisible to the untrained eye. Clients and beginning architecture students seldom know what architects or teachers are referring to when they are

S | 188 Spirit of place

talking about space. For the initiated space is not an abstraction, it has substance. For the uninitiated, it remains an abstract concept. Architects often tout space making as their design objective, yet what that really means is seldom examined beyond the level of a slogan. It is assumed that everyone at the table lives in the same world of spatial awareness. Little is understood about our spatial awareness and understanding. Only in extreme cases of pathologies such as agoraphobia or claustrophobia is one’s relationship to space overtly addressed. In the early 1970s the nascent quasi-science of Man–Environment Relations (MER) attempted to broach the topic with attitudinal and preference studies. The notion of “spatial style” variability among various subsets of the population was examined in one study in which this author was a subject. The study appears to conclude that geographers preferred horizontality, whereas architects preferred verticality. It pointed out that architects do not necessary have the same spatial preferences and biases as their clients and building users. Unfortunately, architects unconsciously assume that everyone inhabits their specialized spatial world. This can result in buildings that only the architect can love. The rest of the world wonders what the fuss is about.

The pleasure of space can not be put into words, it is unspoken… it is the presence of absence… leans towards the poetics of the unconscious. — Bernard Tschumi

See also: Absence/presence • Abstraction • Behavior and environment

Further sources: Agrest (1993: 173); Certeau (in Ballantyne 2002: 74) Gausa (2003: 561); Harries (1998: 125, 180; Heidegger (in Leach 1997: 122); Jencks (2007: 174); Johnson (1994: 383); Sharr (2007: 53); Scruton (1979: 43); Tschumi (1999: 29, 84)

Spirit of place

Not to be confused with the late Charles Moore’s or Christopher Alexander’s use of the term “sense of place” – which concerns a reinforced spatial occupancy or imbuing particularly urban space with special meaning – spirit of place describes a more profound degree of supernatural awareness. Usually applied to a rural or a natural, unspoiled place, its original meaning is embedded in a Roman mythology: that is, the concept of every human being having two guardian spirits in the form of fallen angels (genii) that give life or spirit to people or places. Generally speaking, the modern world has shed such beliefs, and rather than a guardian spirit, the term now refers to the distinctive atmosphere of a particular site. More superficial versions of a contemporary superstition of place still exist, such as a flickering of interest in ley lines and feng shui.

The development towards assigning a modern concept of the “extraordinary ability” to a place is complex – invisibly intertwined in a cultural weave of folk stories, memories, belief systems, and so on – but it seems to have been connected with the idea of “spirit” through a notion of “inspiration.” The alternative term for spirit of place, that is, genius loci, however, refers back to the original meaning of genius as “essence.”