Böhme, Gernot

Bio Sketch

Gernot Böhme (1937–2022) was a German philosopher whose "new aesthetics" theorized atmospheres as the objective feelings that spaces and things emanate — quasi-objective phenomena experienced as the "co-presence of subject and object." He brought this atmospheric theory to architecture and urban planning, arguing that atmospheres can be produced/staged and that an atmospheric approach should guide urbanism. He is a key figure in Geoffrey's phenomenology of place and the atmospheric turn in architecture.

Key Works

• Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik — the foundational "new aesthetics" of atmosphere.
• "Urban Atmospheres: Charting New Directions for Architecture and Urban Planning" (in Borch ed., Architectural Atmospheres).

Key Concepts

Concepts associated with this author that have pages in this wiki:

• Atmosphere

Relevance to Geoffrey's Research

Böhme provides the philosophical infrastructure for the atmospheric turn in architecture, directly relevant to Geoffrey's phenomenology of place area and to the question of whether atmospheric design is experience or governance. His account of the production of atmospheres invites the reading (shared by Borch, with Sloterdijk) that atmosphere is also a subtle form of power.

Source Support

Source notes in this wiki drawn from this author's work:

• Architectural Atmospheres (Borch ed.)
• Aesthetic Boredom in Everyday Architecture