Atmosphere

Definition

Atmosphere (or ambiance, mood, genius loci) names the overarching, multisensory, and largely pre-intellectual impression of a space or place. Pallasmaa defines it as "the overarching perceptual, sensory, and emotive impression of a space, setting, or social situation" — a "mental 'thing' ... suspended between the object and the subject." Architecturally, the atmospheric turn (Zumthor, SANAA) treats atmosphere as the true source of architectural quality, felt instantly and haptically before it is understood. In social theory (Böhme, Sloterdijk), atmospheres are quasi-objective yet subject-bound, and can be staged instrumentally — opening onto a "politics of atmospheres" that governs behaviour through the senses.

Key Thinkers

• Juhani Pallasmaa — peripheral perception, haptic architecture, "the architecture of the eye detaches and controls, whereas haptic and atmospheric architecture engages and unites."
• Gernot Böhme — atmospheres as co-presence of subject and object; the production and staging of urban atmospheres.
• Christian Norberg-Schulz — genius loci and the existential spatial basis of meaning.
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty — the lived body as the pre-intellectual, sensory ground of the atmospheric impression (now a full author page).
• (Related, not yet paged: Peter Sloterdijk on spheres; Peter Zumthor — see log.)

Related Concepts

• Spectacle — the atmospheric as imaged/spectacular vs. as lived-haptic experience.
• Iconic Architecture — the image-driven "architecture of the eye" that the haptic turn opposes.
• Embodiment — the haptic, sensory ground of the atmospheric impression; atmosphere as felt through the body before it is understood.
• Derive — psychogeographic/phenomenological engagement with place.
• Uncanny — the felt, pre-intellectual impression of place; the uncanny as its disturbing, unhomely register.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty 1945)
• The Thinking Hand (Pallasmaa 2009)
• Architectural Atmospheres (Borch ed.)
• Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture
• The Big Rethink Part 4: The Purposes of Architecture
• Aesthetic Boredom in Everyday Architecture
• The Everyday, Building, and Architecture: Reflections on the Ethos and Beauty of Our Built Surroundings
• The Ethical Function of Architecture
• Building Dwelling Thinking
• Iconicity versus Contemporary Architecture
• Existence, Space & Architecture
• Seduced by Form: Aesthetics of Spectacle in Contemporary Art Museum Architecture
• Critical Regionalism: A Not So Critical Theory
• Embodied Spaces in Digital Times: Exploring the Role of Instagram in Shaping Temporal Dimensions and Perceptions of Architecture
• The Architectural Uncanny (Vidler 1992) — the uncanny as the unhomely register of the atmospheric impression.
• Warped Space (Vidler 2000) — the anxious, pathological register of felt space.

Open Questions

• Does the atmospheric/affective turn amount to a form of governance (cf. Douglas Spencer's "affective turn as governance", and noopolitics), or a critical alternative to spectacular ocularcentrism?

Theme

• Phenomenology — the atmospheric turn as one phase of the phenomenological tradition.