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The Concept of Space in Architecture : Emergence, Hegemony and Transcendence

Patrik Schumacher, London 2008
To be published in: O.P.4 Editrice Compositori, Bologna, Italy 2008
Abstract:
The self-conception of architecture as being concerned with the making of space spaceemerged at the turn of
the century, came into prominence with the advent of the modern movement during the 1920s, and for
most architects still counts as the most essential definition of architecture. For the current avant-garde the
concept of space has lost its lustre. Contemporary avant-garde architecture is operating with new
concepts, logics and methods that are no longer captured by the idea of space-making.

The Emergence of Architectural Space

Space seems to be the essential goal of the architect. His task is to configure space, to shape space, the
formation of urban and architectural space. Architecture is the art of space-making. This is perhaps the
most compelling summary definition of architecture, the seemingly self-evident self-conception of the
discipline.
However, this was not always the case, and no longer holds with respect to the most advanced ideas
within contemporary avant-garde architecture.

The concept of space entered architectural discourse at the end of the 19th Century, via art history and
aesthetic theory[1], and made indeed a decisive contribution to the progressive advancement of
architecture,
The art historian August Schmarsow was perhaps the first to explicitly insist that space (“Raum”) is the
essence of architectural creation. He talked about “Raumkunst” – the art of space – and interpreted the
history of architecture – in Hegelian fashion – as the progressive unfolding of man’s feeling for space
(“Raumgefuehl”).
Prior to this “discovery” of space architecture was concerned with the design of definite buildings that
followed a small set of strictly predefined stereotypes: churches, palaces and villas, each fixed with its
function, form, tectonic order, symmetry, proportional system and detail motifs. In the world of classical
architecture there was no need for the discourse to descend to the deep level of abstraction that is implied
in the concept of space.
The initial intellectual impetus for the art historians of space was given by Kant’s striking idea that the
Euclidian logic of space – alongside a series of other fundamental principles like time, substance, cause
and effect which together seem to structure the external world - derives its inviolate universality from the
constitution of the perceiving/experiencing subject and therefore cannot be attributed to the world itself.
Hegel followed to inquire into the origin of the subject and historisized its constitution via the notion of
the “spirit of the age”. This in turn inspired the attempt by arthistorians to identify this unfolding
spirit/subject in the various époques of artistic expression. This meant that architectural phenomena were
to be understood in very general, abstract terms that could manifest the spirit on this broad level of
abstraction. Each époque could now be identified with a particular sense of space.
As a principle of historical explanation this back-projection of the newly discovered abstract category of
architectural space is rather implausible.[2] As a principle of historical orientation with an eye towards
future ambitions it was rather influential, and references to space rapidly took root within architectural
thinking. But intellectual influences are never sufficient to account for radical transformations within the
self-conceptions of a (practice-oriented) discipline like architecture.
Besides this intellectual impetus there was also a strong practical impetus to push this new, deep level of
abstraction into architectural thinking.
The socio-economic development of the 19th Century produced an explosion of divers building tasks:
office buildings, apartment blocks, department stores, hospitals, museums, railway stations, factories etc.
The classical repertoire and theory – oriented towards churches and palaces – was overstretched. More
general, abstract notions and principles about how to compose volumes and arrange functions were
required.
The concept of space that became available from art-history could facilitate these requirements of a
generalized, abstract approach and discourse (without loosing the elevated academic tone of a principled
and idealizing mission). The traditional straight-jacket of tightly predefined building types was torn off
and replaced by a free game of composition - the open-ended disposition of planes and volumes in space
– that was much more versatile and adaptive to the varied demands of the emerging
industrial/metropolitan civilization. Soon the divers architectural results had at least one thing in common
– they were shaping space.
This abstraction initially implies very little and offers no foothold for architectural theory until different
sensibilities and types of space can be distinguished. This initial abstractness/vagueness is an important
liberating force. What is the universe of possibilities opened up and constrained by the new task:
configure space?

A whole new series of distinctions is called for and indeed has been called forth by this theoretical move:
For instance the distinction between open, free-flowing space vs closed, bounded space, inviting
architecture to take a stance. The emerging modernism made its choice on the side of free-flowing space.
Space can be compressed and expanded, articulated or smooth. The concept of space also gives
opportunity to import distinctions like isotropic vs an-isotropic space and to give them an architectural
meaning. Space is thus not a mere abstraction, but opens a new conceptual field, a new perspective about
how to think and design in architecture.

Sometimes such conceptual mutations - like this introduction of space into architecture - catch fire quite
quickly and thus become innovations that can be build upon. They strike a cord, suddenly unblock and
give expression to slumbering tendencies that leap at this opportunity and claim these new concepts for
their development - often quite against the original intentions of those who first introduced the new term.
New terms are rather fluid and always up for grabs. They engage in creative co-evolution with emerging
practices. They might help to solve a lot of stored up problems suppressed by the previous paradigm - that
suddenly collapses like a house of cards. This was also the case with the introduction of space into
architecture The historicist canon of building types ran up against the proliferating diversity of
construction tasks which could not be subsumed under the classical canon imposing a closed set of
building types. A lot of construction had gone “underground” during the final years of classical
architecture and remained outside of architecture proper. “Space” soon took all this hidden and despised
non-architecture (engineering structures) under its wings and took off, charging forth with all this pent up
energy. Space opened up a whole new domain and trajectory of exploration.

The Hegemony of Architectural Space

This fertile notion of space became the key category within the self-descriptions of modern architecture.
The related design method of “free” composition - the open-ended disposition of planes and volumes in
space – became naturalized as the prerogative of the creative architect. To take such creative liberties
would have seemed to be an unheard of audacity for any old school classical architect. Now this liberty
was to be taken for granted.
The liberated canvass of abstract art was enlisted in this exploration. Abstract art was indeed breaking
through to the idea of free composition and free construction in space even before architecture did so. In
this respect modern architecture also depends upon the revolution within the visual arts - painting and
sculpture - that finally shook off the burden of representation at the dawn of the new century. Modern
architecture was able to build upon the trail-blazing of modern abstract art as the conquest of a previously
unimaginable realm of constructive freedom. Hitherto art was understood as mimesis and the reiteration
of given sujets, i.e. re-presentation rather than creation. Architecture was equally the re-presentation of a
fixed set of minutely determined typologies and complete tectonic systems. Against this backdrop
abstraction meant the possibility and challenge of free creation. The canvas became the field of an original
construction. To take this step - that now nearly seems trivial[3] - was indeed a monumental break-
through with enormous consequences for the whole of modern civilisation. Through figures such as
Malevitsch and vanguard groups such as the DeStijl movement this exhilarating historical moment was
captured and exploited for the world of experimental architecture.

This new discourse and practice of space-making had reached its full blown potential in the modern
movement of the 1920s, pushed and aided as well by the new construction technologies of reinforced
concrete and steel that allowed the classical proportions and symmetries of safe and balanced stone
construction to be cast aside. The power of these new possibilities of conquering space had already been
demonstrated outside of architecture proper, in the amazing engineering structures of the late 19th and
early 20th century, like bridges and railway halls etc. Now these possibilities were claimed for
architecture and its space-making mission. The most striking and paradigmatic projects of this early
modernist architectural “space-age” were manifesto projects that remained unbuilt: Leonidov’s Lenin
Library and El Lissitzky’s Sky-hooks a.o. There are also paradigmatic built projects that fully
demonstrate the principle of dynamic equilibrium compositions: Rietfeld’s House Schroeder and Mies’s
Barcelona Pavilion a.o. give shape and rhythm to abstract, free-flowing space.

The abstractness of space constitutes an invitation for unconstrained creativity. But we should also pay
attention to the more specific thrust of this particular abstraction: space. It shifts the focus from the solid
building that needs to be constructed to the void that can be filled with activities. It was no accident that
the concept of space came hand in hand with functionalism. Adolph Behne’s seminal 1923 book “The
Modern Functional Building” displays the following progression of chapters:

1. No longer a Façade / but a House

2. No longer a House / but Shaped Space
3. No longer Shaped Space / but Designed Reality

In the final chapter Behne is calling for “the optimum functional articulation of the proposed living space”
and insists that “architecture is no more than a fixed and visible structure of the final organisation of every
movement, every occupation, every purpose and use of the building”.[4]
The new technologies of steel and reinforced concrete also played their part in the shift of focus from the
solid mass that needs to be constructed to the space of activities. These new technologies constitute a
veritable dematerialization of architecture if compared with the massive, solid stone constructions of the
classical age. (Architectural drawings are no longer to be filled with the thick poche of stone designs.)
That the focus of attention should shift from the solid to the void makes sense in a situation where the
question of what needs to be built can no longer be simply answered by reverence to a fixed, predefined
building type.
This shift of focus from solids to voids implies the shift of attention from the particular tectonic elements
that need to be constructed to the prior question about the activities that need to be organised and shaped.
It also focuses attention upon the experiencing subject. The subject of modern architecture is a subject that
has to navigate the dense urban environments of an industrial civilization. This subject is not just placed
in front of a single, easily recognized monument. The concept of space allows architecture to take the
position of the modern subject that is thrown into a much more complex scene where multiple buildings
are arranged into ever-changing constellations without any guarantee of forming easily recognized
wholes. To avoid descend into pure chaos, new ordering principles have to be conceived that are able to
absorb and structure more complexity with more versatility. Notions like rhythm or dynamic equilibrium
are helping to characterize such constellations and turn them into modern spatial compositions.

The Transcendence of Architectural Space

Once the notion of space has been established it is possible to go back to describe traditional architecture
in terms of space and recognize that traditional space is tightly bound space, at all scales, from the walled
city to the segmentation of buildings into discreet rooms. Perhaps the most important aspect to consider in
relation to different concepts of space is the primary ordering principle that is implied with each
respective concept of space. This question of order directly connects to the vital issue of orientation.
Apart from the simple orientation via monumental landmarks, traditional spatial orientation has been
operating primarily on the basis of relations of containment - the Russian doll principle of nesting
domains. Spatial position is defined as series of relations of containments: continent, country, region, city,
district, neighborhood, estate, building, floor, apartment, room. Each domain has a clear boundary and is
fully contained within a larger domain with an equally crisp boundary. This is how you know where you
are at any time. A change of position implies the crossing of a boundary. Orientation is traditionally
further supported if the domains can be identified with easily recognizable platonic/geometric figures like
circles, squares or rectangles. It should be obvious that the scope of this system of ordering is limited. A
sense of order could only be maintained by denying the realities of modern life.
Modern architecture enhanced the capacity of spatial ordering via a number of new devices: the urban
grid, the series, the principle of articulation (specializing separation)[5], and the compositional trope of
dynamic equilibrium (balanced asymmetry). Space is no longer tightly contained in buildings and rooms
within buildings. The articulated volumes project into space and their interior becomes porous. Space
flows continuously from inside to outside. However, this space is still shaped by compositions.
Compositions are constituted from no more than a “hand full” of simple, discrete volumes. No matter how
free the relative size, the proportions and the relative disposition of those volumes – compositions remain
constrained by these two crucial limitation: each element is a discrete (usually cubic) volume, and the
number of elements is very much restricted, usually 3 – 5 and mostly not more than 7. Above this number
the laws of human cognition demands chunking - like one does when trying to remember telephone
numbers. In terms of modern architectural composition chunking translates into the hierarchical build up
of the composition in a small number of composed groups of volumes (clusters) in turn containing a
number of composed sub-volumes. The difference to classical arrangements is that these clusters are not
fixed into strict relations of nesting, proportion and symmetry. However, a restriction to an orthogonal
system of disposition remains. Modern architecture shapes space via composing volumes and planes in
space. Space flows through and so does the modern subject. His trajectory has been ordered by the rules
of composition outlined above. These rules offered sufficient scope to absorb and structure the exigencies
of modern industrial society. But society did not stand still since 1920. The first 50 years the construction
of modern space could proceed on a massive scale without encountering the need for a qualitative shift.
Since the late 1960s the underlying socio-economic dynamic changed.[6] On the back of a secured
material base, during the 1970s and 1980s, a marked increase in life-style ambitions and diversifications
implied a quest for rapid cycles of innovation, and attendant fluidity of work relations, which in turn
implied a surge in the complexity of ordering required from both urbanism and architecture. The
modernist method of “freely” composed space started to show signs of being over-burdened. The reactive
post-modern scavenging into the treasure house of historical motifs was short-lived, and driven out by a
neo-rationalist and minimalist counter-currents. The complexity-barrier remains.
Once more, a sense of order can only be maintained on the basis of a radical reductionism that is
antithetical to the realities of contemporary life.
This contradiction can only be surmounted by an ordering system that can structure more complex
arrangements. As long as there is only this one simple system of order this contradiction leads us to one of
two equally untenable reactions: On the one hand this predicament leads to the fallacy of minimalism
craving for an artificial simplicity, and on the other hand to the fetishistic embrace of disorder as in the
celebration of Tokyo’s visual chaos.
Space finally lost its progressive force after about 80 years of hegemony.

The Space to Field

A radically different, alternative mode of ordering and orientation is afforded by the concept of field
field, and
the principles of the continuously differentiated field. The field we are thinking about is not the field of
agriculture, although a corn-field might take on field-qualitities in our sense when a helicopter is
approaching to land and the corn is beautifully animated by the air-turbulence. The concept of field in
contemporary avant-garde architecture rather has the following two primary sources of inspiration: the
field concept from modern physics, especially in reference to electro-magnetic fields on the one hand and
the concept of field from the psychology of perception, especially Gestalt-psychology, were field is
juxtaposed to object as the diffuse background or substrate from which the process of perception extracts
the object (figure) that focuses the subject’s attention at any time.
Space is conceived as empty and isotropic, like an unstructured vacuum. Fields are full, as if filled with a
fluid medium. We might think of liquids in motion, structured by radiating waves, laminal flows, and
spiraling eddies. Swarms of birds or shoals of fish[7] have also served as paradigmatic analogues for the
field-concept that the contemporary avant-garde is trying to bring into architecture. Dense, moving
crowds of people constitute an example that is directly engaging with architecture, literally creating
temporary architectural fields that are arguably more significant to the event in question than the shape of
the framing space. The vocabulary and conceptual schemata we require to describe the dynamic order and
formation of these kinds of crowds are precisely those we need to build the conceptual apparatus that will
supersede the concept of space in architecture.
But instead of limiting us to describe crowds moving through space we would like to think of swarms of
buildings that drift across the landscape. Or we might think of large continuous interiors like open office
landscapes or big exhibition halls of the kind used for trade fairs. Such interiors are visually infinitely
deep and contain swarms of partitions, swarms of desks and swarms of light fixtures. The roof over such
an interior might be held up by a forest of columns or by the infinite thicket of a continuous space-frame.
In each case the constitution and order of the territory is no longer composed of a small number of parts,
but by an uncountable mass of particles. (“From parts to particles[8]” has been one of the key slogans of
the mid-nineties.) This is one of the key characteristics of working with fields. One has to handle so many
elements that any attempt to pay attention or track all or any individual element in particular is utterly
hopeless. With respect to compositions and the spaces that they shape every individual element matters, is
noticed and carefully placed into the overall balance. With fields only the global and regional field
qualities matter. Elements become effective only as they amass, coalesce and accumulate to create
emergent field effects: biases, drifts, gradients, and perhaps even conspicuous singularities like radiating
centres. But any such feature is a result of a rule-based accumulation of much smaller features and
therefore always subject to gradual emergence and disappearance. There are no discrete entities with
sharp outlines. Here figures and domains need not sustain platonic simplicity. Their deformation does no
longer spell the break down of order but the lawful inscription of information. Figures/domains do not
have to remain neatly separated because we have developed lawful rules of mutual inflection, and lawful
rules of gradual transformation.
Orientation in a complex, lawfully differentiated field affords navigation along vectors of transformation –
for instance a morphing trajectory - rather than snapping from position to position via boundary
crossings. Field-qualities usually co-exist with other reference systems – even in the case of the most
ambitious avant-garde projects.
In the extreme case of a territory based on pure field conditions named landmarks, bounded domains, and
shaped space would have disappeared and orientation would have to rely fully on the navigation of
lawfully modulated field qualities like density, directionality, agitation in the field etc. There would be no
nameable locations to refer to, and no specific place could be named as destiny of the journey. Instead the
lawfully changing vectors of transformation – like increasing density - would afford orienting inferences
and anticipations. The destiny would be a desired field-quality rather than a specific place. The
contemporary condition of arriving in a metropolis for the first time without prior hotel arrangements,
without a map (and with meetings scheduled only for the following day) might instigate this kind of field-
navigation. The gradual build up of the degree of urbanity will lead you to shops and restaurants. To allow
oneself to be pulled by such vectors of transformation affords a very efficient form of navigation - as long
as there is no need to find a specific address/place. To move through such a field would be akin to being
thrown into a deep forest where trees have no name and where thickets and clearings emerge and fade
gradually, and where topographic features are translated and accentuated by shifts in vegetation.
This navigation on the basis of field-qualities operates with the same navigational logic that guides
nomads across the wilderness. (In this sense it also makes sense to speak of urban nomads). Deleuze and
Guattari[9] have been describing this logic in relation to their distinction between smooth and striated
space. Striated space is the space of architecture, plotted out between stable reference points and dissected
by boundary lines. Smooth space is equivalent to the nomads’ field of exploration. Here everything is
structured via intensities like climatic gradients, and shifts in vegetation. Here the lines or trajectories of
movement - following the vectors of intensity/transformation – are prior to any moments/points that
might be encountered on these paths. This logic overturns the logic of space where lines (of movement)
can only be defined on the basis of prior fixed points.

There are many projects within the oevre of Zaha Hadid Architects that are pursuing this thesis. Here I
would like to illustrate one urban and one architectural project:
The Master-plan for One North, an urban science and business park in Singapore, deploys an elastic grid
that squeezes and stretches in adaptation to topographic conditions and in response to incisions that
radiate and ripple through the net. The vertical extrusions that are developed from this grid further
amplifies the lawful and continuous differentiation of the field. The resulting urban fabric distributes
intense field qualities: directionality, density, grain, and light-intensity.

The Central Building for the new BMW factory in Leipzig operates as a field of flow. The constructed
components - the walls, the roof-trusses and roof-beams – are strongly directed, in line with the primary
orientation of the building. Everything is structured by lines of [Link] Central Building is the active
nerve- centre or brain of the whole factory complex. All threads of the building’s activities gather together
and branch out again from [Link] planning strategy applies to the cycles and trajectories of people -
workers (arriving in the morning and returning for lunch) and visitors - as well as for the cycle and
progress of the production line which traverses this central point - departing and returning again.
This dynamic focal point of the enterprise is made visually evident in the proposed dynamic spatial
system that encompasses the whole northern front of the factory and articulates the central building as the
point of confluence and culmination of the various converging flows.
It seems as if the whole expanse of this side of the factory is oriented and animated by a force field
emanating from the central building. All movement converging on the site is funnelled through this
compression chamber squeezed inbetween the three main segments of production: Body in White, Paint
Shop and Assembly.
The fertile and pliant formalism of flow lines has been pursuit obsessively. Every system was forced to
contribute to the intricate play of bundling, diverging and converging trajectories: structure, partitions,
circulation, lighting, conveyors etc. All are treated as if they were under the spell of a powerful force-
field. The field displays its own typical correlations between structure, infra-structure, movement and
natural light. Collectively they create an architectural field effects that are crafted to accommodate and
orient the movement and communication processes that represent the essential purpose of the building.

[1] As Kenneth Frampton suggests, these ideas were first formulated in August Schmarsow’s inaugural
lecture as professor of art history at thee University of Leipzig in 1893. see: Schmarsow, August, Das
Wesen der Architektonischen Schoepfung (The Essence of Architectural Creation), Leipzig 1894, and
See:
Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1995

[2] In fact the whole idealistic enterprise to conceive history as the unfolding of the spirit has been long
since discredited. However, the idea that the subject constitution evolves historically holds, albeit
understood only as one of many interdependent factor within the overall (socio-economic) evolution of
society.

[3] although abstract art still meets pockets of resistance and dismissal within many societies

[4] Behne, Adolph, The Modern Functional Building, Santa Monica, 1996, p.120, original German:Der
Moderne Zweckbau, Munich 1926

[5] Here each function of the overall building/institution receives a dedicated volume with its own
specialized depth, floor-to-floor height, and facade expression.

[6] Here is not the place to go into an analysis of the specific socio-economic forces and logics at play. For
an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic transformations alluded to here, please see:
Schumacher, Patrik& , Rogner, Christian, After Ford, in: Stalking Detroit, editors: [Link],
[Link], [Link], Actar, Barcelona 2001
Schumacher, Patrik, Business – Research – Architecture, In: Daidalos 69/70, December 1998/January
1999
Schumacher, Patrik, Productive Patterns - Restructuring Architecture. Part 1, in: architect's bulletin,
Operativity, Volume 135 - 136, June 1997, Slovenia

[7] Jeff Kipnis promoted this analogy while he was lecturing at the Architectural Association School of
Architecture in the mid-nineties.

[8] Allen, Stan, From Part to Particle, in Architecture After Geometry, AD Architectural Design NO.127,
London 1997

[9] Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, (French: Mille Plateaux, Paris 1980)

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