Atmospheres, Expressed

Abstract

This visual essay focuses on Pavilion House, Deer Isle, Maine, a built project of the author's own design. The term atmosphere in the title refers to the robust philosophical concept, developed by German philosopher Gernot Böhme and others, that is of value to those engaged in architecture and interior design. The subject of a vigorous discourse in recent decades, atmosphere concerns the feeling–based essence of an object, interior, place, or situation. The question at the heart of the essay is how to best represent interior atmosphere. The combination of text and photographs, which is historically of special importance for describing and documenting the built environment, has the potential to expand critical perceptions and understandings. In “Atmospheres, expressed,” the author writes a series of notes, mirroring the documentary aspect of the photographs, to create a conjoined documentary form that reveals how multiple sense impressions, thoughts, feelings, metaphors, and allusion together comprise atmospheres.