Imageability and Form in the Grande Bibliothèque du Québec: The Baroque as a More-Than-Representational Technique toward the Paradoxical Particularity of Experience in Space

Abstract

Because of an inattention to architectural form in building events, architectural geography has yet to fully explore the subjective aspects of the spatial politics of affect. And because of an analytical focus on the programming of affect, it has undertheorized affective styles which may unsettle the performativity of space. Architectural theorists call such spaces ambiguous or contradictory. They variously insist that baroque space is crucial to redressing individualism and capitalism insofar as it encourages relationality, democracy, and resubjectification. I take a more circumscribed approach to the more-than-representational and show that formal spatial ambiguity produces delight and provokes a paradoxical sort of looking, feeling(s), and thinking (ie, the particularity of experience). My argument is based on observant participation and interviews on the affective consistencies (here, in-betweenness) of perception, speed, and ascension in the Grand Bibliothèque du Québec. As for the political merits of the baroque, inasmuch as its tensions strike a contrast with the rhythm of the performativity of space, it must be considered a complement to more expressly representational attempts to wrest loose from the disciplinary doing of the world.