“Atmosphere seems to start precisely where construction ends”.
‍Mark Wigley, Architecture and Atmosphere

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When digging for papers on the relationship between architectural forms and atmosphere, I stumbled upon the work of Paolo Portoghesi (1931 – 2023). His way of thinking and designing revolutionised the field by blending proto-generative techniques with craft, merged with a thoughtful approach to expressive forms — a sensitivity that he kept honing until his final built projects.

His work spans theoretical explorations, built projects, and collaborations in cinema — with the common thread of form and emotional resonance as marks of his work.

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As a mediator between attitudes of tradition and innovation, Portoghesi drew deep inspiration from Borromini, who used graphite to infuse an element of indeterminacy into his work. Similarly, Portoghesi sought a method to rationalize architectural plans through indirect control: the matrix, or field, which he derived from the morphology of local contexts, served as a framework for arranging walls and structures in a proto-generative manner.

Portoghesi’s drawings capture more than just conceptual representations of a ‘field’ or drafting guides. They express intangible qualities such as light and sound, demonstrating particularly how individual forms can emanate and mould the atmosphere around them, where layers of circles convey an intensity of a particular spatial experience — exemplifying what Mark Wigley means when he says that “atmosphere seems to start precisely where construction ends”.

In his book Roma/amoR (2019), Portoghesi reflected:

“Throwing a stone in the pond has always been a familiar and liberating gesture for me. The concentric circles that form on the surface of the water have become a symbolic form in my architecture.”

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Video essay format here.

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Sources:

Atmosphere in Architecture - Mark Wigley

Drawing Matter  - “PAOLO PORTOGHESI: THE FIELD THEORY” by Marco Venucci

Architectural Record - Paolo Portoghesi at Center of Book Exploring Postmodern Architectural Discourse

MAXXI - Roma/amoR by Paolo Portoghesi

Architecture-History.org

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