(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

When we walk into a space, what commands our attention? What compels us to regard, touch, and immerse in the spatial complex with all our senses to generate a feeling? Architects refer to it as “atmosphere,” that air of spatial articulation and evocation that distinguishes one place from another, or as philosopher Tonino Griffero describes it, “…a je-ne-sais-quoi perceived by the felt-body in a given space.” Reading Atmospheres: A Confluence of Comics and Architecture Design examines this ambiguous, impalpable feeling that architecture must radiate, a spell of all its components working in synchronicity, not only as an aesthetic design standard but as a fundament of reading. With the understanding that atmospheres are what prompt affective engagement with space, I propose an imaginative reframing of reading in comics as an apprehension of visuospatial atmospheres. Readers link disparate elements on the page to make creative connections, establish a mood, and determine narrative progress, which speaks to the art form’s capacity to unlock the ways we process atmospheres of our lived environments. Comics, thus derive their design not simply through the choreography of time, space, and movement; rather, it is the relations between text and image, solid and void, panels and page, that together compose its atmosphere. This operational capability of comics, I propose, can be a generative tool for architecture design.