Urban atmospheres

Abstract

What is an urban atmosphere? How can we differentiate an 'atmosphere' from other facets of urban consciousness and experience? This essay explores some of the wider cultural, political, and philosophical connotations of atmospheres as a focal point for critical reflections on space and subjectivity. The idea of an 'affective atmosphere' as a distinctive kind of mood or shared corporeal phenomenon is considered in relation to recent developments in phenomenology, extended conceptions of agency, and new understandings of materialism. The essay draws in particular on the changing characteristics of air and light to reflect on different forms of sensory experience and their wider cultural and political connotations. The argument highlights some of the tensions and anomalies that permeate contemporary understandings of urban atmospheres.

Keywords: affect; air; light; materialism; phenomenology; subjectivity; urban atmospheres.

Figure 1.

Thomas Baldwin, A balloon prospect from above the clouds (1786). Baldwin’s original notes and observations exemplify the double sense of an affective and meteorological atmosphere. Source: Thomas Baldwin, Airopaidia: Containing the Narrative of a Balloon Excursion from Chester (1786). Courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries.

Figure 2.

Merjin Royaards, A sound, a kind of whistling, rises above the background noise. Clear and articulate, it pierces through the heavy blanket of city sounds (2012). The musician and architectural theorist Merjin Royaards has developed a series of innovative notation systems for the representation of urban soundscapes. Source: Courtesy of the artist.

Figure 3.

Philippe Rahm, Météreologie intérieuere/Interior weather (2006). The project is described by Rahm as ‘an unstable and sensual atmosphere’ set within a ‘constantly evolving three-dimensional geography’. Source: Philippe Rahm architectes, Interior weather, Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, 2006. Photo: Michel Legendre.

Figure 4.

Berlin Lichtgrenze (2014). The light installation, devised by Christopher Bauder and Marc Bauder, retraces the former Berlin Wall to create an atmosphere of collective memory. Source: Photo by Matthew Gandy.