Atmosphere and harmony

The matter of atmospheres is not as simple and self-evident as it sounds. For who knows exactly what constitutes atmospheres? Don't we prefer to speak of "atmosphere" when something about a thing, a person or an environment touches us, but we can't describe the triggering moment exactly? When precise words or analytical access are lacking?

When sometimes the euphemistic "in a pleasant atmosphere" even serves to conceal a failure?

In his two fundamental works "Atmosphere "¹ and "Architecture and Atmosphere "² Gernot Böhme tries to make manageable what at first seems unclear: "The primary subject of sensuality is not the things one perceives," Böhme writes, "but what one feels: the atmospheres." The affective, emotionality, feelings and the imaginative are given an independent status. Gernot Böhme declares atmosphere to be the basic concept of a New Aesthetics, as well as its central object of knowledge.

What does this mean in concrete terms?

Atmospheres are neither something objective, i.e. properties that a thing, an object possesses, nor do atmospheres describe the state of mind of the observer. Rather: "That by which environmental qualities and the human condition are related to each other, that is the atmosphere. So there are necessarily two parts to an atmosphere, the thing and the observer: "Atmosphere is the common reality of the perceived and the perceiver." This does not make things any easier, but designers now know: The design of the product, the space, the "perceived" is at best half of the atmosphere.

Harmony as a special case of atmosphere

Seen in this light, harmony can be counted among the aesthetic aspects of atmosphere: From the Greek harmonia, (joining) together, in harmony - colloquially understood - what does not fit together becomes a fitting whole: if the vibrations are in a balanced relationship to each other, says harmony theory, we perceive the whole as coherent. Secondly, this whole includes the entire spectrum of vibrations: the audible, the visible, the tangible, and also the smells.

Synaesthetic requirements

This means: all our senses want to be addressed at the same time. The more diverse, the more satisfying. This already happens in our designed outdoor spaces without much human intervention. The need to catch up postulated in the course of the Health and Care movements is in the design of our interior spaces directed at the senses. It is precisely for this purpose that carpets, carpet-like and textile structures prove to be grateful helpers: thanks to the almost unlimited combination possibilities of material and colour, surface and construction, every conceivable effect can be achieved: on ceilings and walls, on floors and freely in the room.

«When the carpet is right, the room is in tune.»

The carpet manufacturer Ruckstuhl plays the keyboard of textile spatial effects with virtuosity. When the carpet is right, the room is in tune. Matching carpets or structural textile solutions are able to set rooms vibrating. So that atmosphere and harmony can arise - through part two, the more important one: the person present and perceiving.

^{1 Atmosphäre. Gernot Böhme. Edition Suhrkamp, Band 927. 1995 Suhrkamp Frankfurt a. M.
2 Architektur und Atmosphäre. Gernot Böhme. 2006, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, München}