An architect who is willing to reveal his architecture should therefore give a representation full of sensitivity and emotions which will qualify his projected building. Meanwhile, the representation of architecture is mostly visual. The question will be asked about the capacity of pictures to translate atmosphere intentions: how can architects represent unseen sensations? This report is divided into three parts. The first is an historical approach of the representation of architectural atmosphere: how have architects represented architectural atmosphere over the years? We want to prepare the ground for a history of atmosphere's representation. Indeed, we need a global context to understand the elaboration and the evolution of the architectural representation's rules as time goes by. We highlight a period that we study more precisely in the second part. Then, we analyze three buildings with the intention of showing the different representation modes and representation tools that the architects use in the different steps of the architectural project. These three studied cases are three different approaches of the representation of architectural atmosphere. These questions lead us to reappraise the correlation between the atmosphere projected by the architect and the atmosphere lived by the users in the building. We begin work in an unexplored field so we propose an overview of architect's means of creating an atmosphere. Finally, in the third part, we suggest a reflection about a method of conception for architects to build their architectural atmosphere's ideas.
Representation of architectural atmospheres: from architect's ideas to reality