Day for Night: Staging “Nature” in the Contemporary Interior

ABSTRACT

This article considers a number of recent art and architectural projects that seek to promote “natural” effects in interior spaces at the level of physiological response. Rather than introducing natural objects or materials into the interior, or visually representing nature, these works mobilize environmental controls (temperature, lighting, humidity, etc.) toward the production of affective atmospheres. Exploring the relationship between nature and artifice in this work, this article also draws a parallel between contemporary effects-based architecture and the sensationalist architecture of late eighteenth-century France, and proposes that these recent and historical attempts to stage “nature” as effect in the designed interior might open up new avenues for thinking through the place of nature in culture today.

KEYWORDS:

• nature in architecture
• special effects in architecture
• atmosphere
• environmental controls
• Philippe Rahm
• Etienne-Louis Boullée