Literature and architecture are often combined to explain concepts and explore design. Interdisciplinary architecture practices are becoming more prevalent and literature has always explored spaces and places. In this post I’ve expanded upon how they influence each other.
Architecture in literature
Architecture has always been a part of literature, in as much as it’s a part of our everyday lives. It’s used to convey how environments and spaces influence people. Even without physical descriptions of spaces, literature demonstrates how people adapt and respond to architecture – whether they hide in its shadows, duck their head to enter the kitchen or seek cover from opposing forces. Architecture is written about for the way it influences people and their lives. It is therefore the impact of architecture on social regimens that is most predominant in literature.
The most common examples of architecture as a representation of social regimens can be found in dystopian or utopian fiction. In dystopian, civilisations have collapsed and buildings are used to represent shelter and power. In utopian, an idealised existence is proposed through the structure and order created by built forms.
Examples found in literature often correlate to tropes used in imaginative architectural projects, such as class segregation, the city as a site of darkness, the monument, the self-sufficient city, the city/building as machine and the ineffectual leader. These tropes explore or relate to social issues, usually in response to an architectural model for either chaos or order. They’re architectural tropes relating to people and society, rather than a visual or aesthetic standard, such as the tropes of labyrinths, follies, towers, walls/borders, grids, subterranean structures and oil-rigs are. Visual tropes are more clearly expressed in an architectural drawing. They may also be used in literature but are less pervasive throughout the entirety of a work.
Literature in architecture
Literature can give as much to architecture as architecture does to literature. Writing about architecture allows us to convey aspects of architecture that are usually internalised by those experiencing the space. The most evocative writing connects with the reader through characters, and architectural writing can be used to evoke similar reactions or responses in the reader as one would feel in a space. It can also be used to describe a space as one would see it from an inhabitant’s perspective, with attention paid to how the architecture would be experienced.
There are two common ways in which architecture is conveyed through exposition in literature.
- Through a first impression of a space, whereby much information about the architecture is given.
- Through everyday life in a space, in which only details the character notices or interacts with are included.
Both ways demonstrate the experiential qualities of architecture, for that’s what’s unique to writing as an architectural mode of communication.
An image allows greater interpretation of the physical qualities of architecture, but writing allows greater interpretation of spatial qualities that impact an inhabitant, namely atmospheric and sensorial qualities. Architects imagine spaces and interpret architectural drawings in three-dimensional ways, but for those unused to doing so writing encourages this. Images aren’t fully immersive, nor is VR, but writing to evoke imagination can be.
Any project can be written about, and can exemplify the innovative and conceptual aspects of a project that may not be outwardly obvious or visible to those without an architectural background. Any built form can be experienced, and therefore any built form can be written about. Literature allows for explanation of things both seen and unseen. Architecture begins as an idea – something unseen – and undergoes a process to become realised – something seen.