Essentiality & Clarity The most powerful and intense spaces that an architect can design are those that have been designed with an understanding of the atmospheric qualities that a space can exude. The most moving atmospheres are achieved through a concentration on few specific elements and by consciously expressing a certain connection or relationship between them. A space containing, and exuding excess makes a statement and can contain certain interesting qualities, however it will often result in over-stimulating, decisively complex, and obscure spaces. A simplicity within architecture and the built environment does not lead to meaninglessness, but on the contrary, it allows for, as Pallasmaa calls it, “a concentration of significance.” 29 It allows for an expression of focus on individual elements, elements that are crucial for representation of an idea, concept, or atmosphere.
Juhani Pallasmaa, “Architecture and the Obsessions of our Time: A View of the Nihilism of Building” in Encounters: Architectural Essays, ed. Peter MacKeith (Helsinki: Rakennustieto, 2013), 56. 29
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