Behind Architectural Filters

"A study of remarkable breath and introspection, Professor Guitart’s book Behind Architectural Filters: Phenomena of Interference delves into one of the most important constituents of architecture, the defining role of its enveloping borders as filters. Being the interface between the realm of architecture and what lies beyond, they significantly shape not merely the physical entity of a building but also its spatial articulation and atmosphere. Such filters are ‘instruments’ through which inner and outer worlds are connected and reconciled while guiding our perception toward a more nuanced understanding of both as well as ourselves within them. Covering a broad panorama of the centuries-old evolution and culturally articulated diversity of these mediating filters, the book focuses not as much upon their pragmatic and measurable dimensions as it highlights their immeasurable or phenomenological ramifications. In so doing, this scholarly study, along with outlining an ontology of architecture, also reflects on the related fundamental aspects of human existence. In our troubled world of today, a more intense and sensible relationship between architecture and its environment, especially the natural one, is of paramount importance. It is also in this regard that this book should be an indispensable addition to the library of every architect, as well as student and school of architecture." Botond Bognár, Professor and Edgar A. Tafel Endowed Chair in Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

"What is the nature of the envelope of a building? Architects and historians over the last 150 years have asked this question in countless ways supplying contradictory and fragmented answers. Should it shelter us or connect us to the world outside? Is it a skin, an environmental seal, or is it a space? Is it a fortress or a suit of clothes? If it is no longer structural, then what is it? Miguel Guitart has taken on the daunting task of examining these questions in depth putting constructional rigor, aesthetic ideology, and formal analysis to work analyzing key buildings of history and the modern era to produce a work that is profound and original, a means to understand the edges of a building not as a surface but as the essence of architecture." Edward Ford, Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, USA

"Buildings are usually seen as self-sufficient material objects. However, architecture mediates, articulates and intensifies our relations with the place and the world. This frequently unnoticed mediation takes place through geometry, scale, materiality, and illumination by various means of filtering experiences and interactions. Miguel Guitart’s intense study focuses on the perceptual, experiential, and emotional meanings of architectural filters in our relation with the world." Juhani Pallasmaa, Professor Emeritus, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

"Light is crucial in architecture, beyond its obvious practical uses, but we seldom meditate on how it operates. This important book is unique, for it provides a careful study with selected case studies of the mechanisms by which external light contributes to inner illuminations, to an architecture that may make life worth living, and to memorable architectural emotions." Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

"A study of remarkable breath and introspection, Professor Guitart’s book Behind Architectural Filters: Phenomena of Interference delves into one of the most important constituents of architecture, the defining role of its enveloping borders as filters. Being the interface between the realm of architecture and what lies beyond, they significantly shape not merely the physical entity of a building but also its spatial articulation and atmosphere. Such filters are ‘instruments’ through which inner and outer worlds are connected and reconciled while guiding our perception toward a more nuanced understanding of both as well as ourselves within them. Covering a broad panorama of the centuries-old evolution and culturally articulated diversity of these mediating filters, the book focuses not as much upon their pragmatic and measurable dimensions as it highlights their immeasurable or phenomenological ramifications. In so doing, this scholarly study, along with outlining an ontology of architecture, also reflects on the related fundamental aspects of human existence. In our troubled world of today, a more intense and sensible relationship between architecture and its environment, especially the natural one, is of paramount importance. It is also in this regard that this book should be an indispensable addition to the library of every architect, as well as student and school of architecture."
Botond Bognár, Professor and Edgar A. Tafel Endowed Chair in Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

"What is the nature of the envelope of a building? Architects and historians over the last 150 years have asked this question in countless ways supplying contradictory and fragmented answers. Should it shelter us or connect us to the world outside? Is it a skin, an environmental seal, or is it a space? Is it a fortress or a suit of clothes? If it is no longer structural, then what is it? Miguel Guitart has taken on the daunting task of examining these questions in depth putting constructional rigor, aesthetic ideology, and formal analysis to work analyzing key buildings of history and the modern era to produce a work that is profound and original, a means to understand the edges of a building not as a surface but as the essence of architecture."
Edward Ford, Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, USA

"Buildings are usually seen as self-sufficient material objects. However, architecture mediates, articulates and intensifies our relations with the place and the world. This frequently unnoticed mediation takes place through geometry, scale, materiality, and illumination by various means of filtering experiences and interactions. Miguel Guitart’s intense study focuses on the perceptual, experiential, and emotional meanings of architectural filters in our relation with the world."
Juhani Pallasmaa, Professor Emeritus, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland

"Light is crucial in architecture, beyond its obvious practical uses, but we seldom meditate on how it operates. This important book is unique, for it provides a careful study with selected case studies of the mechanisms by which external light contributes to inner illuminations, to an architecture that may make life worth living, and to memorable architectural emotions."
Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

"A consequence of modern technological and ideological change, which led to the imposition of architecture’s ‘insulation’ paradigm, was the fall into disrepute of the filter: the added or inserted element reviled by some for altering the way pure forms are perceived. But the tradition of the filter transcends this conflictive relationship with modernity. In fact it enriched architecture of the past and enriches architecture of the present, and this is the starting point of a carefully produced, profusely illustrated work where the architect and teacher Guitart examines architectural filters as connecting mechanisms that conjure spatial atmospheres and generate physical and sensory experiences."

-Arquitectura Viva