MICROGRAPHS OF INTANGIBLE SPACE. Triptychs, Panels, Paintings and Glass-Graphs of Architectures

Abstract

The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500) is a triptych consisting of three frontal panels depicting paradise and hell. These panels require the viewer to collapse and close them to obtain a new perspective: the creation of the world. In this work, Bosch portrays small air pockets that suggest encapsulated architectures and introspective spaces, where conventional laws seem to have vanished.

This essay explores the approach to small spaces incorporated into different triptychs at Casa Ugalde (Coderch, 1953), the Soane Museum (Soane, 1820), and Casa Vicens (Gaudí, 1885). It’s an architectural immersion in three projects that enables us to compile catalogs of micrographs showcasing “architectural drops”: bubbles trapped within the stained glass mass, revealing cartographies of an intangible and undiscovered space.

Micrographs of this intangible space suggest a change in our scale, immersing us in a micro-world in search of new expressions that enable us to conceive a more vivid and creative form of architecture.

1 Introduction

A New Dimension in the Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch, 1490–1500

It is astounding to witness how, from the hands and mind of someone leading a stable, resolved, and hitherto unpretentious life, emerge creations so enigmatic and exotic, portraying surrealistic scenarios far removed from this world. Jeroen Anthoniszoon van Aken, who signed his works under the name of his hometown Den Bosch, lived through the late 15th-century Dutch Renaissance, a time where certain advancements, cultural flourishing, and social transformation began to condense, yet the late medieval mentality of religion, superstitions, and heresy continued to dominate the everyday lives of people.

In an attempt to break away from dogmas and express almost encrypted critical thought, Bosch crafted his artistic language, characterized by hybridizations between human and animal nature, the presence of water as a deity deciding between life and death, and the incessant use of allegories and symbolism. Oil paintings hinted at that boiling world of passions (Devitini, 1998) which, for most mortals, remains confined within the subconscious.

In this context of exuberant imagination, The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490–1500) was born, a triptych housed in the Prado Museum (Madrid) that delves into themes of human morality, good and evil, sin and forgiveness, becoming the subject of innumerable studies due to its complex representations. A single visit and a detailed observation were sufficient to recognize in the piece a thorough mastery of composition and scale play under a singular perspective, with pale-coloured buildings formed by the fusion of geometric profiles and vegetal plantations, which could well have been a source of inspiration for Gaudí centuries later. Superpositions and juxtapositions of elements and scenarios denote the author’s prior knowledge of what space is, how it is experienced, and how it is manifested (Fig. 1).

Within this amalgamation of drawn forms and architectures, certain air capsules seem to defy gravity, containing various information within, an unprecedented contribution that distinguishes it from the rest of his artistic production. They represent a type of space hitherto unexplored; a suspended place, inserted yet separated from the exterior by a membrane that prevents its tactile manipulation. It took such an essential and primal work as the destiny and life of humanity to experiment with this kind of dimension, with architectures of intangible spaces.

From a comprehensive view of the artwork, this study aims to approach these translucent structures, thereby analyzing the graphic records contained within them—an exploration into the minuscule within the global, generating new insights into understanding the enclosed space’s architecture, offering fresh perspectives and approaches.

Fig. 1.

Source: Composition by own elaboration, 2022.

Macrography: The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych, 1490–1500. Front panel.

2 Methodology

Transparencies and Graphic Records: Architecture Drops

Happiness is like glass, it breaks so easily. (Flemish Proverb, 15th century).

Throughout the centuries, the meaning and symbolism of these transparent spheres have spawned numerous conjectures among experts in the field. Spaces of this kind were rarely seen in artistic representation or described in the literary sphere of the time; they were unique, fostering uncertainty and imagination. Many interpreted the translucent material as glass, fractured as a metaphor for fragile and fleeting happiness. Others linked it to alchemy or certain sexual connotations given the scenes depicted within.

Setting aside their symbolic interpretations and focusing on a visual and objective analysis of the space they contain, these air capsules or transparent amniotic sacs (Belting, 2009) are essentially undulating volumes with a seemingly venous structure that support the element and give it shape and skin. An architecture with membranes that establish a boundary, dividing realms, simultaneously sheltering life within while remaining disconnected from the external world beyond mere observation.

Each drop presents a different context: a naked couple sitting on this enveloping skin, gazing intimately at each other; a group of three people standing, conversing on private matters with only half a capsule suspended above their heads, not touching their bodies; a blue hedgehog or similar creature with a spiky crest, not breaking through the encapsulating membrane, seemingly motionless and protected. In terms of their placement, these three drops are dispersed across the central panel, dedicated to the earthly paradise. The other two side panels, hell and celestial paradise, remain devoid of drops as if their value were solely acquired in a central position. The surprising moment occurs upon closing the triptych, where all the information is exposed in one image, a single transparent capsule holding the entire world, with an inscription leading it: For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. (Psalm 33:9, Bible, Old Testament).

At this moment of closure, one faces the grand transparent sphere. All the inner drops summarize and condense into a single capsule, intending to showcase the existential principle: the cosmic image. The universe is represented in miniature. A microcosm hinting at how small the world is compared to the magnificence of divine order (Fig. 2).

Between 1980 and 1990, a technical study of the work was conducted by Professor Roger Van Schoute and Dr. Carmen Garrido published in 2001 (Garrido, 2016). Mechanical eyes, X-rays, and infrared rays were employed to clarify accumulated uncertainties over the years, capturing imperceptible details or any information from the underlying surface of the piece. The study revealed initial schematic sketches preceding the painting, the first composition positioning the elements on stage, with some hesitations and subsequent alterations (Fig. 3).

This was the case for the spaces we encountered: the bubbles were preconceived from the start, without subsequent modifications. It was existing information within the author, a clear content to convey. The mechanism to give them transparency was innovative; instead of painting them onto the panel, a layer of quick-drying varnish was applied over the existing paint and, while still fresh, scraped to reveal what lay beneath, ensuring the bubble was entirely integrated into its environment. A new methodology aimed at achieving a specific result in transparency. They were depicted as an absorption, a silence, a pause within the chaotic world they inhabit.

Every detail had a motive, a cause. The musical notes on the staff create a particular melody currently readable. Each animal, fruit, building, person, and space were elements from his knowledge, information that derived from his worldview. This is when one wonders how he managed such encapsulated spaces, how he might have seen or experienced them to embed each of those bubbles in the work. These questions led neuroscientist Sophie Schwartz to conduct a brain study to determine if the information came from the dream world, remaining a mere illusion or reality, to which she concluded: The dream world is a true simulation of the real world. The objects that populate our dreams are from our everyday experiences. They may not have the same size, but the basic elements derive from our experience. (Schwartz, 2016).

We do not know how Bosch came across the existence of these architectures, but we can affirm that he left us with the oldest known graphic record of the intangible space. This is a work that operates on various scales. Depending on the observation provided by our eyes, according to the approximation level, it adds new information. It’s within the methodology of fixation on the small, using magnifying glasses and zoom, where we discover these spaces of new natures, eager to be found in architecture. Seeking, traveling to the microworld to narrate, through graphics, what is found within. Discovering the graphic microcosm encapsulated within the architecture; this one will be the methodology employed in this essay.

Fig. 2.

Source: Composition by own elaboration, 2022.

Left: Approaches. Right: Back Panel.

Fig. 3.

Source: Composition by own elaboration, 2022.

Technical study. X-radiographs of the triptych of the Garden of Earthly Delights. Left: Approximations. Right: Rear panel.

3 Results

Three Triptychs and Three Architectural Approaches

Fig. 4.

Source: Composition by own elaboration, 2022.

Hans Hollein at his mobile office (Mobiles Büro), under the gaze of the ORF team, 1969.

Attention changes the size of things. It creates a world from selected parts of the world. (Seguí, 2012). Hans Hollein’s mobile offices represent, at a human scale, these architectural drops. Four centuries after the Garden of Earthly Delights, the Austrian architect aimed to design a mobile space adaptable to people’s movement. A small box with wheels unfolded and transformed into an air enveloped in transparent plastic. He intended to respond architecturally to the increasing mobility and changing needs of society; to create something in constant adaptation with the surrounding environment. In a way, this architect played with a perceptual scale, giving life to Bosch’s drops. He immersed himself in them, creating an ephemeral, transparent, encapsulated architecture, inhabiting a space where no one could touch him (Fig. 4).

Following the methodology of approach and detail carried out in the Garden of Earthly Delights, we have continued to seek microcosms in the purely architectural realm, aiming to bring new values to projects. The methodology was applied over the years to various doors and windows presented as diptychs, triptychs, or polyptychs arranged for analysis. Immersed in an abstract world due to their micro scale, they revealed inaccessible, contained, uninhabitable capsules made of a single, cold, transparent material, yet drops with enigmatic, sudden, and unusual spaces that could well relate to the architectural work in which they are found, or serve as a springboard for a new understanding of the space they inhabit.

As such, we have created catalogs of various works composed of micrographs of approaches, three of which we will present the graphical results in this essay: urban protuberances, floating cosmos, and architectural microflora. Microphotographic capture was performed using a telescopic lens with extension, a glass meter, and a crackmeter. Subsequently, these dropr catalogs have undergone analysis using a computer program that works on the recognition of characteristics of a microimage to scientifically analyze all physical data of these characteristics.

Fig. 5.

Source: Own elaboration, 2020.

Macrography - Diptych of Casa Ugalde.

The first diptych corresponds to Casa Ugalde, 1951–53, built by Coderch in Caldes d’Estrac as an urban extension of the Mediterranean. In the main room on the first floor, this diptych is located, erasing the horizon line between sky and sea (Fig. 5). In this first experience, the detected spaces appear as dynamic and floating tears, drops printed with the feeling of wanting to convey messages from one place to another; at times, they seem to exceed the thickness of the glass and merge with the external space, attempting to penetrate the crust of the material world. Sometimes, the wrapping skin is transparent and allows a view through; at other times, it is opaque, as if it defends itself from itself. (Fig. 6).

Setting fixed parameters (brightness polarity, sensitivity 0.93, and threshold 0.2), the program identifies bubbles in the glass ranging in size from 0.1 to 3 mm. However, the main spaces are not detected. There is something about these unintelligible elements that prevents the algorithm from identifying them.

Fig. 6.

Source: Own elaboration, 2020.

Approach: Catalog 1 - Urban Protuberances.

Fig. 7.

Source: Own elaboration, 2023.

Macrography - Monopticon of The Monk’s Palace.

The second panopticon belongs to the latest extension at the John Soane House-Museum in London, known as The Monk’s Palace, 1820. In that basement, the architect designed the space as a satire of the Gothic style demanded by society, where the glass panopticons come from a 17th-century church in Cologne, Germany (Knox, 2009) (Fig. 7).

This time, we discovered eyes embedded in lunar textures, elements of a microcosmic cosmos with a ubiquitous nature for observing the places where they reside. Of the three, this is the most somber and challenging to capture glass catalog, the point of view can cause the drop to disappear directly; to perceive it completely, a certain strabismus allowing multifocal vision is necessary (Fig. 8).

Under identical starting parameters, the same pattern emerges again: standard bubbles are recognized, and glass malformations of similar sizes. The algorithm identifies something of a different nature, but it fails to confirm what it is. It points within or near the drop but not at the drop itself; it eludes its understanding.

Fig. 8.

Source: Own elaboration, 2023.

Approach: Catalog 2 - Floating Cosmos.

Fig. 9.

Source: composition by own elaboration, 2021.

Macrograph-Casa Vicens Diptych.

Finally, the diptych belonging to Casa Vicens, 1883–85, initially a single-family residence designed by Gaudí but altered by various architects to become a museum by Elías Torres and Martínez Lapeña at present. Within it exists a space that has remained intact over the years and maintains its essence, the smoking room, where the diptych for the third catalog is found (Fig. 9).

In it, we detected hyaline cells, corpuscles, vacuoles, mitochondria, and bubble membranes unfolded in a viscous environment. Some seem to be suspended in any coordinate of a liquid; sometimes they seem to evolve in plasma, while others are apparently in motion. They have their position marked with the horizon line and appear to submerge or present themselves in a lunar environment. They convey a biological language that implies they are not to be touched, but if they were ever to allow access, it would be easy to perceive the roughness and undulations of their surface. Their presence, tending towards infinity, indicates that the importance was not in the quality of the glass but in its formal representation and how it could sift visions through colour and thickness while allowing light to filter (Fig. 10).

The inserted parameters should allow their recognition. However, again, something happens: there is an attempt to locate something, but the algorithm does not know what it is. Due to their nature, these architectural drops seem to exist in a parallel reality, almost entirely unnoticed. The tool used could have provided a lot of physical data such as area, major axis, minor axis, eccentricity, angle relative to the horizontal, distances, etc. Instead, it has revealed the most crucial clue of all: these spaces do not belong to the glass. The initial hypothesis seemed clear; the condition of transparency caused a certain confusion. They were coincidentally found there, but continuing their search offers the possibility of new revelations, perhaps camouflaged or barely visible. But one thing is clear: these intangible spaces belong to another nature.

Fig. 10.

Source: own elaboration, 2021.

Approach: Catalog 3 - Architectural Microflora.

4 Conclusion

A Graphic Microworld

Loving space requires describing it in such meticulous detail as to encapsulate an entire spectacle within a drawing molecule. (Seguí, 2012).

We find ourselves in an era that values tiny gestures, where grand, effervescent actions are not sought, but rather small acts of great intensity. Frequently, as architects, we tend to diminish our drawings in pursuit of abstraction. We navigate scales that range from immense to minute with admirable ease; the small encapsulates values that the grand cannot encompass.

In this regard, exploring architecture and space through a microscopic lens encourages us to transform into unrecognizably small creatures, with awakened imagination, traveling to worlds yet to be discovered. Transforming glyphs into micrographs provides us with an additional degree of spatial information by revealing events inaccessible to the human eye. This is what Bosch did—miniaturizing. He prepared a microcosm that he placed in our hands, sowing the seed to continue delving into the minutiae.

Control over the size of the world allows us to discover its telescopic condition. The possibility of real encounters at different scales, thereby expanding or reducing mental spaces, leads us to the confrontation between the visible world, sometimes called real, and the magical or spiritual world, often referred to as intangible. The former, is subjected to a single scale, the latter free from it due to its lack of a body. Just as in the maps drawn by Belén Gopegui with her words in multiple scales, a room can emerge from the meeting of two knees, a hovering hand protects a floor, or an angel’s arm extends to offer us shelter (Gopegui, 2009).

The microworld is objective; it provides data, condensed matter, and information. It is a small yet empirical world, and its micrographs thus far speak of untouchable spaces, membranes, and inaccessible bubbles, while simultaneously showcasing drops with enigmatic, sudden, and unusual spaces—spaces that Hans Hollein experiences as susceptible to being inhabited.

Each drop appears as a cartography, a representation of coagulated air, a small essence of the project to which it belongs. Each micrograph narrates details and perspectives from three different dimensions: an external one—the place it corresponds to, its creation process, and its author; another from the drop’s creator—the glass, the paint, or any other element giving rise to the intangible space; and another from the space itself—drawings, imprints, records, textures.

A kind of fiction and scale game that displays architectures within architecture. The world around us is full of incredible places; hidden at the edges of visible space, inside the objects that surround us, spaces with unimaginable potential for our architectural projects await. We just need to prepare our senses, open our imagination, and be patient.