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It is clear that in everyday life, people and behavior patterns are frequently, or perhaps almost always, judged not in terms of good or bad, but with terms that belong more to the aesthetic, like ...

The chapter deals with the atmospheric space provided by music or sound art. The main point is that this is not Euclidian space, that is, the space of geometry, but felt space. Starting from the two classical concepts of space—topos (Aristotle) and spatium (Descartes)—the article introduces with the help of New Phenomenology—the concept of felt space (leiblicher Raum). Turning to music, in particular to Sound-Scapes (Murray Schafer) and sound art, Böhme shows that sound is tuning the felt space or better—producing a certain atmosphere. Atmospheres are spaces with a certain mood.

Jorn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House serves as the starting point of an investigation into the interrelations between building skins and tectonics in museum buildings and the performative effects they generate for visitors. Using Gottfried Semper’s practical aesthetics as an investigative tool, a tri-partite development in contemporary architecture from tectonics, to surface aesthetics and finally to independent surfaces can be uncovered through the study of a series of cultural buildings designed by Frei Otto, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel. These experimentally directed architectural designs chart a historical lineage that takes its departure from Utzon’s Opera House in Sydney. If formally diverse, these projects share a focus on visitor experience and a keen interest in stage set design and theatre production.