Architectural Atmospheres in Álvaro Siza’s Written Work: Reading Atmosphere with Gernot Böhme

This article argues that Álvaro Siza’s written work constitutes a situated form of architectural theory through which atmospheric experience is articulated and made intelligible. Focusing on four edited volumes of texts from 1963 to 2022, it examines Siza’s writings not as secondary commentary on built work, but as a site of theoretical production in continuous interplay with architectural practice. Staging an elective dialogue with Gernot Böhme’s aesthetics of atmosphere, the article analyses how Siza presents atmosphere as a relational phenomenon emerging between spatial articulation, embodied perception, and language. It demonstrates that his texts articulate atmosphere as a shared field of affective presence, situate architectural production within a horizon of inhabitation and care, and mobilise metaphor as an operative form through which affective and preconceptual spatial experience becomes communicable without reduction. The article thus proposes architectural writing as a mediating practice in the theorisation of atmosphere.