Writing the Architectural Space: Ludovico Quaroni’s Lesson in Space and the Limits of Visual Representation of Architecture

In his 1977 book Progettare un edificio, the Italian architect Ludovico Quaroni dedicated some pages to describe the ‘Space Effect.’ Through an uncommon narration in the first person, he invites the readers to experiment with their mind an imaginary literary space made of a number of architectural volumes. After various ‘scenes,’ which gradually drive the readers from the abstract to the material world, the journey ends inside a dome-covered cylinder which turns into the Roman Pantheon. The analysis of the descriptive and intermedial qualities of the text reveals it is a didactic tool to introduce the readers/students to the practice of a mental design environment and underlines the role of words in capturing the effect of space, eventually interpreted as a mere geometric model of real world, when the drawing fails in it.