ABSTRACT
The exterior is always an interior in architectural ensembles, the elements of the site come into play by virtue of their cubic volume, their density and the quality of the material of which they are composed, bringing sensations which are very definite. 'The elements of the site rise up like the walls of a room'. In one sense this is a reminder that rooms can also exist outside, with objects limning the perimeters of those rooms in the usual way. In another more discomfiting sense, the 'like' means no rooms at all: the organizational work that is usually credited to rooms as spatial containers can instead radiate outward from objects in a free-floating collection. Instead of being in a room, we could be between things accumulated in sufficient density to make architecture. Drapery is not a fixed catalog of elements, but a way of relocating spatial claims to the visible and physical realms where they can be exposed to discourse.
