ABSTRACT
This chapter uses the artificial grotto as the touchstone for an exploration of contemporary interior architecture. It discusses projects expressing the sensual nature of the grotto's architecture without being confined by formal, morphological, or material conditions, and framing sensorial manifestations of ambient conditioning and performative ornamentation with interior spatial design in terms of biophilia. An interior literally formed from the landscape – but intentionally disassociated from its context – does not index its exterior form or structure, making it a distinctively internal manifestation of form. The Western tradition of the grotto emerged from the Mediterranean region where caves, often containing a natural water source, are plentiful. The found grotto developed from a sanctuary into a constructed place of refuge that exploited the wet cave's ability to fabricate a distinct thermal environment. Due to the popularity of Italianate architectural motifs in England in the seventeenth century, the grotto proliferated in the picturesque landscape gardens of country estates.
