For the September issue of ARLIS/NA Reviews, Stephanie Beene discusses Tim Altenhof’s recent book, Breathing Space: The Architecture of Pneumatic Beings. Click here to learn more about the book. Click here to read the full review. An excerpt appears below:

“Tim Altenhof is an architect and senior scientist at the Department for Architectural Theory and History at the University of Innsbruck, and his background as an architect and scholar shines as he examines archival texts, gorgeous images, and the writings of renowned architects (e.g., Le Corbusier, Alberti). This book is Europeanist in its focus and examines the concept of pneumatics as it applies to buildings over about a hundred years (circa 1837-1935). More than a metaphor, Altenhof analyzes how buildings breathe and how architectural atmospheres are constructed to envelop their inhabitants in air that moves around and through them. This text is particularly cogent in an era that has seen a pandemic restructure the way we think about buildings and respiration within modern architectural enclosures.”