Thesis title: Architettura della "Spettatorialità": visioni virtuali e illusorie nella messinscena dello spazio domestico / Architecture of Spectatorship: virtual and illusory visions in the staging of domestic space
In an era in which the boundaries between reality and virtuality are becoming increasingly blurred, and in which mass media culture and social networks have irreversibly invaded the domestic space through screens and digital devices, this research aims to investigate the relationship between virtuality and the architecture of the built environment, focusing specifically on the domestic sphere.
Within the framework of a doctoral program dedicated to exploring the relationship between architecture and construction in a historical phase marked by globalization — a process that tends to homogenize local identities by diminishing cultural differences — this dissertation seeks to refocus attention on a specific aspect of Italian domestic culture: the spectacularization of domestic space. This is understood as a design practice which, since antiquity, has employed virtual images and illusory, theatrical devices to construct a living environment rich in visions, imagination, and artifice. From the Roman domus of Pompeii, through the Renaissance and Baroque palazzi, to the bourgeois and aristocratic homes of the twentieth century, one can trace a continuity within the Italian architectural tradition that, in various forms, has anticipated a theme that is now more relevant than ever: the intersection between virtuality and domesticity.
This thesis is based on the premise that every historical innovation related to the science of vision has produced transformations in the collective imagination, significantly influencing spatial perception and generating new models of architectural visuality that have deeply shaped the design of domestic space. Architects and artists, in every era, have reinterpreted the visual innovations of their time, producing imaginative effects that translated into new forms of representation and staging of the living space.
The central question driving this research arises from a critical reflection on the contemporary concept of virtual architecture, which is often narrowly associated with advanced digital technologies such as renderings and simulated environments. As an alternative to this limited view, the dissertation proposes a reinterpretation of the term virtuality, recovering its original meanings and analyzing its implications within the architectural field. The investigation unfolds as a historical and theoretical journey aimed at understanding how virtual images and illusions have shaped spatial perception and progressively become genuine design tools in domestic architecture.
At the core of the research lies the relationship between perception and illusion, between corporeal space and virtual vision, conceived as fundamental components in constructing an architecture of spectatorship. This concept, extensively developed by Anne Friedberg in The Virtual Window, serves as a key theoretical foundation for this dissertation. Friedberg describes the screen — whether pictorial, cinematic, televisual, or digital — as an architectural element, a “virtual window” that opens the built space to an imaginary and illusory, yet perceptually real, dimension. In this sense, the screen, understood as a surface that conveys virtual images, becomes an integral part of architecture: an interface between materiality and imagination, between vision and the body, contributing to the construction of an inhabited space in which virtuality manifests as an extension of reality.
This study focuses on domestic architectural spaces that have significantly expressed the relationship between perception and illusion, as well as between physicality and virtuality, using them as design tools for the theatricalization of the domestic environment. This condition becomes particularly evident in the emphasis placed on the virtual visual experience of the inhabitant-spectator. In this research, the spectatorship of a space is defined by the relationship between the individual and the physical boundaries of the building — the wall or ceiling — upon or within which virtual images redefine the very relationship between subject and space. These images suggest possibilities of action and movement that, however, remain exclusively virtual, activating through the suspension of disbelief associated with vision and with that visual experience that, in certain environments, asserts itself as the predominant sense.
In this regard, the research positions itself within a current debate, exemplified by the work of philosopher Andrea Pinotti on the concept of the image as a threshold-space, and on the ancestral human desire to “enter the image” — an impulse that, in every era, has been interpreted by each visual culture according to the technical and symbolic means available. This issue is particularly relevant today, in light of the ability of virtual reality technologies to make the image present within perceived space, generating immersive environments.
Indeed, the omnipresence of 360-degree virtual images has led to the dissolution of the “frames” that traditionally separated the space of the image from corporeal space, opening a bidirectional passage between the real world and the world of the imagination. The individual can now enter the space of the image, while at the same time, the image invades and modifies the real space inhabited by the subject. As will be demonstrated, this process does not pertain exclusively to contemporary digital technologies but also involves those virtual images of the past which, since antiquity, have transformed spatial perception by suggesting the existence of a realm “beyond the surface.” This is the realm of pre-digital virtuality. Similarly, these transformations have impacted architectural space, altering the way space is perceived — through the screen — as an “elsewhere beyond the wall,” beyond the physical limits of the built environment, which becomes a threshold to an imaginary elsewhere. The analysis of this relationship between screen, virtual image, and corporeal space — a relationship that has manifested in various forms throughout history — constitutes the foundation of this research, offering a contribution to the study of this theme in contemporary discourse. Intentionally, this work halts before the full entrance of digital virtual images into the built environment, focusing instead on forms of virtual imagery prior to the advent of the cinematic screen as an architectural device.
Addressing the theme of virtual and illusory images — as well as the arts that produce them and their effects within architectural space — necessarily requires an interdisciplinary approach. For this reason, the research draws upon contributions from art history, media theory, literature, computer science, photography, and cinema, in order to offer a broad and layered understanding of the concept of virtuality as applied to interior architecture. In a context in which the term virtual tends to be reduced to a mere synonym for digital, the objective is to restore historical and theoretical depth to the concept, exploring it as a potential dimension that has coexisted with physical reality through illusion since antiquity.
It is therefore essential, throughout the thesis, to precisely define the concepts of spectatorship, virtuality, and illusion, analyzing the principal theories of vision and understanding their application within the design of domestic space. Only through such clarification is it possible to comprehend how the home, in its continuous process of staging itself, has always been — and perhaps more than ever is today — a privileged site of encounter between reality and fiction, between construction and imagination, between body and vision.
The research is organized according to a chronological framework, though marked by significant temporal leaps. The central thread is the theme of virtual and illusory vision within the context of domestic spatial design: this is the conceptual link that enables the establishment of intertemporal comparisons and parallels, in search of continuity in the idea of spectacularization and theatricalization of the domestic environment, with particular reference to the Italian context.
The study begins with an investigation of the domestic space in ancient Rome, where the concept of visual illusion and virtuality is analyzed through pictorial apparatuses of architectural and proto-perspectival character. These visual solutions owe much to innovations developed within the Greek-Roman science of vision, particularly through studies on ancient theatrical scenography, from which illusionistic devices were subsequently applied to domestic interiors.
The research then proceeds with an analysis of the spectator-oriented and virtual space of Renaissance and, later, Baroque palazzi. Particular attention is devoted to the pictorial and architectural genre of quadratura — the pictorial act of creating architecture through illusory perspectival drawing on walls and ceilings — which marks the structural entry of the virtual dimension into interior architectural design. During this period, the domestic space becomes a genuine laboratory for the program of theatrical spectacularization that characterizes the entire Baroque era, both in civic and religious life.
These investigations into visual illusion and virtuality in both ancient and modern domesticity enable a further and substantial chronological leap, projecting the research into the 19th and 20th centuries. This phase focuses on the effects of technical innovations linked to the science of vision, particularly photography and cinema, along with their 19th-century precursors, such as panoramas. These developments gave rise to new models of architectural visuality, which found concrete applications in specific domestic projects during the twentieth century. Although rooted in the technological and cultural spirit of modernity, these models engage in a dialogue — sometimes through continuity, sometimes through rupture — with the solutions of antiquity. This part of the study examines the work of various scholars on the themes of spectatorship and theatricality in domestic space, highlighting the role of media and optical-technological devices within the design of interior architecture.
The final part of the research focuses on the work of two twentieth-century Italian architects, Carlo Mollino and Renzo Mongiardino, both authors of interior spaces deeply influenced by their experience in theatrical and cinematic scenography. Their works embody the spirit of the technical and visual models of their time, represented by the camera.
In Carlo Mollino’s work, the use of the camera is not merely a tool for documentation; it becomes an integral part of the design process, a critical device for investigating viewpoints and the staging of domestic space through the lens. The resulting environments are strongly characterized by latent theatricality, permeated by virtual images, where the scenographic and cinematic nature of space is amplified by the mediated vision of the camera.
Similarly, Renzo Mongiardino’s work conceives the home as an inherently spectacular space: living environments constructed according to scenic and narrative logics clearly derived from cinema and theater, where the illusionistic dimension is not mere decoration but an expressive tool for shaping a true dramaturgy of space. In both cases, interior architecture becomes stage and narrative, a synthesis of design imagination, visual memory, and technology.
To fully understand the deep roots of this design attitude, it is necessary to take a step back in history and examine the domestic spaces of antiquity. It is precisely in these original environments that one observes an early tension toward visual illusion and the theatricalization of domestic space, anticipating models that will resurface over the centuries in ever-changing forms.