In this excerpt from Suzanne Langer, the author discusses the different virtual spaces that sculpture and architecture create. Architecture is so close to us; it is so much a part of our everyday life that we grow quite unconscious of it. We are conscious perhaps of an especially tall building, or of a particularly big building, but they move us in no special wonder- wonder, in the sense that we should like to know how they came to be there or that they are a product of the human imagination. But, despite the ignorance of the principles of architectural design or the processes of design, they are the same principles and processes in any other art. Architecture is very much a three-dimensional art. Mass and proportion, heights and widths, walls and openings, mouldings and ornament, are the simple elements of the language of architecture, capable of infinite modulation and variety.
In sculpture, you are also dealing with ponderable substances; with three dimensions; with mass; with the play of light and shade which modulates the forms and transitions from form to form; with an actual rather than an apparent balance, such as the way a statue stands well poised on its feet; with rhythm, harmony, beauty, and always a general design. In many of its qualities it is closely allied with architecture, and in some with painting. In good sculpture one in not conscious of arms and legs, because they are arranged in such a way that they contribute the unity of the piece.
While when have seen that in architecture and sculpture, even painting, the materials, means, and modes of expression appropriate to each vary widely, the same principles and qualities are common to all- design, proportion, balance or symmetry, rhythm, pattern, harmony, contrast, style. These link them in an essential unity.
-Jessica Potts
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