A Story in Architecture: the Book, the Mind and the Built
(2025) AAHM10 20251Department of Architecture and Built Environment
- Abstract
- I have always been an avid reader and I have often found myself wondering how other people picture the same spaces that are described. In many cases, the built environment is crucial to build a f ictional world for a story to take place, but sometimes it plays a particularly essential part in understanding the story, its characters and events. In these books, the architecture itself is the story.
At its core, it is the idea of translation that intrigues me. Intention, perception and imagination are three processes that will never be the same for everyone, which means there is an infinite pool of possibilities and of stories.
By using fictional architecture as a tool to start a series of translations I want to challenge the norms of... (More) - I have always been an avid reader and I have often found myself wondering how other people picture the same spaces that are described. In many cases, the built environment is crucial to build a f ictional world for a story to take place, but sometimes it plays a particularly essential part in understanding the story, its characters and events. In these books, the architecture itself is the story.
At its core, it is the idea of translation that intrigues me. Intention, perception and imagination are three processes that will never be the same for everyone, which means there is an infinite pool of possibilities and of stories.
By using fictional architecture as a tool to start a series of translations I want to challenge the norms of how architecture should be designed and instead explore how it could be designed. What kind of project or explorations may come from reading and interpreting books where the spatiality plays a vital role for the story? To do this, I developed a specific method consisting of reading the literary work, drawing in 2D, creating diagrams, modelling in 3D and finally, translating the findings into a project. I used books with fictional stories called “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges and “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski that use the built environment as the main tool to narrate. I encountered many themes such as labyrinths, getting lost, illusions, highly specific spatial descriptions and literary spaces experienced with physical senses in the way I had to engage with the actual book.
It led me to develop a 1:1 model exploring circularity, new ways of measuring, situatedness and experience. In the end I realised that fictional environments cannot be completely translated into visual or physical representations. In books these environments are described through storytelling and storytelling means to give enough information to make you understand, but to also provide enough blank spaces for you, as a reader, to make your own interpretation and continue to write the story. We are all readers and writers, storytellers and storylisteners which means there is lots and lots of material to explore. This thesis is not a start and an end, it is a continuation of stories and an open door to more stories.
Made by an architect, a reader and a dreamer. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9211627
- author
- Kronander, Fanny LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- AAHM10 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Architecture, story, literature, imagination, interpretation, translation, house of leaves, the library of babel
- language
- English
- id
- 9211627
- date added to LUP
- 2025-09-04 08:24:40
- date last changed
- 2025-09-04 08:24:40
@misc{9211627,
abstract = {{I have always been an avid reader and I have often found myself wondering how other people picture the same spaces that are described. In many cases, the built environment is crucial to build a f ictional world for a story to take place, but sometimes it plays a particularly essential part in understanding the story, its characters and events. In these books, the architecture itself is the story.
At its core, it is the idea of translation that intrigues me. Intention, perception and imagination are three processes that will never be the same for everyone, which means there is an infinite pool of possibilities and of stories.
By using fictional architecture as a tool to start a series of translations I want to challenge the norms of how architecture should be designed and instead explore how it could be designed. What kind of project or explorations may come from reading and interpreting books where the spatiality plays a vital role for the story? To do this, I developed a specific method consisting of reading the literary work, drawing in 2D, creating diagrams, modelling in 3D and finally, translating the findings into a project. I used books with fictional stories called “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Luis Borges and “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski that use the built environment as the main tool to narrate. I encountered many themes such as labyrinths, getting lost, illusions, highly specific spatial descriptions and literary spaces experienced with physical senses in the way I had to engage with the actual book.
It led me to develop a 1:1 model exploring circularity, new ways of measuring, situatedness and experience. In the end I realised that fictional environments cannot be completely translated into visual or physical representations. In books these environments are described through storytelling and storytelling means to give enough information to make you understand, but to also provide enough blank spaces for you, as a reader, to make your own interpretation and continue to write the story. We are all readers and writers, storytellers and storylisteners which means there is lots and lots of material to explore. This thesis is not a start and an end, it is a continuation of stories and an open door to more stories.
Made by an architect, a reader and a dreamer.}},
author = {{Kronander, Fanny}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A Story in Architecture: the Book, the Mind and the Built}},
year = {{2025}},
}