The Immanent Interior

Abstract

The idea of immanence, of being inherent; existing; remaining within, becomes particularly interesting when applied to an adaptive interior. For example, it is uncustomary to consider the existence of a building as being anything other than constituent of an outer and an inner and yet our practice, can behaviourally do just that. It has the capacity to read the inner, the interior, as having the potential of being separate from the outer, from the architecture, in some metaphysical way. The interior is viewed as transcendental from the architecture of which it is the inner and may not, therefore be inherent; immanent. It could be argued, within the context of a dialectic of division, that an inner is only possible if accompanied by a prerequisite outer and that all architectures, by virtue of having an outer, contain an inner and that this inner remains within, is embedded and is inherent. If an architectures original interior is its inner fabric as it was originally conceived, then is this the only point at which an interior can be considered immanent? Can a fabricated inner that is neither authentic nor original, be considered immanent? Are all other adaptive, reuse manifestations of the interior not inherent or immanent as a consequence of being of something else, be it an alternative socio-cultural narrative, thought, use or epoch? The aim of this work is to consider whether a Deluzian immanence can be applied to or established as a categorization of an interior (despite being an object) as a consequence of it being intrinsically connected to the fabric of an architecture, its context and it place; genius loci. Can the adaptation of an architecture, that reads from the existing and makes use of its histories and nature, is intrinsically embedded within the host despite periodizations in materiality and attachment characteristics, be considered immanent