Urban atmospheres and felt-bodily resonances

The urban atmosphere is the polysensorial “skin” of the city, conceived as a real biotopic- psychotopic landmark radiating special affordances. Inspired by the affective externalism advocated by Pathic Aesthetics and the New Phenomenology, the paper surveys the global atmosphere of a city as a more spatial state of the world than a very private psychic state. Based on an approach that de-axiologises the notion of atmosphere and proposes an inflationary ontology not reducible only to things and events, the paper discusses first the main types of atmospheric encounter (overwhelming, syntonic, merely contemplative, eliciting a reaction or an affective inversion, changing over time), then some specific types of architectural affordances and gestures suggesting certain behaviors and moods, finally criticizes the usual idea according to which an urban atmosphere must necessarily mean either a organicistic familiarity or an avant-garde subversion of the social space.