Breathing Space

Tim Altenhof's 'Breathing Space' investigates the cultural and architectural consequences of newfound attention to breathing and air from the mid-nineteenth century through the twentieth century.

Drawing on medical research, architectural texts, and close readings of buildings like factories and sanatoriums, Altenhof argues that lungs and ventilation reconfigured ideas of inside and outside, skin and envelope, and prompted new design solutions.

The book traces how concerns about air pollution, disease, and pulmonary awareness led to regulated room volumes, opening mechanisms, and building types oriented around exposure to atmosphere.

Altenhof situates these developments within broader modernist projects—what he calls respiratory modernism—showing how breathwork, pedagogy, and building technologies intertwined.

The study highlights the permeability of bodies and buildings and the spatial dimension of breathing as central to modern architectural thought.