New Books in Science, Technology, and Society Tim Altenhof, "Breathing Space: The Architecture of Pneumatic Beings" (Zone Books, 2026)
Apr 5, 2026
Tim Altenhof, architect, historian, and author of Breathing Space, explores how breathing shapes bodies and buildings. He traces 19th-century air debates, ventilation in factories and hospitals, modernists’ lung metaphors, sanatoria design, and breath training at the Bauhaus. The conversation maps a cultural history of pneumatic awareness and architectural responses to air, disease, and porosity.
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Lungs As A Topology That Blurs Inside And Outside
- Breathing dissolves the inside/outside boundary because lungs are internal yet continuously exchange atmosphere with the world.
- Tim Altenhof links 1920s architectural debates about transparent buildings to lungs as a topological model that blurs interior and exterior.
Mendelsohn's Dye Works Vented For Workers' Lungs
- Erich Mendelsohn designed a dye works using a giant hooded roof stack to vent toxic fumes away from workers' lungs.
- Archives show Luise Mendelsohn noted his concern that dye workers risked pneumonia, motivating the ventilation strategy.
Room Volume Replaced Surface Area As Health Metric
- Nineteenth-century reforms treated room volume as health-critical, not just floor area, leading to regulations like 10 cubic meters of air per person.
- Altenhof shows this volumetric thinking arose from new physiological data on breaths per minute and lung volume.
