Wolkenkuckucksheim | Cloud-Cuckoo-Land | Воздушный замок 21 | 2016 | 35 Purdy | 135 Contemporary discussions about the “atmospheres ” that buildings and land- scapes produce seek to explain how the mixing of diverse aesthetic strategies can produce a humane, ecological, and cosmopolitan sense of place, grounded in the particular qualities of a given locale. These debates are by no means unique to our own era, for indeed many of the central terms that are now taken for granted were once radical and controversial in the eighteenth century. In the following essay, I wish to demonstrate that eighteenth century debates about the synthesis of aesthetic perceptions, particularly in relation to archi- tecture and landscape gardening, reveal the long complex history behind the work of Gernot Böhme and Peter Zumthor in reasserting the importance of atmosphere in contemporary architecture and urban planning. 1 “Character” is the key term in the eighteenth century that comes closest to our contemporary use of architectural “atmosphere.” Both are understood as subjective responses to a building or landscape. Both discourses rely on the same German term, “Wirkung” (translated into English as “effect” or “impression”), in order to identify a building’s “character” or “atmosphere.” 2 By expounding the emotional effect of architecture and landscape, eighteenth-century Sentimen- tal treatises tried to grasp the illusive yet compelling poetic character of build- ings. A comprehensive survey of Sentimental architectural treatises lies beyond the scope of this article, instead I will touch briely on the similarities between the discourse of atmospheres and the Christian Hirschfeld’s Theory of Garden Art published in ive volumes (1779–1785) 3 and the anonymous Investigations into the Character of Buildings: On the Connection between Architecture and the Fine Arts and the Effects Which It should Bring Out through Them (1785). 4 The as yet still unknown author of the Investigations deines a building’s character in much the same terms as atmosphere: “ The quality of a building with which it makes a noticeable impression on our heart, I call its charac- ter.” 5 His deinition was reiterated by Friedrich Meinert, a Prussian oficer and professor, whose prose shows a striking similarity to the anonymous author: Mixing Architectural Metaphors with the Eighteenth Century Between Atmosphere and Character Daniel Purdy 1 Böhme 2013; Zumthor 2006. 2 Michael Hausknecht incorporates “character” into his deinition of “atmos- phere”: “Der Wahrnehmungscharakter einer Umgebung gewinnt Bedeutung als Gefühl.” Hausknecht 2014: 54. 3 Hirschfeld 1779–1785. 4 Anonymous 1986 [1785]. 5 Ibid.: 11. “Die Eigenschaft eines Gebäu- des, wodurch es eine merkliche Wirkung auf unser Herz thut, nenne ich seinen Charak- ter.” Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.