Space as Emotion

Baroque architects traded Renaissance clarity for overwhelming sensory experience. Where Renaissance buildings led you through calm, predictable rooms, Baroque interiors set out to amaze and disorient. Curved walls, hidden light, and theatrical staircases turned a building into something closer to a stage set than a static space.

Borromini pushed this furthest. His San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane in Rome is genuinely tiny — its floor measures only about 20 by 12 metres, squeezed onto a cramped street corner — yet its undulating walls and oval dome make it feel monumentally expansive.