Architecture as Theater

Baroque architects treated buildings as performances, and their techniques still shape design today:

• Curved facades and Solomonic columns made stone appear to move
• Hidden light sources directed the viewer's emotional response
• Borromini's complex geometries influenced architects from Gaudí to Zaha Hadid
• Versailles set the template for state power expressed through architecture

The core idea was simple: a building is not just a structure but a machine for producing emotions. Move the walls, shape the light, stretch the space, and you change how people feel inside it.