Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delight is one the most cited and discussed paintings of all times. The work at once represents paradise, hell and the enchanting life on earth. It is seductive for its lively depiction of animals, humans and creatures, which deprives those both categories. In his painting, Bosch creates a myriad of new species, hybrids of diverse animal and/ or human species that exceed our familiar horizon. Often times this monstrosity is generated by a mixing and merging of living beings that are familiar to us. Bosch’s absurd creatures and other motifs thus generate an uncanny and strange feeling of intimacy and abomination. “The Garden of Earthly Delight 1500-2011 ” revisits Bosch’s piece. Kai Franz, asking himself for the role architecture in the context of heaven and hell, acknowledges the absence of architecture in the painting and comes to the inference that the painting reveals what architecture is all about. The paintings’ bizarre inhabitants can only exist because of their specific climatic conditions. The psychrometric properties of temperature, humidity and pressure establish various environments and habitats. Architecture thus gets redefined: away from an understanding of tectonics, space and physicality towards a definition around climatic conditions. “The Garden of Earthly Delight 1500-2011 ” shows the reading of the painting under this new definition: As a heat map the representation reveals the painting at its core: the level of humidity and temperature. |