Beyond Decoration: Why Spatial Identity Matters More Than Style
By Benjamin Liatoud, Architect
For years, the distinction between architecture and decoration has been progressively blurred. In contemporary discourse, spaces are often reduced to images, atmospheres flattened into styles, and identity confused with surface aesthetics. Yet designing a space—even one perceived as “decorative”—is fundamentally different when approached through architecture rather than decoration.
As an architect by training, my relationship to space is not driven by style, trends or visual effect. It is rooted in volume, proportion, movement and use. This difference is not a matter of hierarchy or value judgment; it is a difference of nature. Architecture does not begin with objects. It begins with space.
Space Before Objects
Architecture is first and foremost a discipline of space. Before considering furniture, textures or finishes, the architect reads volume: height, depth, compression, expansion, circulation. Space is not a backdrop—it is the primary material.
This approach stands in contrast with decoration, which often starts from objects and visual composition. Decoration works on the surface of an existing framework, while architecture questions the framework itself. Even when working within an already built environment, the architectural mindset operates at the level of spatial logic: how a place is entered, crossed, inhabited, perceived over time.
Le Corbusier famously described architecture as “the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light.” This statement remains deeply relevant today. Light, proportion and volume are not stylistic choices; they are structural conditions that shape how a space is experienced, regardless of its decorative language.
Spatial Identity Versus Visual Style
Style is often understood as a recognizable aesthetic vocabulary—colors, materials, references. Spatial identity, however, is something far more profound. It emerges from coherence rather than appearance.
A space with a strong spatial identity can be radically minimal or richly layered, contemporary or historically grounded. What matters is not the aesthetic register, but the internal logic that binds the space together.
This is where the architectural approach becomes decisive. An architect does not ask: What should this space look like?
The architect asks: What should this space be?
Identity is constructed through:
the relationship between volumes
the articulation of thresholds
the rhythm of circulation
the dialogue between light and material
the balance between openness and intimacy
Decoration may enhance or amplify these qualities, but it cannot replace them.
Thinking in Sections, Not in Images
One of the most fundamental differences between architects and decorators lies in how space is conceived mentally. Architects think in plans and sections. They imagine spaces vertically as much as horizontally. They consider what happens above eye level, below the floor line, and beyond the immediate field of view.
This sectional thinking influences everything: ceiling heights, visual perspectives, acoustic behavior, thermal comfort, and even emotional response. A slightly lowered ceiling can create intimacy; a sudden vertical expansion can generate relief or awe.
Peter Zumthor often speaks of atmosphere as something that cannot be added afterward. It is not decorative. It is the result of precise spatial decisions, where material, proportion and light work together in silence. Atmosphere, in this sense, is architectural before it is aesthetic.
Objects as Spatial Instruments
In an architectural approach, objects are never autonomous. Furniture, lighting and artworks are treated as spatial instruments rather than decorative elements. Their role is not to fill space, but to structure perception.
An object gains meaning through its relationship to scale, distance, and use. A chair is not only a chair; it defines posture, proximity and duration. A table organizes social interaction. A lamp shapes nocturnal space as much as it provides light.
This is why selecting objects without considering spatial context often leads to incoherence. The architect does not collect objects; the architect situates them.
Charlotte Perriand demonstrated this approach throughout her work, where furniture was conceived as an extension of architectural space, never as decoration detached from use or structure.
Movement, Time and Experience
Another crucial dimension often overlooked in decorative approaches is time. Architecture is experienced in movement. Spaces reveal themselves gradually, through sequences rather than static views.
An architect designs for arrival, transition, pause and departure. Corridors, staircases, thresholds and alignments are not secondary elements; they are the narrative devices of space.
This temporal dimension is particularly important in hospitality, cultural venues and private residences where experience unfolds over hours or days. A space that photographs well but fails to sustain experience over time quickly reveals its limitations.
Juhani Pallasmaa has extensively written about the multisensory nature of architecture, emphasizing that vision alone cannot define spatial quality. Sound, touch, smell and bodily orientation all contribute to the perception of place.
Beyond Trends and Instant Recognition
Decoration is often closely tied to trends, seasonal aesthetics and visual recognition. Architecture, by contrast, operates on a longer timescale. It resists immediacy in favor of durability.
This does not mean architecture rejects contemporaneity. On the contrary, it engages deeply with its time. But it does so through structure rather than surface.
A space designed architecturally does not rely on fashionable materials or references to assert its relevance. Its strength lies in coherence and clarity—qualities that age far better than style.
This is particularly important today, in a world saturated with images. The most powerful spaces are often those that cannot be fully captured in a photograph. They must be experienced.
Why This Matters Today
The contemporary obsession with decoration reflects a broader cultural condition: speed, consumption and image-based validation. In this context, architecture offers resistance.
Designing space architecturally—even when working on interiors—means reintroducing depth, intention and responsibility. It means acknowledging that spaces shape behavior, perception and memory.
Choosing an architect rather than a decorator is not about prestige. It is about choosing a way of thinking. A way that privileges structure over effect, coherence over accumulation, and experience over style.
Architecture as a Form of Attention
Beyond decoration, spatial identity emerges from attention. Attention to volume. Attention to light. Attention to use. Attention to time.
As an architect, my work does not aim to impose an aesthetic signature. It seeks to reveal the latent potential of a place and articulate it into a coherent spatial narrative.
Style can be copied.
Spatial identity cannot.
It is built, slowly and precisely, through architectural thinking—whether the space is monumental or intimate, public or private, minimal or layered.
This is why architecture remains fundamentally different from decoration. And why, today more than ever, this difference matters.
References & Influences
Le Corbusier — Vers une architecture
Peter Zumthor — Atmospheres
Juhani Pallasmaa — The Eyes of the Skin
Charlotte Perriand — Collected Works
Gaston Bachelard — The Poetics of Space