The life and death of architectural references: Reflections from a failed competition

Abstract

Exploring how architectural references allow shared spatial concepts, such as “luxury space” or “non-place,” to emerge and enter the architectural design process, this article analyzes ethnographic material produced with the Danish architecture firm Henning Larsen between 2017 and 2018. Focusing on Henning Larsen’s participation in the 2017 competition for a new central train station in Lund, Sweden, Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language game” is introduced to interpret how the material invoked as a reference becomes meaningful within the design process. Three analytical concepts—referencing, common, and rupture—are developed and applied to unpack the relationship between architectural references and the production of shared spatial concepts during the design process.

Highlights

Proposes a method for analyzing the creation of shared spatial concepts in architectural design.

Establishes the conceptual vocabulary referencing, common, and rupture to analyze design processes.

Argues social boundaries and shared spatial concepts are negotiated in tandem during design.

How does the concept of “luxury space” or “non-place” become architectural? Drawing on ethnographic material produced over two years of doctoral research as a cultural analyst and anthropological consultant within the Danish architecture firm Henning Larsen, ¹ this article contributes to existing ethnographic analyses of architectural design (Cuff, 1991; Lloyd and Oak, 2018; Murphy et al., 2012; Oak, 2013; Yaneva, 2009) by exploring the production and application of architectural references during the 2017 competition for a new central train station in Lund, Sweden.

Although the term “reference” has various meanings outside architecture, within architectural design the term indicates a range of inspirational content which includes the category “precedents,” or existing works (Goldschmidt, 1998). Adding to literature dealing explicitly with architectural references (Downing, 2003; Goldschmidt, 1998; Murphy et al., 2012) and literature exploring the negotiation of values in architectural design (Fleming, 1998; Le Dantec & Yi-Luen Do, 2008; Lloyd, 2009; McDonnell and Lloyd, 2014; Medway and Clark, 2003; Murphy et al., 2012; Oak, 2011, 2013; Schön, 2008[1983]), this article explores how architectural references allow spatial concepts to emerge and enter the design process. In order to analyze how architectural references become meaningful statements within the design, Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language game” (2009[1953]) ² is introduced. Building on insights produced by applying the notion of language games to architectural references, three analytical concepts are developed: referencing, common, and rupture. These concepts are used to analyze the development and destruction of shared spatial concepts throughout the architectural design process.

By orienting the analysis around concepts Wittgenstein presents in Philosphical Investigations (2009), this research also adds to a small body of literature exploring the use of language games in design research. The term “language game” was first introduced to design studies by Schön in 1983 (2008). In The Reflective Practitioner (2008), Schön interprets design as dialogical process that folds drawing and speaking into reflexive speech acts that allow a designer to “speak” to a situation and the situation to “talk back” to the designer. In Schön’s analysis dialogue is both a practice enacted by architects and a metaphor for the evolutionary movement of the design process itself (ibid, p. 122–124). In this context, Schön only borrows the term “language game” from Wittgenstein, developing an analytical framework that is largely separate from the philosophical concepts associated with the term (ibid, p. 95). In contrast to Schön (2008), I use Wittgenstein’s philosophical concepts as a critical point of departure for approaching the social production of architectural references. In this sense, my approach has more in common with Ehn (1988) and Dixon (2023), who both explore the application of language games in design research by building analytical frameworks that draw directly from Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, 2009). While Ehn (1988) uses this framework to approach user integration in computer software design and Dixon explores the relationship between evidence and doubt in design research (2023, p. 141), I use language games to explore how spatial concepts that are not inherently architectural—like “luxury space” or “non-place”—become elements of the architectural design process. Rather than developing a dialogical model of design (see Schön, 2008), my focus is on the development of analytical tools for examining the social production of shared meanings that allow spatial concepts to emerge and take on architectural significance during the practice of design, how these concepts circulate, and what occurs when they collapse.

In this context, the activity of design is approached as inherently social (Fleming, 1998; Jornet and Roth, 2018; Lloyd, 2009; Lloyd and Oak, 2018; Medway and Clark, 2003; Oak, 2011; Thilmany, 2022), and observable through “the situated use of talk, embodied language, and material artifacts in the ongoing and interactive social enactment of architecture and other design disciplines” (Murphy et al., 2012: p. 531). As a doctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen and a member of the Research and Development Department at Henning Larsen, I participated in the design process, observed design development, and conducted design review discussions with the design architect. Due to the highly confidential nature of architectural competitions, meetings and discussions were not recorded or photographed during the competition. Extensive field notes, auto-ethnography, analysis of design documents, and 4 hours of transcribed discussion with the design architect reflecting on the competition make up the primary case material. ³ In keeping with established ethnographic practices (Clifford, 1988; Geertz, 1973; Stodulka, 2021), this material is synthesized into description and analysis with specific notes and interview excerpts provided as contextual examples of themes and concepts. ⁴

This research is funded by Innovation Fund Denmark and conducted under the ethical guidelines for anthropological research (American Anthropological Association, 2025). The research has been performed in accordance with relevant standards regarding privacy, professional practice, and GDPR protocols associated with anthropological research in Scandinavia (see Simonsen and Fürst, 2024; Sleeboom-Faulkner and McMurray, 2018). Informed consent was obtained under a formal cooperation agreement between the university and the company and reinforced through verbal consent that was obtained and digitally recorded during interviews and discussions. The article was also reviewed with participants to ensure the presentation of material aligns with the primary ethical guideline in anthropological research: to cause no harm to the individuals and communities associated with the research process (American Anthropological Association, 2025; Czarniawska, 2007: p. 118; Spradley, 1980: p. 20–25).

The following sections are organized into an ethnographic narrative that is structurally inspired by Bryan Lawson’s Design in Mind (1994), which traces the activity of architecture firms through the reflections and works of individual architects. Methodologically, tracing the contours of the competition through the activity and reflections of the design architect provides unique insight into the overall process by examining the ways in which architectural references emerge and disappear in relation to the team member responsible for developing and communicating the design. The following sections also draw on my interactions with the design architect as we work together to create understandings that allow me to participate in the design process with the team. The loss of the competition is used to reflect on the ways in which absence and disappearance inform the social activity of design during and after the competition process.

Referencing in practice: Constructing an architectural context

February 15^th, 2017: At the bottom of the stairs, pushing up against the edge of the atrium, sits the competition department. Desks are arranged in groups of six, two adjacent rows of three, facing each other. Each desk supports two anonymous looking computer monitors, their surfaces territorialized with the detritus of high-speed production: print-outs, drawings, and schematics mingle with coffee cups, snack crumbs, and the rare plant. A Danish flag indicates a recent birthday on the team and two unopened beers, warm and waiting, perch on the edge of a desk. Models of previous projects and works-in-progress are scattered across shelves and desktops, waiting to be animated by discussion. Individuals sit alone or talk with colleagues around their desks, manipulating digital simulations of buildings, assembling images, producing text, or tacking up pages on the wall behind them. The dull hum of conversation pervades: everything is in process, unfolding, emergent.

Beyond the desks, the wall behind the competition department is covered with papers pinned up in a loose grid, marked out in stages and themes. Some of the papers have highlighted sections of text or carry the black marks of revision, their surfaces inscribed with the traces of architectural negotiation. There are descriptions of program, summaries of stakeholders, images collected under titles like “The Very Stylish Art of Travel” and “Dreaming of the Railways—an Atmosphere.” There are reference photos of an existing architectural site and images of the area extending back in time over a hundred years—and forward into a projected future. There are diagrams of “flow” and photos of adjacent buildings. Thirty-eight images hang under the heading “Current Station References” with the text “more to come.” The station references are clustered, portraying different views of specific buildings, each cluster marked with an individual line of text identifying location, year of construction, and the responsible architecture firm. Hanging next to these are images of people sitting in cafes with laptops and pictures of shopping malls, all pinned into the same project. ⁵

Senad ⁶ is talking me through the papers pinned to the wall, contextualizing images and diagrams into concepts that form a narrative, a story that contains the past, the present, and an imagined future. He points to various papers as we talk, his hand occasionally sweeping to indicate the entire wall when his words draw out an overarching theme, an essential plot point in the intricate web from which the final design will emerge. Although there are sketches of potential forms, there is no actual design yet—just elements, pieces, and references through which a shared concept of the future building is being shaped. Pointing to an image of a woman wearing a red skirt and collared blazer from the 1930s, Senad says: “It should be a modern train station that evokes the luxury of old-time travel—when the experience of travel was an event.” The woman stands next to two girls in nearly identical red outfits, the youngest perched on a suitcase holding a leash with a fluffy white dog on the other end. Above the image, drawing it into relation with another image is one word: “Matching.”

As Senad explains, “We want to bring some of that feeling back to traveling—rather than this feeling of ‘non-place ⁷ ’ that a lot of stations have now.” He indicates another row of images with his hand, drawing the two categories into relation as he talks, “In many stations you can’t even find the tracks, it’s like a shopping mall where you end up playing ‘Where’s Waldo.’” He nods toward a physical page from a “Where’s Waldo?” book that someone has pinned up next to an image of a shopping mall interior that overflows with bright signage, product displays spilling into pedestrian pathways. “Can you find him?” Senad asks. I search for a moment, scouring the tiny illustrated figures, finding nothing. “I guess not,” I say, and we both laugh. Senad explains that this is the point, the reason the page is tacked into an imagined train station, “No one wants to do this when they’re rushing to catch their train.” Examining four pages on the wall, Senad points out a specific architectural detail, “There’s something about the beauty of industrial-era train travel that has to do with this tectonic form, right? These repeating arches?”

As we discuss the relationship between history and modernity, form and beauty, each reference becomes more than its visual or physical material, functioning both as a visualization of a concept and an evaluative tool. Decisions about the physical shape of the station, whether a particular surface should be wood or metal, what kind of ornamentation the furniture should have, and how the envelope of the building integrates into the surrounding environment take on value in relation to the references being assembled by the team. Throughout this process, the team works together to refine what the station could be, the notion of a “luxury experience,” in relation to what they want to avoid, the “non-place” of the shopping mall-style station.

Language games: Referencing and the production of shared boundaries

Although the materials used to construct categories, such as “Matching,” “Late Night Moods,” “The Farewell,” and “The Clock,” might be mistaken for containing inherent meaning, there is something else happening in practice. When Senad points to the photograph of the woman in red, or an image of a shopping mall, or a historical photo of the building site, he does not necessarily see it in same way that I do. However, through the process of positioning and negotiating each image in relation to the whole, we are able to produce something in common—to create shared spatial concepts that guide the architectural design process. For example, by combining words, gestures, and images, Senad and I are able to approach industrial beauty and the weight of history together through the architectural form of a repeating arch. Understanding how this process produces meaning and value within the design requires shifting analytical focus from the content of specific references to the actions that allow them to appear. By applying Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language game” (2009), an analytical distinction is installed that allows referencing to be unpacked as a practice, rather than focusing on the architectural reference as an object. ⁸

In Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues that spoken words possess no inherent meaning (ibid). To understand language, he says, one has to observe how words are used as part of a larger context. In this sense, spoken language is one element in a “language game” through which meaning is produced: yelling the word “brick” might mean you need a mason to hand you a brick, or watch out for the falling brick, or that someone missed a goal in the game you’re watching—the word itself can only be interpreted as part of a larger context from which it emerges as an action (2009: p. 13, 15, 59–60, 80, 88, 89). ⁹

Similar to Wittgenstein’s assessment of the spoken word, a reference takes on meaning in relation to the context from which it emerges as an action. As a move within a “language game,” the act of referencing identifies the process of transforming something into an indicator of something beyond itself. ¹⁰ In this sense, referencing is not the reading of a semiotic system, but participation in a moving river of negotiation from which signs emerge like moments frozen on the face of a clock. The image of a woman in a red skirt and blazer with two girls and a dog holds no inherent meaning for the team, but when Senad points to it as an indicator of “the luxury of old-time travel” the image takes on meaning within a specific context: as a design architect working on a Swedish train station, when he tacks the picture to a wall of strategic documents while talking about how we, as a team, want to evoke the aura of a bygone era and situate it in a modern context, the image becomes a portal to something else, part gateway and part boundary.

As a reference, the image takes on both additive and evaluative qualities. The photograph installs a portal to a train platform 80 years ago, summoning the people that stood there posing for the photographer into an architectural office in the heart of Copenhagen, thrusting the past into the present, manufacturing a then and there in relation to a here and now. Simultaneously, it binds a visual representation of matching outfits to categorical definitions of travel and luxury, articulating a set of conceptual relationships and locating them within a shared sensory boundary: ink on a page that we can sense together, discuss together, and work from as a group.

Through participation in this language game, team members are able to develop shared understandings of the architectural qualities that allow concepts like luxury and modernity to appear within the project. By referencing the team delimits one concept from another, articulating a theme or value by negotiating the ways in which it can be sensed through the collected materials. Arranging references in order to shape these boundaries is an act of production: by referencing common definitions emerge that allow us to align our individual work with the architectural qualities we wish to impart to the design as a whole. ¹¹ This allows us to push the design forward together, to point to a common reference and “understand” enough to continue (Wittgenstein, 2009: p. 86–101).

Although referencing allows a group to summon specific concepts into a narrative by defining a network of relations between the materials they assemble, the operationalization of these definitions by individual team members is not universal or immediate.

Locating the common: The negotiation of references

When a person invokes a reference, they invite others to form a common. Team members who recognize a connection between the material presented and what the person attempts to indicate through it are drawn together by the reference: they share it as a sensory boundary through which the indicated concept can emerge. “I” shifts to “we” among the individuals holding the reference in common. Participants who cannot sense what someone is attempting to indicate through the material are pushed outside of the reference, cut off from the meaning being assembled by the rest of the team. In this sense, referencing also shapes the social boundaries between team members by drawing a line between the people who identify with a particular reference and the people who do not: members fall into majority and minority positions, identified as either “getting it” or “not getting it” within the group. However, the occupation of these positions and the values associated with them are not static: their bounds are shaped and reshaped through the discussion of what a reference does or does not indicate within the project.

This negotiation process is part of the everyday practice of architectural design at Henning Larsen, occurring regularly on a variety of projects. The following example is taken from a non-competition project, the re-design of Henning Larsen’s Copenhagen headquarters in 2017. Two architects, Lou and Senad, are presenting six possible layouts for the new office to the design team. Jacob, Sarah, and I are discussing the layouts with them. Schematics for each layout have been printed, pinned to the wall, and color coded to foreground different social activities each design tries to strengthen. In the photo, Jacob is pointing to the layout of design 1B and asking if one section could be cut out and lifted to add a new area on the top floor.

Jacob Kurek, Senad Gvozden, and Lou Marie Charrier discuss removing a section of the fifth floor in plan 1B. Photograph by the author.

Discussion key:

/: indicates the speaker is interrupted or overlapped by the following line.

[]: contain contextual information.

[…]: indicates the omission of lines for brevity and clarity.

Participants:

SG: Senad Gvozden, Design Architect

LC: Lou Marie Charrier, Design Architect

JK: Jacob Kurek, Partner, Global Market Director ¹²

SM: Sarah Mullërtz, Partner, Director of Interior and Graphic Design

DT: Drew Nathan Thilmany, Anthropological Design Specialist, Research and Development.

The following discussion takes place in Meeting Room D at Henning Larsen’s Copenhagen headquarters on October 23 ^rd , 2017, at approximately 14:34 (between 2:04:00 and 2:06:00 of the recording—2:36:38 total). The transcription from the recording is contextualized with descriptive information from fieldnotes taken by the author.

SG: Okay, so you would push everything up on fifth? Is what you’re saying?

SM: Yeah.

SG: The model shop and the/

[JK & SM simultaneously.]

JK: No, no, no, no, no…

SM: No, no, no, no, no…

[The sound of marker caps being removed.]

JK: And now we have to draw.

[LC & SM & DT laugh. Everyone looks for the roll of translucent drawing paper typically kept in every meeting room, but the roll is missing so JK draws on an extra copy of the layout lying on the table. JK narrates as he draws an outline of the new section he is discussing cutting out of the fifth floor on the layout.]

JK: Basically, you have the layout here…and then you go…and I think it stops here with the toilets, right?

SG: Yep.

JK: And then you will be… [trails off] This is not there, because—or maybe it is? But basically, you would still have this void here/

SG: Um hmm [nodding].

JK: And then you will have some kind of a corridor and then façade and then you have the canteen, so you basically would gain…on the fifth floor.

[JK stops drawing to look around and see if people are understanding].

LC: Yep.

SG: Oh, okay—I get it.

LC: I get it.

[…]

SM: And everyone will move within that space, so we would activate it even more.

LC: Up in the canteen, yeah.

JK: So, we would circulate in three floors—through the atrium.

SG: Hmm…

SM: So, it would always be active.

SG: That’s a really good idea.

LC: So, the atrium is where you move.

In this example, referencing occurs through explaining, imagining, evaluating, and convincing one another of what the space could become. Through a complex weave of enacted material relations—words, gestures, and drawings (see Murphy et al., 2012)—our understanding of what the space represented in the layouts could become moves from different notions of form and value to a shared understanding—a common—in which the atrium becomes where you move. This process installs a conceptual order in the imagined space that is simultaneously symbolic and physical: the atrium becomes a connector of imagined values—a space of movement that promotes engagement within the organization—and a physical form within an imagined environment. By extending the dimensions of the atrium, we work to add movement to our concept of the building—an imagined activity with imagined meanings in an imagined space—a process we aim at together through the practice of referencing.

By referencing with and through the material, we develop shared ideas about the values associated with the spaces we want to install in the design. Senad and I engage in this process during our discussion of forms, photographs, and atmospheres associated with the train station. This negotiation allows us to create a shared understanding—a conceptual order that allows us to continue together—and install concepts like “luxury space” in the train station design. The practice of referencing transforms everything—a schematic, an image, a story about how people will use a space—into new configurations as team members work to articulate a vision and convince one another of the best possible approach.

By negotiating the meaning of a reference, whether, for example, a particular image, behavior, material, or experience indicates luxury or non-place, the participants are able to reshape the social and conceptual boundaries articulated by a particular reference. Within this context, referencing emerges not only as an action, but a skill. Individuals may bring team members across the boundary of “getting it” in either direction by demonstrating how the material does or does not indicate what it was initially invoked to articulate.

The power and prestige of individuals attempting to shape and reshape the boundaries a reference invokes affects this negotiation process. While everyone on the team is encouraged to participate, an individual’s rank and title within the architecture firm and their current standing among team members affects their ability influence others or stop negotiations, whether agreement has been reached or not. The hierarchical power structure of the architecture firm allows specific people to wield greater influence over how things appear within a project (Blau, 1987: p. 24–45; Cuff, 1991: p. 107–171; Medway and Clark, 2003: p. 264, 268–269), and, ultimately, over how an architectural project appears in the world beyond the firm. ¹³ However, the ability to understand a reference—whether a participant agrees or not—is the ability to continue as a group: to hold the reference in common and move forward.

Over the course of a project, this negotiation process can lead to a complex entanglement of juxtapositions, concepts folded into concepts, images transformed into arguments and folded into new images, until the interpretation of a reference solidifies in a constellation that crystallizes the design as a whole:

“We have the train tracks, which usually are seen as something which cuts off the city parts, which is a problem. What if we use that as a story to connect?” And then we’re like, “Okay, but what about the art of travel? That’s also something about gazing out through a window, right? That’s also something about waiting for your destination, or the next destination, or stepping into a train, so it’s something about a very carefully orchestrated view, right?” We’re like, “Okay, so if we split the shape, if we dissect the shape into these frames, and then basically restructure it again, we showcase the structure, then we have the tectonics into play, all of a sudden we have both axes, the story about moving and traveling, we add the art of travel into that.” And then, you know, slowly and suddenly, your stories start to take shape and they’re basically thought of—and now, you see, I’m basically plucking from a lot of different boards and themes and topics, which you’re basically referring to, to create one image, one idea.

Senad Gvozden, Lead Design Architect, 13/04/18.

During this process, the material used to invoke a reference is often transformed, altered, or destroyed. Participants scratch out words and images with markers or highlight sections of text, foregrounding or removing different aspects of a reference, while adding and subtracting entire pages, sketching diagrams, Googling images, asking questions, and telling stories until the material forms a narrative capable of circulating beyond the team itself. As materials are discarded, the negotiations they produce as references remain as narrative fragments. These fragments are developed through each stage of the project, forming arguments that situate successive choices made during the design process (Lloyd, 2000; Medway and Clark, 2003). The choice of metal or wood for a specific surface, the organization of movement, the scale of a particular space, the location and type of furniture chosen, the amount of retail or residential space, and expected behaviors and interactions among users: these choices become meaningful elements of the design through the negotiation of references.

During this process at Henning Larsen, the design team simultaneously assembles references into various configurations in an attempt to build a narrative that appeals to the client, developing an architectural concept and a narrative concept in tandem, each one intended to position and reinforce the other. Within the architectural design process, the narrative concept becomes a reference used to position other references, to map their relations and explain how and why they form a meaningful place together. The narrative concept attempts to freeze the practice of negotiation, to lock the process of referencing into a constellation of references, by embedding design materials in a conceptual order capable of moving beyond the context in which they were created.

The architectural narrative and the circulation of spatial concepts

Tacked into a descending column on the far left-hand side, six pages describe “key stakeholders” on the jury, including a list of jury members, an outline of the agenda of each organization they represent, and a distillation of the competition brief. The sixth page, perched at the bottom of the column, contains an illustration of five circles, each with the name of an organization in the center and identifying text that situates their agenda as political, technical, strategic, financial, or a combination of the four. Around the periphery of each circle are descriptions of the architectural qualities in which these agendas can appear—how the team believes the jury members will be able to sense the presence of their agenda within the design itself.

Developing the Strategic Concept for Lund Central Station.

Fieldnotes: 15/02/17.

As the team negotiates a reference in relation to the design, team members also discuss how it relates to what they want the jury to understand. When Senad and I discuss the goals of the project, he explains to me that the representatives from the municipality want to “see a program that can talk to the program of the square.” He points to an area diagram, a bird’s eye view of the building site with flow lines sketched on it, elaborating that the design should create a space that somehow incorporates the social atmospheres and interactions of the public square facing the main station entrance. At the same time, he says, the design needs to account for a strong commercial element, because “the state needs to make money on the space, so retailers need to see something for them as well.” Incorporating various stakeholder agendas, including the national transportation department’s rigorous technical requirements, produces what Senad describes as “a very small target.” ¹⁴ To hit that target the team produces references, including references to the jury, to translate important conceptual elements into forms, materials, and photorealistic computer images that attempt to capture the architectural intentions of the team and the various agendas of the jury.

During the competition for the Lund Central Station, this process culminates in a 96-page design booklet that organizes, crystalizes, and carries the references produced during the design process in a narrative structure. ¹⁵ As Senad and I reflect on the competition process, we review the booklet together and he summarizes the process of shaping the material into a narrative framework that would speak to the jury. By using the city architectural policy included with the brief, the design was translated into a set of responses demonstrating how the proposal explicitly reflected the interests of the municipality:

This policy is actually, when you run it through, it’s actually based on these themes, or these topics. If you run them through you will explain—from the biggest scale of the city, to the smallest scale of the building, to the material it’s made of—you will describe a full project. So, we were like, “So, actually, we’re going to grab their own narrative and we’re going to put this project into that framework and we’re gonna show them how this project answers to all of these needs the city has.” And so we did that. We put it in that framework and it worked like a charm.

Senad Gvozden, Lead Design Architect, 13/04/18

Although the client appears as a set of references that inform the development of the design throughout each phase of the process, the final proposal is built explicitly to speak to them as a reference: an assembly of sensory material through which the jury can grasp the world they wish to build. By organizing the booklet into themes described by the client, the narrative concept is designed to position the building itself as a reference that exemplifies each of the themes outlined in the brief. Senad describes how this process is put into practice using the theme “First Impressions Last” from the brief as an example:

So, we’re talking about, “What is an impression?” There’s an impression of the city, in different scales, the city of Lund. We basically say then—then we unfold—and say, okay, actually, “First Impressions Last” is about four themes, or topics within a theme we fold out. We’re saying that it’s about connecting tradition to innovation, it’s about the global meeting the local, it’s about creating a regional meeting point, and it’s about the international and the local, sort of, uh, relation, which is very sort of sensitive, as I told you—it’s about they want to be both. So, this is how we basically do it, right?

Senad Gvozden, Lead Design Architect, 13/04/18

By positioning the building in relation to the defining elements of a theme requested in the brief, the team actively works to frame the design as reference material through which jury members can sense their own interests. Within the 96-page booklet, constructing an environment where innovation meets tradition and international meets local becomes part of a methodology employed to demonstrate how the design forms an iconic building in the cityscape, a quality used to generate a memorable first impression. Within the booklet itself, these concepts become explicitly intertwined on page six and are developed throughout the following sections (illustrations one through four).

Illustration One: page six, an illustrated typology of iconic city architecture in Lund, Sweden. On the right, four illustrations draw attention to the circular and triangular shapes of existing city landmarks. On the left, a fifth iconic shape is added to the typology: the rectangular profile of the train station, designed to stand apart, yet in relation to, the existing icons in Lund.

Illustration Two: pages 34–35, entitled “A Living Centerpiece,” depict schematic overviews of people moving through and near the station, removing the roof of the building to show density maps of human activity in red. The events shown include Lund Pride Parade, a street food festival, and a dance performance by an ensemble inside the station: social interactions intended to “speak to the program of the square” as a shared public space while framing the design as an environment that promotes innovative social uses for the traditional urban train station.

Illustration Three: pages 53–54 depict the historic customs house being integrated into the modern glass enclosure of the new station, a process that leaves the existing brick façade intact while reshaping portions of the roof and interior, design choices intended to combine traditional architecture with contemporary innovations to create a new regional meeting point for travelers and residents.

Throughout the booklet, the values of the city and the architectural intentions of the team are interwoven by threading references together to form a narrative about how tradition and innovation, international and local, meet in the envisioned social practices and architectural aesthetics of the proposed train station to create a first impression that lasts. The building itself is broken into parts to illustrate how its totality will appear in the city as a reference: line drawings, computerized renders, small blocks of text, spatial program schematics, and photos of physical materials and social behaviors are arranged to summon different concepts into the design. The booklet becomes both a boundary and a portal, invoked as an action in a language game between architect firm and jury—a statement carved into sensory material the jury can encounter and negotiate as a group.

Ultimately, the ability of the design to appear in the booklet depends the transformation of spatial concepts into a kind of architectural language. The effectiveness of this language, its ability to circulate concepts, emerges from the way in which these “words” are produced and “spoken” to the jury. In the examples above, shape, sociality, material, and position become mediums through which statements about tradition and innovation can appear, statements that become meaningful through the assembly of references into a narrative.

Circulation and rupture: The loss of the competition

When a participant in a language game brings a move into a new context, the meaning of the move is negotiated (Wittgenstein, 2009). In a similar way, when participants bring a reference or a narrative concept used to position references into a new context, the meaning of the material they aim at is negotiated. If the new group takes up the material to indicate similar qualities in similar ways, the reference continues as a common—they are able to continue toward a shared vision through the reference. If the material is abandoned as a reference, it generates a rupture, installing a division that prevents the group from moving forward until a new reference emerges. In this sense, a rupture is a once was in relation to and is not. It is the evasion or disappearance of the common—the absence of a shared agreement—etched into the temporal trajectory of a reference.

On August 16^th, 2017, Henning Larsen was eliminated from the Lund Central Station competition. In the written evaluation, the jury praises the overall architectural concept, but ranks it lowest among the four remaining firms in terms of commercial viability. The statement explicitly cites the integration of the customs house as a strong example of merging innovation and tradition and praises the iconic form of the building. However, the unique form of the building is also noted for making it expensive to shift the program of the space or make significant changes to the number of square meters available for retail. This is related to the tectonic envelope, which combines a series of scaling frames to create one continuous form that shifts from a horizontal axis to a vertical axis as it crosses from the Eastern side of the tracks to the Western side (illustration four).

Illustration Four: page 14 shows the train station model in an East-West orientation, highlighting the scaling frames and shifting tectonic envelope.

Although the design receives praise for focusing on the experiential aspects of the journey, creating a “First Impression that Lasts,” and fitting into the city of Lund, the jury was unable to see how the building could support the commercial interests of the developers. ¹⁶ Although there had been some discussion of how the values of the client might be misrepresented within the project, Senad explains why more commercial program was not added to the proposal:

Discussion key:

[…]: indicates the omission of several lines for brevity and clarity.

Participants:

SG: Senad Gvozden

DT: Drew Nathan Thilmany

The following discussion takes place in Meeting Room A at Henning Larsen’s Copenhagen headquarters on April 13 ^th , 2018 at approximately 13:48 (1:03:00–1:10:30 on the recording—1:31:12 total).

SG: We tried to beef it up, our project, and you could just feel that it was sort of breaking. At roughly ten or twelve thousand square meters the idea of the frame, the idea of the space being sort of a nice space to go through, the idea of the shape being like an evolutionary form which goes from a smaller scale to a larger one, that breaks up—meaning you would get a lot of huge spaces before it turned into a building. It just didn’t, architecturally, it didn’t work to go beyond ten thousand square meters. So, we were like, “Is ten enough?”’ Because we loved everything else, they responded to everything else very well—the concept—but it didn’t test very well against the business case…the square meters, the flexibility. It was a very rational building shape, you can’t just put in an office or a shopping mall or a hotel.

DT: It’s not like a modular thing you can just sort of go, like, “Add another one.”

SG: No, it’s a very custom-tailored shape of the building. It’s expensive to actually move stuff in it, so it becomes an expensive station. It was a risk, a calculated risk we knew we were going up against. And I guess we got caught by the fact that we sort of knew what was going to happen and the two projects that continued to the next round were, you know, one was twenty-five thousand square meters, the other was forty-five thousand square meters.

DT: And that’s how they dealt with it, by getting bigger?

SG: It’s huge—I mean, it’s just two towers, right? So, you had two buildings and a bridge connecting, in both of them.

DT: Which is what we tried to avoid?

SG: Which we tried to avoid—which is actually what the client asked for. They told us, “Do not make two buildings and a bridge. Give us one building, one station, one shape.” So, you can also say the client probably changed their minds. […] Maybe they also looked at ours and said, “Ten thousand square meters is impressive compared to the four thousand, but I can get a project that will guarantee me twenty-five or forty thousand and it looks nice, it looks good, we have some architects that are talented, you know? I mean, we’re going to choose them—that’s it.”

Within the context of the competition, what was originally perceived as the strength of the design also became the reason it was eliminated. As Senad discusses, the closely interwoven concepts and forms deliver a high conceptual value but make the design extremely difficult and expensive to modify. The design scored high on the architectural concept because the envelope and program were closely intertwined, creating a unique experience and iconic form—but these same qualities made it impossible to reformulate, modify, or expand. As a reference, what the jury asked for in the brief was able to appear to them within the design, but in the context of the other entries the meaning of the reference changed. While the jury appeared throughout the design process as a set of references used to negotiate the choices made by the team, the other firms in the competition did not. In failing to account for the context in which the building would be “spoken,” the team assembled an architectural narrative that was internally coherent, but unable to produce the desired reference. Although the design fell into rupture, by examining Senad’s reflection on the process, it becomes possible to examine how ruptures inform the referencing process that allows a common to emerge.

Referencing is a process of negotiation, one that has a single goal: moving the design process forward. This means that all referencing must produce a reference—a material transformation that allows a group to move toward a goal through a shared sensory boundary. This language game involves the negotiation of a labyrinth of creative possibilities towards a linear movement with an intended outcome: a complete and coherent building design.

During the process of negotiation, many references are discarded into rupture as the group works to develop a common. As Senad discusses, during the Lund Central Station competition the proposals with more commercial volume continued to the final round—but in order to contain more, a proposal had to contain less. Henning Larsen’s proposal became “less than” and fell into rupture, but this process allowed another reference to take on the qualities of “greater than” and form a common—allowing the design process to continue. However, after Henning Larsen was eliminated from the competition, any discussion of the design within the firm became bracketed by an explanation of its inability to continue: as a reference, it could only appear in relation to its death as a common. In this sense, the mantle of a rupture is the narrative of a common destroyed.

The outcome of an architectural competition is a reference to a spatial future, a common produced between architecture firm and jury. When the winning design is selected, the proposal becomes a reference to the values the jury deem most important for the future environment: a common capable of summoning a building into existence. When this occurs, designs that were produced during earlier phases of the competition collapse into rupture and their absence is etched into the presence of the common.

The life and death of architectural references: Referencing, common, and rupture

An architectural reference can summon a shared vision, binding together the participants in a design process or binding a firm to a client. It can also summon division, halting the progress of a design at any point and separating participants. Ultimately, what an architect invokes as a reference, how they invoke it, and the context in which the material is summoned plays a critical role in how a design takes shape, how it enters into a narrative, and how the environment they envision is interpreted by a jury. ¹⁷

Luxury space, non-place, knowledge sharing, and other value-oriented design parameters only become spatial qualities capable of entering an architectural design through the sensory material of references. Whenever referencing occurs, the material invoked as a reference invites participants to form a common. When an architect picks up a photo of matching outfits from the 1930s and says “luxury,” it becomes a common if other participants in the language game sense “luxury” through it and the material allows them to move forward. Participants don’t necessarily see the image in the same way, or share an interpretation of luxury as a concept, but together they are able to locate “luxury” through it and continue. In this way, creating commons allows the design process to move forward: when the team grasps a reference together, they share the spatial concept that allows the project to proceed. However, creating a common is not the same as creating agreement. The concept of a common is closer to Wittgenstein’s notion of “understanding,” or knowing what a word signifies and being able to “go on” (2009: p. 98–113). Participants can disagree, but still share a reference as a common that allows them to continue. Whenever a common circulates into a new context, it risks falling into rupture. If the material being invoked can no longer be negotiated and ceases to form a common within the altered context of the language game, then the reference becomes a rupture dividing the participants. However, when a rupture is produced, it simultaneously forms a reference that allows a common to emerge.

In summary, referencing, common, and rupture form a conceptual vocabulary for unpacking the production of shared spatial concepts in architectural design. The development of these concepts contributes new analytical tools to a body of scholarship exploring contextually produced meaning during the social activity of design (Fleming, 1998; Jornet and Roth, 2018; Le Dantec & Yi-Luen Do, 2008; Lloyd, 2009; Lloyd and Oak 2018; McDonnell and Lloyd, 2014; Medway and Clark, 2003; Murphy et al., 2012; Oak, 2011, 2012, 2013; Schön, 2008). Although a range of theoretical approaches have been used to study design as a social practice, applying Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language game” (2009) to the creation of architectural references shifts analytical focus from the content of a reference to the practice of referencing. This shift draws attention to the ways in which spoken language and material intertwine during design to form contextually based communicative actions that cannot be reduced to either words or objects (Fleming, 1998; Goldschmidt, 2007; Jornet and Roth, 2018; Schön, 2008). In this sense, examining referencing as an activity exposes a complex process of invoking and negotiating boundaries: a process that aligns and divides participants, creating and destroying shared spatial concepts.

Together, referencing, common, and rupture also contribute to existing applications of Wittgenstein’s notion of the “language game” (2009) within the field of design studies (Dixon 2021, 2023; Ehn, 1988; Schön, 2008) by providing a vocabulary for examining what is shared and how during the practice of design. This approach foregrounds the ways in which design is intrinsically connected to what we share and are capable of sharing “over time, in unique circumstances, with other people, through complex, situated acts of seeing, saying, and doing” (Fleming, 1998: p. 41). Exploring the social phenomenon of sharing in relation to the activity of design highlights the contextual transformation of values and concepts throughout the design process (Thilmany, 2022), drawing attention to the ways in which a design develops in tandem with “a history of jointly accomplished references shaped by situational material and social constraints” (Jornet and Roth, 2018: p. 48). This analytical framework can help designers reflect on their own decisions and examine underlying assumptions that influence the social activity of design while providing design scholars with a vocabulary for examining the complex relationships that emerge between shared concepts, social activity, and design practice.

Although I developed this approach to analyze how shared spatial concepts emerge and take on architectural qualities during the practice of design, referencing, common, and rupture can also be used to examine the transformation of value-oriented concepts into design characteristics in other related fields, such as product, service, brand, and organizational design. By examining how and why something is invoked as a reference during the activity of design, this conceptual vocabulary can be applied to unpack how a design takes on qualities like “futuristic,” “friendly,” or “livable,” in practice. This approach provides design scholars with new tools for exploring the interrelated development of shared concepts, social boundaries, and design characteristics during the everyday activity of design and calls for future research into what becomes shared, how, and with whom during the design process.

Where there is a common, there is a reference. Where there is a rupture, there is a reference. Analyzing when, where, and how referencing creates a common or falls into rupture provides a method for unpacking how values like “luxury space” or “non-place” become design characteristics in practice, a process that can unite or divide a group as they aim toward a shared vision of an imagined world.