Intertextuality of Identification: Integrating the Creative Acting System and Therme Vals

Abstract

This study establishes a theoretical connection between Konstantin Stanislavski, creator of the Creative Acting System that shaped 20th-century theater, and Peter Zumthor, architect of Therme Vals, one of the significant works of 21st-century architecture. While Stanislavski used an actor training system to integrate actors with their characters and guide them toward an inner transformation, Zumthor emphasizes the sensory and experiential relationship between the user and the space. Based on this parallelism, the research argues that architectural space can be analyzed through the “System”. As a methodological framework, the Four C Creativity Model (Kaufman & Beghetto) is used to structure the interdisciplinary dialogue between theater and architecture, based on phenomenological and psychoanalytic patterns. Within the linear Text-Action-Space triad, Lacan and Merleau-Ponty are positioned under the Text category (mini-C and little-C), Stanislavski under Action (Pro-C), and Zumthor’s Therme Vals under Space (Big-C). This categorization reveals how Stanislavski’s philosophical and psychoanalytic foundations resonate in Zumthor’s spatial design and produce intertextual meaning. The findings show that spatial experience creates a field of mutual interaction between the subject and space through body- and perception-based theoretical approaches. This process of identification leads to the production of creative spatial identity and meaning through the self and “other.”

Authors

Esin YILMAZ

Keywords

Creative acting system, Four C model, identification, intertextuality, Therme Vals.

Publication Information

Volume 0, Issue 24, 2026

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19220939

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