The video of a chimney fire filmed in a fixed shot was the most watched series on Netflix today Christmas and was ranked 7th in the world.
This fact is not anecdotal when we know the symbolism associated with fire, well analyzed by Gaston Bachelard in the work “The Psychoanalysis of Fire”.
In architecture, the importance of fire has been studied by Reyner Banham and more recently by Luis Fernandez-Galiano in the book “Fire and Memory” which deserves to be translated into French.
These authors agree on the fact that the hearth constituted a center of gravity in architecture.
They claim that its disappearance in favor of other heating methods has profoundly changed the use of spaces.
But what is most striking are the testimonials that explain the success of this video of a simple fireplace fire on Christmas Day.
Le Parisien reports the words of a resident of Brittany who affirms that the video of the fire gives her “the impression that it is even hotter during New Year’s Eve evenings”.
The image and sound of the crackling fire seem to have a certain power of suggestion which would make a space more “warm” without actually warming it.
Regardless of its calorific efficiency (often very low with an open fire), hearing and seeing a fire would improve overall comfort in winter.
We speak of overall comfort to include all comfort parameters (acoustic, lighting, etc.) in addition to thermal comfort.
In the opinion of specialists, there are subjective suggestion and compensation mechanisms which considerably influence overall comfort.
Sources: G. Bachelard, R. Banham, L. Fernandez-Galiano, S. Marot.
Image: Unsplash, Hayden Scott