The Relationship Between Literature and Architecture Through the Work of Julio Cortázar: Reading and Inhabiting as Parallel Experiences of Spatial Construction and Perception Part 2 Dissertation 2026 Ana Sofía Ossa Serrano Pontifical Bolivarian University | Colombia What does literature reveal about the experience of inhabiting space that architecture alone cannot? This dissertation addresses that question through a systematic analysis of three works by Julio Cortázar, proposing that literature and architecture share structural principles, and that literary texts can therefore function as instruments of architectural understanding.Grounded in the phenomenological theories of Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Bachelard, the research constructs an analytical framework of eight spatial subconcepts, applied empirically to Casa tomada (1946), La noche boca arriba (1956), and Instrucciones para subir una escalera (1962). Each text is examined as both a narrative structure and a spatial system, identifying correspondences between literary organisation and architectural categories such as threshold, sequence, bodily perception, and inhabited atmosphere.The results confirm that narrative space operates with the same complexity as built space, and that reading can constitute an experience of inhabitation equivalent to traversing a physical environment. More significantly, the analysis reveals that literature functions as a system of spatial correlates: it makes visible the affective, temporal, and perceptual dimensions of space that conventional architectural representation cannot capture.This finding carries direct implications for architectural practice and pedagogy. If every spatial project is first articulated in language, before the plan, before the model, before construction, then writing must be understood not as a supplement to architectural design but as one of its primary instruments.The dissertation closes with a conviction: space is always inhabited in words before it is inhabited in matter. Tutor(s) Natalia Uribe Lemarie