Herzog & DeMeuron describe their own work in similar terms. "The material is there to determine the
construction and the building is similarly there to display the material it is made of.(...) We push the
material we use to its furthest limits, to the point where it is freed from all other obligations but 'to be'."
When it is freed from meaning, the material or the object becomes perceptible as such. The 'truth' of
the construction, for example, is irrelevant. It is either hidden or reveals itself as a non-directional visual
grid in the same plane as the filling, giving the whole a monolithic appearance. Similarly, glass is not
used because of its transparency, to reveal what is behind, but to display the material glass, and as
such it will appear translucent or even opaque. The buildings are without scale, they avoid any
reference to human dimensions, and in this respect, too, they refer only to themselves