From emotion he passes on to remembrance and memory, which are the central threads in Zumthor’s research.
«The world is overloaded of signs and information, representative of things – Zumthor wrote – that nobody completely understands, because they are in turn nothing but signs representative of other signs. The real thing remains hidden. Nobody can ever see it». Zumthor’s architecture has nothing to hide from us: It is a direct sign that doesn’t throw back to other meanings. His architectural gestures remain dipped into the surroundings and don’t subjugate them to disputable formalisms. It’s no accident that his work is frequently categorized as minimal. Minimalist work always depends on a spectator, therefore it isn’t autonomous (or best, self-referenced), and furthermore it gives the impression to contain something, to be empty inside. «At the center of architecture, there seems to be an empty space. You can’t plan emptiness, but you can draw its boundaries, and so empty comes to life». So architecture is emptiness, and if the architect wants to produce beauty, he has to work on light and vibrations (sonorous, tactile…) that spread in this absence. Zumthor gives particular importance to the “metaphysical silence” and its peculiar and precise characteristics, akin to poetry. As George Steiner writes, «silence is an alternative. When, in the polis, words are filled with barbarism and lies, nothing talks as strongly as non-written poetry».
The process used by Zumthor to reach the memory is the «architectonic dramatization»: maybe it’s the only possible way to remember, because it’s only through emotions that mankind can remember. The monument, as a symbol, is not conceived by Zumthor, who imagines the building as a real place, not a content falsification. «To build a monument, – as he said – where every politician put up his plaque or his wreath, is the first act of forgetfulness».
In the shelters for the Roman archaeological site in Chur, Zumthor decides to establish an architectural link between the ruins and the city. The building is a filter between internal space and the city, that can penetrate, in the form of air, light and sound, through the thin plates in wood. The impression is to enter a non-temporal field: the space of the memory. Temporality is realized when the work considers the space in its totality, without distinctions between in and out. It is perceived only to (and in presence of) a spectator of the work that lives its volumes, contributing to strengthen the relations between architecture and the spectator himself.
In his works, light writes silently on objects the poetry, that is the only way to reach the truth – as he wrote in Thinking architecture. Originality and oddness have no connection with poetry. Air, light, sounds, and materials are the alphabet of his architecture, which speaks of itself, without however stunning us. A case in which (finally) the content returns to be the subject. This is the center of Zumthor’s architecture: they aren’t built to amaze us, as a performance, but they are here for man, who doesn’t have to be «stunned with chatter».
Zumthor has never investigated the theme of the city. By the way in some case it’s possible to distinguish interesting characteristics of this topic. I think of the Kunsthaus Museum’s square in Bregenz, and also at the relationship between building, ruins and city in Koln.
From emotion he passes on to remembrance and memory, which are the central threads in Zumthor’s research.«The world is overloaded of signs and information, representative of things – Zumthor wrote – that nobody completely understands, because they are in turn nothing but signs representative of other signs. The real thing remains hidden. Nobody can ever see it». Zumthor’s architecture has nothing to hide from us: It is a direct sign that doesn’t throw back to other meanings. His architectural gestures remain dipped into the surroundings and don’t subjugate them to disputable formalisms. It’s no accident that his work is frequently categorized as minimal. Minimalist work always depends on a spectator, therefore it isn’t autonomous (or best, self-referenced), and furthermore it gives the impression to contain something, to be empty inside. «At the center of architecture, there seems to be an empty space. You can’t plan emptiness, but you can draw its boundaries, and so empty comes to life». So architecture is emptiness, and if the architect wants to produce beauty, he has to work on light and vibrations (sonorous, tactile…) that spread in this absence. Zumthor gives particular importance to the “metaphysical silence” and its peculiar and precise characteristics, akin to poetry. As George Steiner writes, «silence is an alternative. When, in the polis, words are filled with barbarism and lies, nothing talks as strongly as non-written poetry».
The process used by Zumthor to reach the memory is the «architectonic dramatization»: maybe it’s the only possible way to remember, because it’s only through emotions that mankind can remember. The monument, as a symbol, is not conceived by Zumthor, who imagines the building as a real place, not a content falsification. «To build a monument, – as he said – where every politician put up his plaque or his wreath, is the first act of forgetfulness».
In the shelters for the Roman archaeological site in Chur, Zumthor decides to establish an architectural link between the ruins and the city. The building is a filter between internal space and the city, that can penetrate, in the form of air, light and sound, through the thin plates in wood. The impression is to enter a non-temporal field: the space of the memory. Temporality is realized when the work considers the space in its totality, without distinctions between in and out. It is perceived only to (and in presence of) a spectator of the work that lives its volumes, contributing to strengthen the relations between architecture and the spectator himself.
In his works, light writes silently on objects the poetry, that is the only way to reach the truth – as he wrote in Thinking architecture. Originality and oddness have no connection with poetry. Air, light, sounds, and materials are the alphabet of his architecture, which speaks of itself, without however stunning us. A case in which (finally) the content returns to be the subject. This is the center of Zumthor’s architecture: they aren’t built to amaze us, as a performance, but they are here for man, who doesn’t have to be «stunned with chatter».
Zumthor has never investigated the theme of the city. By the way in some case it’s possible to distinguish interesting characteristics of this topic. I think of the Kunsthaus Museum’s square in Bregenz, and also at the relationship between building, ruins and city in Koln.
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