Peter Zumthor

"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'."

"The world is full of signs and information, which stand for things that no one fully understands because they, too, turn out to be mere signs for other things. Yet the real thing remains hidden. No one never gets to see it."

Source: http://www.archdaily.com/85656/multiplicity-and-memory-talking-about-architecture-with-peter-zumthor/

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Peter Zumthor is an intriguing architect and the more I learn about his works, the more I feel like he is one of the many key architects that I do want to study more on. I love how he recognises that beauty is not something that can be designed for; it's a matter of luck, in a way. Thus, he focuses on elements that make the place (light, touch, the senses) and the function of the place itself. Although his designs do present some sort of a foreboding character sometimes, or at least something that looks like it's out of place, when one actually studies or experience his architecture, they would understand where context fits in and how beautifully Zumthor has crafted his intervention with the landscape, with the landscape. Considering the Bruder Klaus Chapel that he had designed, where the building is as much the landscape, as it is part of it.

I guess that constantly drives the question that Mick keeps asking us,
where, then, does landscape begin, and where does it end?

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