Individuality Through Diversity: An Evaluation of the Work of Peter Zumthor

          Evaluating a particular work of the built environment is traditionally done using the three most basic forms of architectural drawing: the plan, the section, and the elevation.  For Peter Zumthor, however, architecture is seen and designed according to its atmospheric qualities, always of an emotional sensibility and rarely quantifiable.  According to the Swiss architect, atmosphere is the aesthetic quality par excellence which guides the design process by recreating the intensity of a mood found in memory.


          Zumthor was born in 1943 into a war torn Europe.  The son of a cabinet maker, he was given a first hand knowledge of building at a young age.  In the most primitive sense, when building cabinetry the carpenter is assigned the task of creating a container which suits the task at hand, logically accommodating a family of objects.  The carpenter’s functional merit can be measured by how well he creates the appropriate form in conjunction with the rationality of the relationships between sizes, placements, and uses.  Intimately linked with ergonomics and the human scale, cabinetry can also be seen in terms of the small details, which when assembled with a great deal of precision, compose a functioning whole.  In a sense, Zumthor has been an architect for his whole life.

           At the age of 25, Zumthor became an architect for the preservation of monuments in his own Graubunden, Switzerland.  This experience proves influential in his future designs as during this period he would have gained a more thorough knowledge of construction and would have constantly been exposed to aging materials.  One could argue that he would have become keenly aware of the stylistic and intercultural relationships between architectures, qualities which he consciously avoids.  Some have classified Zumthor as a functionalist on the grounds that without any other classifiable stylistic preference, the only consistent “theme” in his work is the way in which the buildings develop organically from their specific program on a concrete site.  I would like to propose that the “functionalism” is a byproduct of his past as a cabinet-maker and that his work is more of a certain “situationalism”, itself of a shapeless, colorless, yet purely atmospheric connotation.  Five of Zumthor’s buildings of different sizes and uses will be evaluated according to these criteria.

            The Saint Benedict Chapel of 1987-89 is one of Zumthor’s most compelling early works.  The building is situated perpendicular to the slope of an Alpine hill above the village of Sumvitg, Switzerland.  From below the erect form of the building appears like a spaceship firmly anchored to the ground, yet from above, the chapel seems to be sailing off into the valley beyond, an image not unlike that of Tolkien’s journey of the living to the eternal Gray Havens.  The red, shingle skin of the building is a local technique, yet the lower rows are not permitted to touch the ground and have quickly aged.  Here, one can observe what Zumthor had learned as a historical preservationist as he capitalizes on the intrinsic qualities of the material as it ages.  In this way, one is reminded of Kahn in his truth to materials.  This trait should also be compared to Zumthor’s Swiss contemporaries in Herzog and deMeuron, as they continue attempting to stretch materials to new limits.  Upon entering through a relatively minimal steel portal, one emerges into an introverted room, ideal for a place of communion and repose.  The plan of the chapel is like a leaf, an eye, a tear, a boat, a fish, or, though more abstract, an image of mother church.  The wooden framework evokes a certain security and composure while the grey, anthracite walls provide a softness and space to breathe.  At once, the building becomes both spatial evaporation and imprisonment.  Zumthor has mentioned his fascination with artists like Joseph Beuys and the Arte Povera, a movement which explored the possibilities between the combination of materials which by themselves carry no specific meaning, but when combined in a specific way are able to tell a story.  The dichotomy he presents here is effective in the same way.  The floorboards are the voice of the otherwise silent building, creaking with each step, contributing to the atmosphere of the place.

            Between the years of 1990-94, Zumthor was commissioned to make an addition to a small farm dating back to 1706.  This unique house is isolated on the north slope of another Alpine hill outside of Versam and called the Gugalun, which means to look at the moon.  In this project, Zumthor was charged with the task of conserving the valley side portion of the house and to add the modern comforts to the mountain side (Fig. 5).  The “concrete animal”, between the two masses, is the unifying element of the interior where all of the heat is held in one concrete mast.  The warm air is permitted to radiate throughout the home and the “animal” becomes the bathtub on the upper floor.  In the process of making the addition, he designs the intervention to engage in meaningful dialogue with its counterpart by knitting onto the existing structure and precisely illustrating the friction between the aged wood and the new (Fig. 6).  The distinct way in which the architectures embrace one another in this instance is an effective and inspiring modification.  In keeping the low ceilings, tiny windows, and narrow crookedness of the original spaces as atmospheric tools in the design, Zumthor closely monitors the whole into which the old and new would be absorbed.

            In 1993, Zumthor’s competition entry for the Topography of Terror in Berlin was awarded first prize.  Not far from Potsdamer Platz, the site was the headquarters of the Gestapo and the Schutzstaffel, the principal instruments of repression during the Nazi era.  The headquarters were bombed by the allies in 1945 and the ruins then ordered to be flattened following the surrender.   The foundations and a few structural columns of Zumthor’s proposal stood alone for almost a whole decade before the project was abandoned and all traces of its existence razed in 2004.  His response to the site was a wood “architectural envelope” nearly 240 meters long which would house exhibition space and a smaller cube showcasing the remaining ruins, similar to the way in which he addressed the Roman ruins in Chur in 1986.  The double framed walls of the envelope would have allowed a completely free floor plan and cross section within for the calculated placement of various inner units, a quality which has almost become synonymous with modern museum building and ever changing collections.  I suppose this concept was misunderstood by some, as part of the reason why the project was eventually abandoned was due to “the arbitrariness of its floor plan”, said Knut Newmann of the German government’s Culture Department.  The outer frame would have been glazed between each of the columns, thus from a distance the structure would have appeared as a monolith, but a view out would be available from everywhere in the building, keeping the surroundings always present.  Zumthor takes pride in leaving the entire structure completely unadorned, completely pure and honest, as if to try to single-handedly reverse the kharma of the site.  Critics have praised this building for its intentional visual subordinance to the more elaborate buildings of Potsdamer Platz, modestly marking the site as peculiar and truly unique.  To me, however, the design seems too timid, too afraid of taking any focus away from the intended exhibitions.  I feel that in museum design, an architect should make attempts to compliment the exhibitions, as Venturi did in the Sainsbury Wing in London.  Architects should not feel obligated to force the architecture to take the backseat in the affair between arts by painting all of the surfaces white or by leaving a completely blank slate to be forever contorted by the curators.    

            The Thermal Baths in Vals earned Zumthor much critical acclaim upon its completion in 1996.  The city is famous for the quality of the natural spring which is bottled and sold throughout the country.  In 1966, a German entrepreneur had built an international style hotel complex which was later purchased by the citizens with the goal to build a spa complex on the site.  The hotel relates to the shape of the mountain with an elegant, International Style curve, and in order to preserve the views from the hotel to the valley, the spa had nowhere to go but into the earth.  The entrance to the baths travels underground from the hotel complex, like getting deep into the earth’s crust.  Here, one can see Zumthor’s desire to design a building more in tune with the geology and topography of the place, not just the immediate surroundings.  Inside of this tunnel, the Valserwasser is first revealed as it drips from copper pipes, which pierce through the concrete wall.  The iron rich water stains the walls a rust colored, reddish-brown over time, like rediscovering the processes and laws of nature on site.  An imperceptible transition between indoors and outdoors occurs as one passes from the tunnel, to a quite cellular organization of rooms, into an intermediary dance of choice, and ultimately to the building’s face confronting the valley.  The plan of the structure is organized by fifteen independent “stones”, each with its own outcropping roof delineate archaic volumes which seduce the bather into a casual meandering through space unlike the Roman bath which is more explicit in directing the bather.  The cantilevered roofs are kept a crisp 8 cm from the adjoining stone thus admitting a sliver of light and relieving some of the monolithic weight of the highly polished, exposed concrete ceiling.  Le Corbusier picks up on this same atmospheric quality in his project for the pilgrimage cave to Mary Magdalene of 1948.  Both architects are able to ascertain that these fissures are the oldest memories of light in the underground world.  The structure of the building was poured and clad in a local stone and each row runs the length of the whole building at the same height.  Each row is a denominator of the 30 cm module, though, thus providing visual variety while still facilitating the refining of the stone and its application.  Again, though, one is reminded of Kahn in that the Thermal Baths are an architecture of the earth where glass becomes completely subordinate to masonry.  The primary material of the project, the water, draws sharp horizontals across the stone in a serene atmosphere, never challenging, inviting the bather to step softly into the pool, never to jump in.  The mountain water is actually first held in cisterns before being delivered to the bath, yet Zumthor skillfully hides the devices, making the water seem as though it is coming directly from the mountain at the different temperatures.  In this way, he brings the water, the stone, and the machine into perfect concert with one another in a building which shows its strength through its peacefulness, somehow simultaneously staging both a primitive and a modern encounter through the act of bathing.

            
     Zumthor’s art museum in Bregenz, Austria of 1990-97 again shows a radical departure from all previous projects.  Standing at the edge of Lake Constance, this public work is truly an exploitation of the essence of concrete and glass, the material which he had wanted to entirely exclude from the baths at Vals.  Here, the panes of etched glass on the membrane act as a lamp which both emits and absorbs light while reflecting the lake itself.  These ruffled feathers of 
glass embrace the volumes within without a firm contact, allowing the breeze off of the lake to permeate the membrane.  At once, the glass scales are a weather skin, a daylight modulator, a sun shade, and a thermal insulator as the atmosphere of the interior becomes light trapped within the glass skin.  The vertical, concrete planes give 
both texture and spatial composition to the spaces within, while also being functional.  Aside from their obvious structural role, they contain water pipes which help to mitigate the changing temperatures.  The placement of the velvety, vertical planes in cooperation with the opaque, glass membrane prevent the visitor from actually seeing outside while still providing an understanding of the environment of the exterior as the building absorbs daylight through the changing position of the sun.  The stair is located on the south side of the building where the natural light would be most prevalent year-round.  The section perhaps shows the spatial qualities best.  The concrete planes support five-sided concrete boxes separated from each other by a void.  From the ceiling, glass panels are hung which are illuminated by the natural light which permeates the membrane and is then diffused in the void.  The view inside of the void, which the visitor is unfortunately never afforded, reveals a certain Swiss-ness the likes of which are quite rare.  The precision in the connectivity is reminiscent of the Swiss Army Knife, the fine Swiss watches, or even a master carpenter’s cabinet.   

            I sometimes feel that contemporary architects have gone about explaining their buildings in entirely the wrong fashion.  Where many of these architects will elaborate on the rationality of the structure or the highly academic intentions of a particular building, Zumthor is not afraid to reveal what is the deep seeded passion behind the inspiration for the architecture he creates.  In his books Atmospheres and Thinking Architecture, he speaks to the reader in a very refreshing prose about the smells of his grandmother’s kitchen from the dark hallway where he would play, or about the beauty of a gardening tool.  It is even difficult to find publications with images of his work; as he is a firm believer that architecture is an experiential phenomenon that cannot be effectively conveyed through photographs.  The atmosphere that Zumthor seeks is most successfully found in complete seclusion, it seems to me.  The urban buildings that were analyzed here, as beautiful as they may be, are each rather inert slabs which help frame the city quite well, yet never hold a recognizable dialogue with the context.  These buildings are complete manifestations of the perfect vision in Zumthor’s mind, successful on their own terms, yet they make no gesture to the complex realities of the urban environment.  It will be interesting to see how Zumthor’s career will develop in the future and whether he will begin to discover, manipulate, and interpret the atmosphere of the city.