INTERVIU PETER ZUMTHOR

NH I have a series of questions Id like to run through with you if thats ok?

PZ What are your themes?

NH My themes are, Models, Process, Representation and Materiality.

PZ How long will this take?

NH There are about 20 questions, is that too many? Or do you want me to speed through
them?

PZ Ok, lets go.

NH First of all Id like to start by reading you a quote, which is a definition of a model, its
from a book by Albert C Smith, entitled Architectural Model as a Machine

Of the multiple definitions associated with the word model, the French word maquette is
proably closest to the concept of what this study refers to as the architectural model.
Literally a maquette is a demonstration designed to gauge the general appearance or
composition ofthe thing planned. The key to the significance of a maquette is the concept
of demonstration. The word demonstrate comes from the Latin monstrum, and means to
divine, portend or warn. A demonstration offers a foreshadowing of coming events and
allows a certain prophetic indication of meaning through marvel, prodigy and wonder.

Would you agree with this?

PZ No.

NH No? What would you define a model as?

PZ My definition of a model is, you can read in a little red book called Thinking
Architecture.
NH Ok.

PZ And you will see a chapter on representation, for me this is working with materials
and less representation it is part of the work already and I work like a sculptor. I think its
a beautiful definition but it is not my way.

NH So your way is more of a process, rather than a means of representation?

PZ The model is part of the work, its process but its not abstract. We do the buildings!
Then we look at them, how high is it? What could it be and so on, our models always have
to do with the building, you see you are surrounded by models (laughs)

NH Which comes first the model or the drawing? I know from my own experience, I have
an idea I tend to build a model first, its not to say that I dont draw, I draw whilst
modelling. But its usually an idea I have in my head and I build the model to articulate
the idea. What is your design process?

PZ The model comes soon, the drawingyou knowin order to explain the thing, you
sketch, you make a sketch, you talk about this, it is to do words, sometimes it is to do
with sketches. We always talk. And then we start to build. The model comes early, very
early.

NH And is the model the final way of representing the

building?

PZ Its not representing it. Its not representing. This is not representation (PZ points to a
model in the room). This is it for me. Its for me to look at and imagine, and see and read.
To see how the light comes. Its not representation, its like Giacometti making a
sculpture. He is not representing something with the first sculpture, it is the work, it just
gets bigger and bigger and bigger! Its physical thats what its about.

NH The next question goes back to a conversation I had with one of my tutors, the
conversation went something along these lines.

NH Patrick, I was wondering if I need to actually produce any drawings for my design
work this year, I mean I would just like to model the whole thing, but doesnt the RIBA
require me to demonstrate that I can draw a plan, section and elevation?
PL I think it would be great to only model it, models and sketches, as for the RIBA, think
about if you were an architect at a design team meeting. You the architect, project
manager, engineer, environmental engineer, quantity surveyor etc. If you presented a
1:200 site, 1:50 of the building, 1:20s of various parts and 1:5 or 1:1 details in model
form, there isnt going to be anyone at the meeting saying I dont understand the model
can I see a drawing!

NH Yes, I agree there is no way you cant understand a model, just obviously no one does
them because it would be time consuming to represent a building in full through
modeling.

Conversation with Patrick Lewis in Cologne October 2008

Have you ever considered designing a building with out working drawings?

For example I could see how your Bruder Klaus Chapel could be built without the need for
drawings?

PZ I think for me these questions are too academic. (laughs) For me they are not that
interesting, because I am a passionate architect. I love buildings, process; whatever helps
me to make the building I do. I would fly through the air or whatever! I want the building
so I dont care what I have to do. Usually my Mother or everyone with common sense will
say there is a convention of sheet music, so people can play the ideas of Mozart, because
there is a convention of these notes and thats the same how we execute drawings. There
is a convention, that if I make a proper working drawing or execution drawing that
everyone in the world can read it. There (laughs)

So why should I make a model that they will have to measure to work out the size of it, go
to the shop measure materials, its sort of like and academic question, could be, could not
be. It doesnt interest me.

NH With this question I was thinking about the Bruder Klaus Chapel, I could see how this
could be built without the need for any drawings?

PZ Its completely drawn up at the end, its made like this, very physical with samples and
models, but at the end you always have plans. So it is easy for the workers, they can
measure etc.

NH The Bruder Klaus Chapel is beautifully elegant in its simplicity form and construction.
Having seen the models before visiting the Chapel I noticed that most buildings do not
have such a clear connection between model and building. How do you view the Bruder
Klaus Chapel?

PZ How?

NH Do you view the Bruder Klaus Chapel as an architectural model in its own right, or is it
a building or more appropriately (as I believe) the culmination of a series of experimental
processes?

PZ The Bruder Klaus Chapel?

NH Yes

PZ Its a chapel for Bruder Klaus, a building obviously. (laughs)

NH But the end of a process of experimentation with ways of building?

PZ These questions are very academic, and Im sorry to have to tell you I am not
interested in this. Im interested in buildings. I only do buildings. Everything I do is a
building. Im like a craftsmans I do buildings. So obviously the building is the end of a
process not the beginning (PZ laughs)

I know for me this is probably a negative reaction to your question. Im so much

concerned with all the pain and labour and things to make a building and when I see that
young architects are dealing with academic questions, is the end or the middle or the
beginning of a process I get kind of confused! Come on, Come on, Come on! Learn how to
do concrete or something!

Im sorry (PZ laughs)

NH No, to be honest Im probably of the same opinion as you, it should just be about
buildings
PZ Yes it, should! But lets go on

NH Ok, I would say that the model you had in your book atmospheres of the Bruder Klaus
Chapel with the light falling down and the reflection in the pool of water, I would say it
was a demonstration of both process and atmosphere, is that what you were aim ing for
in that model?

PZ I can say yes, see I can tell you something, your questions, you make bad questions,
they are full of pre-assumptions, you know. There is this and this and this, I thought this,
this and this and my teachers thought this, this and this! God Damit! Make a simple
question. What does this image do, you dont have to tell me what you think or what this
person thinks, this is bad questions, good questions leave everything open to me and I
can answer how I want.

I am sorry, they are sort of like closed questions, so you dont learn, you get people mad,
isnt it like that, how I thought it was, how brilliant that I am!

In the future dont do this have the people show you how brilliant they are because
everyone knows we are all brilliant and that you understood already everything.

Because you are brilliant, we are all brilliant (laughs)

You see this model (PZ points to a model in the room) we try to see this looks, is it
working, if the light comes and so on. Then we look at it and think hey this looks great
lets do it! Its very simple.

Shorten your questions!

NH I will do.

PZ (laughs)

NH My next question, are you careful with what you show a client?

PZ No, I tell the truth

NH But, how much influence does that client have?

PZ Well it comes to use, he has a lot of influences here!
(PZ laughs) He is the experthe is the expert on what he wants So if he wants to have
a house for the British Army, Ill say, youre an expert but I wont do it, because I am not
doing buildings for military purposes. But if I accept the purpose, Id like to talk to him,
not about forms but about use.

NH And where do your forms come from?

PZ The forms?

NH Yes.

PZ Well I guess that they come from a lot of things,they come from the level of use, the
level of place, the level of history, everything you know, maybe this is too academic
everything you know about the place, the history, the specific use and so on. And then
there is thetheres imagination. And suddenly I have an image of the talking, looking
and so on, and so on, but there is this image. And this is like a spark. Everybody knows
this is the image of something and then you look at this inner mental image, and I look at
it, and I start to talk about it. If its good and Im excited I go on, but thats where ideas
come from, the basic idea comes from the person I guess, from each person. Its some
kind of beautiful human reaction, which is called imagination.

NH I wanted to go back to that conversation that I

had with my tutor, but its about the reason why people dont model everything, my
argument is probably different from what you said earlier, and its about time, but from
reading previous interviews with you time is one thing you seem to allow with buildings?

PZ You knowI observe how I work, I want to workfast but I need some time to mature
things, Im very honest with myself when looking at the thing, and when something
doesnt feel right Im not building it. Sometimes I know when something is wrong but I
dont know what, then I will have to find out, if everything feels right then I do it. But if
this happens very quick then Im really happy! But usually it takes time, sometimes you
think it looks great and then all of a sudden a couple of months later it looks wrong. I
think because I have an image of my building, Im not doing drawings; I dont have time
to dimension them. I have images so, the inner images are generated of what I want to
dosometimesunconsciously the angle of my inner camera changes and I see
something I never saw before and then I look at this something I didnt know before I look
at it and see it is wrong.

I would like to be as fast as hell, but it needs time!

NH I noticed in your models you show materials and

processes to be used in the built work, but you never fully reveal the building, is it
exciting to leave part of it to the imagination, to not fully explore everything in the
model?

PZ No, this is very pragmatic, I explore with one model what I can only explore or a
couple of aspects of the building, then I isolate them and look at them. And the in order to
get all the people excited to give me money or permissions and so on, Im not going to
shown the resolved parts but the great parts and say hey look at this, other parts are not
this beautiful yet, but this is how its going to be, what do you think?

This is my profession to do this, and also for ourselves so that we look at something, its
nothing mysterious, its very pragmatic.

NH I was just wondering whether part of the fun of building something is the fact that
youre not sure how it will end up when its finished?

PZ No, I try to know everything, I try to have no surprises, there will be surprises always
but this is model building, in kinetic images, to be sure to look and take time to be sure I
know what I am doing.

NH I think I read somewhere that you build a model, photograph it and then try to
recreate the atmosphere in the photograph and I found a quote by Walter Benjamin that I
think fits in quite well this that. In photography process reproduction can bring out those
aspects of the original that are unobtainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens
which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will and photographs reproduction with the
aid of certain processes such as enlargement or slow motion can capture images which
escape natural vision. Is the atmosphere that you see in the photograph of the model
something youre attempting to recreate in the building?

PZ Definitely, of course it is nice what he says, but I think maybe heIm trying to do the
building so I photograph the models because I dont believe in computer aided design
renderings and we need to make models and put them into real sunlight to learn from
that. I know what he means but it is on another level, it maybe that some of our
photographs of the models show the atmosphere and this is what we want to do, it
maybe very hard then to get that, the atmosphere we have there. The photograph helps
me to take away the scale so if I look at this (the model) I look at the model; if I look at
this (the photograph) I look at reality? So the photograph takes away the stupid model
scale.

NH So they make the models become real.

PZ Right. If I show this to an audience they can say

This looks real, this is good because I want to make real things.

NH There is another quote by Walter Benjamin. Even the most perfect reproduction of a
work of art is lacking in one element, its presence in time and space, its unique existence
at the where place it happens to be. Is that what you are trying to get?

PZ For sure (PZ says something in German)

NH I read also that when people photograph your buildings you dont view then as
representation of your buildings but as works of art in their own right.

PZ That would be nice that the best photographs they are secret Benjamin works, they
are of course this would be the best, but it happens, everythings happens also, they are
just snapshots.

NH I was going to ask you how you viewed a photograph of your model, but I think you
already answered this in a previous question.

PZ Yes.

NH I have here a photograph of the model of the Therme Baths, its an amazing image,
unfortunately when I saw the model it was indoors in the Kunsthaus, so the sun was not
shining through and casting the shadows shown in the photograph, was it your intention
to achieve this when you were building it and is it that successful?

PZ I think so, it was the stone and water and the build-
ing is the stone and water and sun, if you visit the building you will see this!

NH I also noticed that with this model you also used thestone you obviously used in the
building.

PZ Of course

NH But you used it at a different scale, to that of the model?

PZ At this time we didnt know how to do this with this gneiss, so we did it like this, this is
the basic idea, only later on we can see how we can produce this in the building

NH Yes, and with the floor in the model, were you using it to experiment with the layering
of the stone?

PZ Yes, exactly this.

NH Recently I saw an exhibition by a German artist,

Thomas Demand, he found photographs of a crime scene of a murder case in Germany
and he built models of the photographs he found, and then photographed the models and
then exhibited the photographs

PZ These are of crime scenes???

NH Yes the ones I saw were of crime scenes, he has done other works too, would you
ever.its quite an odd form of representation, but would you ever view a building as a
representation of one of your models?

PZ No

NH I have more questions about representation but Im not sure after what you said
earlier I should ask you!

PZ Up to you? (laughs)

NH (also laughs)
NH Ok, I read in Thinking Architecture that you talk
about the balancing act of materials, choosing 3 grams of a certain thing and I also
understand your material selection comes from your memories of opening a door handle
etc. Do you see this as a representation of your past in your buildings?

PZ No, just this is working with materials.

NH And its just your experiences of these materials?

PZ Im not so special about the atmospheres and the reactions of the materials, I think I
share this with most people, I have a certain feeling that most of the people have the
same feeling as me.

It has absolutely nothing to do with representation, but about making

NH Ok, I wanted to move on to how you are repre sented in the architectural media, and
people almost see you as a mystic figure in architecture and I wondered whether that was
your own doing or people reading into what you do and making their own assumptions?

PZ I do my work, I am completely focused on my work, Im not money driven, I have no

networking, I do not usually want to publish interviews like this (I only do one in ten!) this
gives some kind of representation. Its nothing special, I just want to concentrate on my
work, you cannot control the media. They do this and that and sometimes its stupid. Its
maybe how people can understand the way I work?

This we have nice work to do, and Im very happy I can do this, Ive never made a phone
call to anybody, Ive never made a phone call to anybody to publish or anything. The
work gets recognised and seen as beautiful, although I dont care.

NH I wanted to ask you about the same subject, theBruder Klaus Chapel, being a religious
building, a spiritual place, but because of its publicity, its become almost an architectural
tourist attraction, for want of a better expression. How do you feel about this?

PZ I have mixed feelings you know, if my colleague architects, most of all young
architects, if they are inspired to do something on their own which is to do with real
matter and real space and real use, dealing with use and function and space and all these
things, then I think its great! But just the other day I was in Frankfurt and the director of
the Kolumba Museum, he said a lot of people go there and comeback and they spend
their hours very quietly and comeback, there are people writing me letters, their best
friend died in early age, people I dont know, they tell me they go there to recover. They
go to the Kolumba museum for half a day and stay there and recover. They thank me for
this, of course beautiful. This happens with many, most of the buildings we do. And then
this guy the director says theres one type of visitor I hate, they dont understand
anything, and this is these architects, their professors walking them there taking
snapshots all over the place, so thats the bad part.

It depends.

NH Would you say then that you almost wish architects or architecture students didnt
visit this building?

PZ I told you if architects go there to be inspired to learn, thats fine, but if they go there
just to photograph the details so they can make their next study work in school, then this
is unbearable.

Its like real life, there are good things and bad things

NH I think I just wanted to finish with this last question here, Ive been reading an article
called Material Presence and Mystery of Objects by Pamela Self.

PZ By who?

NH Pamela Self

PZ Should I know her?

NH No, Ive got a copy of the article if you would like to have it?

PZ Ok

NH And she describes the work of the sculptor Richard Serra as

Serra encourages us to consider the effect of human action on materials, rather than
contemplate static form: the work and the process used to create are unified
In the baths at Vals you used the stone from the local quarry, for our atelier trip last year
we visited the quarry and Pius Truffer was kind enough to show and explain the amazing
process the stone goes through to arrive at the state in which it is used at the baths. Do
you feel it is important for people to acknowledge the process the materials go through in
you buildings?

For me this is particularly evident after visiting the quarry, but others surely can
appreciate the workmanship.

PZ Its not the primary thing I want to do I guess, the building has to be beautiful for its
use, and has to resonate of its place, so everything that helps me do that is ok.

What was the question, so that you can see how the material is processed?

NH Yes, exactly that.

PZ Thats not my starting point, I dont start there, and I have no actual starting points. I
want to create an architecture of atmosphere and many times I find that it helps me, that
the material helps me, like it helped Beuys to make sculptures, he uses this, and this and
this tree trunk to make his sculptures, to make his statement. It is quite similar in
architecture, I deal with real matter. So the concrete, this is usually much better to be
abstract to create the atmospheres.

NH And lastly I wanted to mention another person she quotes, Victor Sklovskji who
defines art as

means of experiencing the making of a thing

Would this apply to your architecture?

PZ Art is not architecture, architecture is architecture and Im doing architecture as

architecture not art. I have space to use and so on, you know so this is outside my real
(laughs)

NH Well thats it.

PZ Done?

NH Yes

PZ Good.

NH Thank you for your time.

Peter Zumthor exits to the left of the room, calmly walking away, from what I get the
impression has been a slight annoyance on his day, I sit there and tidy my notes, I
wanted to leave a copy of A Place of My Own by Michael Pollan there as a thank you.
Inside was a photograph of an installation that myself and fellow students had built on
the Columba Museum, Cologne, but after Zumthors answers to my questions it seemed
inappropriate perhaps even offensive to do so. I left the room to my right, replace my
slippers with shoes and left feeling slightly empty. Realising that Zumthor may not be the
mystic that everyone protrays him as, but instead very good at what he does.
P O S T E D BY N I C K AT 1 2 : 0 5

13 COMMENTS:

1.

Jeffrey W Ouellette29 April 2010 at 09:34

Nick,
I appreciate your enthusiasm and am jealous of your opportunity to speak
to him, but I must say you did set yourself up for failure.

I think the mistake most students (including myself many years ago),
acedemia, and media make is that we tend to deify those practitioners of
what we feel are the best and most inspirational works. This veneration is a
completely subjective and self-defeating act.

It is not that appreciating the architect and the work isn't important, but
making the architect and the work out to be more than the real case -
inferring more emotion, intellect, theory, didacticism, pedagogy, than the
reality - is insulting to the subject as well as the audience.

It is not that the depth may, or may not, be there, but that the
interpretation may be completely off. And many an author of many a work
are often confused or annoyed when their intent or meaning are
misconstrued.

No "star" architect should be seen as holding the intellectual keys to the

design universe. In fact, the "star architect" system is total crap. Often
times words and marketing are hyped over reality and today's heros
become tomorrows pariahs (e.g. Michael Graves, deservedly a pariah).

This is denigrating to the student and the rest of the profession. Everyone
should be able to reach for the best in design, but should also be subject to
the same criticism when they don't. I, for one, have many mixed feelings
about many of my "favorite" architects, only because I am disappointed by
their failures in light of some of their immense successes.

When we, both public and peers, give too much credence, even infatuation,
to a designer as intellectual beacon, or sublime aesthetic savior, we risk
the subject becoming caught up in that artifice and begin to believe all
their own BS as well as that directed toward them. They then really stray
from what they were doing in the first place, which was making stuff they
felt was good and their clients liked. Most times it is as simple as that, or
should be.

In the end, your final conclusion was right. He's not some buddha-design
mystic tied into something ethereal no one else is. He's just good at his job.
He has is own perspective about how to do architecture. He's entitled to
that, it is HIS work after all. Any critique, analysis, or discussion that is not
from his own mind, or referenced by himself is meaningless.