My Blue Heaven: The Architecture of Atmospheres

Author(s): Ákos Moravánszky

Source: AA Files, No. 61 (2010), pp. 18-22
Published by: Architectural Association School of Architecture
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/29546062
Accessed: 15-04-2020 17:52 UTC

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The Architecture of
Today no exhibition of contemporary art seems
complete without the by now familiar rooms
behind black curtains, where the certainty of
the seen is replaced by the mystique of appear?
ance, remindingthe visitor of Plato's cave. The
popular success of installations such as Olafur
Eliasson's Weather Project at T?te Modern in
London shows a growing social empathy for
immersive artificial environments. Diller+
Scofidio's Blur Building (aka The Cloud) was
the main attraction at the 2002 Swiss National
Exhibition in Yverdon-les-Bains and Peter
Zumthor's thermal baths continue to draw
crowds to the small Alpine village of Vals.
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My Blue Heaven:
Atmospheres
?kos Moravdnszky
When Zumthor's Kunsthaus in Bregenz was
inaugurated with an exhibition of James
TurrelPs boxes offering 'physical-sensual and
psychological-existential border experiences',
the organisers stressed the connection between
the architectural and artistic concepts.1
The term empathy was first used by nine?
teenth-century German theorists of aesthetic
perception like Robert Vischer and Theodor
Lipps to describe the projection of the feelings
of the observing subject into the observed arte?
fact - a kind of aesthetic sympathy between a
work of art and the person looking at it, which
links the sensual to the spiritual by animating
Monte Rosa hut, 2009
eth Zurich
Photo Tonatiuh Ambosetti
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the object.2 Developing this thought further,
we may call social empathy the enthusiasm
with which the general public, or a social group,
reacts to the thrills of immersive environments
from Wellness spas to 3D-cinema performances.
This social empathy is rooted in a political and
economic sphere - for example, the popularity
of panoramas in the nineteenth century is
directly connected to the idea of conveniently
arranging history in concentric circles around
the bourgeois subject. This arrangement is now
being completed with all the other, non-optical
aspects of spatiality: with haptic, acoustic, olfac?
tory and even gustatory gestures. The German
18 AA FILES 6l
philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has demonstrated
in his trilogy Spheres how our lives are deter?
mined by atmospheric conditions. Until now,
Sloterdijk maintains, philosophers have been
mostly concerned with objects and subjects,
and have not noticed that today we all live in the
interiors of atmospheric and meteorological
spheres. But with the bursting of economic and
ecological bubbles, we are slowly becoming
aware of our present condition as participants
in experiments on a global scale, which we can?
not even fully grasp.
The connection between the enthusiasm for
atmospheres and a new environmental aware?
ness might appear obvious. It could be seen as
the result of observing the sky, the clouds and
the rain not simply as parts of the ever-changing
nature whose caprices we admire, but as fragile
entities which are under threat and can no
longer be taken for granted. However, the inter?
est in atmospheres in Swiss architecture first
appeared not as the result of climate-conscious
thinking but as a turn in architectural theory. It
was an alternative to considering architecture a
language, the widespread argument of architec?
tural theorists from the 1960s on. The popular
studies by John Summerson, Bruno Zevi and
Charles Jencks on the 'classical', 'modern' and
'postmodern* languages of architecture, respec?
tively, prepared the ground for a semiotic
approach in architectural theory.3
Jenseits der Zeichen - Beyond the Signs - this
short phrase appears again and again, with only
minor variations, in numerous works by Swiss
architects and critics of architecture during the
late 80s, as if referring to a border on our cogni?
tive map. On one side of the border is the empire
of signs - surveyed by such illustrious travellers
as Roland Barthes or Umberto Eco, and beyond
it, the realm of immediate experience, knowing
by 'face to face', undistorted by the mirror of
reflection and interpretation. But strangely
enough, the realm of atmospheres is shrouded
by clouds and fog, indicating that vision alone
cannot lead to knowledge. The term atmosphere
refers to the layer of air surrounding our planet,
retained by the earth's gravity. The atmosphere
protects life on earth by absorbing ultraviolet
solar radiation and reducing the fluctuations
of temperature between day and night. But the
meteorological phenomenon of clouds as fine
droplets of water suspended in the atmosphere
has always been understood as signs - of an
approaching storm, a reversal of fortune or,
as in the conversation between Hamlet and
Polonius, as ever-changing images of a camel,
weasel or whale.
Contemporary Swiss architecture is gener?
ally seen as pragmatic; Swiss critics claim that
architects like Peter M?rkli or Gigon & Guyer
follow the 'minimal tradition' of Max Bill.* The
so-called Swiss boxes, with their fetishist use
of opulent materials and perfect detailing, are
AA FILES 6l 19
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therefore seen as the late capitalist, polished ver?
sion of the modernist dream of mass-produced
houses; in this sense, their austerity appears as
the diametric counterpart of the aesthetic sub?
jectivism of atmospheric arrangement. But this
contrast is misleading. Aldo Rossi, whose per?
sonality and work long held Swiss architects
under their spell, was already a master of sailing
under false colours. Rossi was a guest professor
at the Federal Polytechnical Institute (eth) in
Zurich between 1972 and 1974, where he had the
task of luring leftist students back to the drafting Things'), originally a lecture he gave in Santa
table. Ironically, as a member of the Italian
Communist Party, he had to convince them
to abandon the political activism which had
marked the years before his arrival. In The
Architecture of the City, written before he came
to Zurich, he claimed to have established a
scienza urbana, an urban science, applying
Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic theory to
the study offatti urbani (urban artefacts).5
However, his intention to use this rigorous sci?
entific method of semiotics soon evaporated,
giving way to a more 'atmospheric' approach.
In his Scientific Autobiography he remembered:
Just standing in Sant Andrea in Mantua I had
this first impression of the relation between tempo,
in its double atmospheric and chronological sense,
and architecture; I saw the fog enter the basilica,
as I often love to watch it penetrate the Galleria in
Milan: it is the unforeseen element that modifies
and alters, like light and shadow, like stones worn
smooth by the feet and hands of generations of men.
Perhaps this alone was what interested me in archi?
tecture:! knew that architecture was made possible
by the confrontation of a preciseform with time
and the elements, a confrontation which lasted
until theform was destroyed in the process of this
combat. Architecture was one of the ways that
humanity had sought to survive; it was a way of
expressing the fundamental search for happiness.6
Rossi's search for happiness, which has an
almost obsessive presence on the pages ofhis
Scientific Autobiography, results in many descrip?
tions of atmospheric moments, like village festi?
vals 'where the theatre shines its lights into the
persistent fog'.7 No wonder Rossi's former asso?
ciates in Zurich, first of all Martin Steinmann
and Bruno Reichlin, started asking questions
about the limits of semiotics in architectural
theory. Reichlin's essay, 'Jenseits der Zeichen',
was published in March 2001 in the journal of
the Union of German Architects, Der Architekt.
This text reports on the 'growing aversion'
among the younger generation of architects
'against any theoretical construct which tries
to explain in form of a rational discourse both
the creative search for meaning in the design
process and the critical reception of the work'.8
Reichlin contrasts this rationality - probably
alluding to Rossi's 'forms of exalted coolness'9 -
with the 'warm belly of architecture'10 that the
younger generation was seeking:
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Venturi's symbolism or Rossi's rational-poetic
analogies seemed to turn the warm union with the
body of architecture cold, the union with something
thought as authentic, basic, natural, archetypal,
primary, anchored in the world of senses rather
than that of the signs, which can be characterised
in any case as more 'physical', touching, more 'able
to generate moods'.11
Peter Zumthor chose 'Beyond the Signs'
as a subtitle to an even earlier essay, 'Eine
Anschauung der Dinge' ('A Way of Looking at
Monica in 1988, which was published ten years
later in his book ArchitekturDenken (Thinking
Architecture).12 Comparing Zumthor's and
Reichlin's texts, it is immediately apparent that
Zumthor is not criticising Venturi's symbolism
or Rossi's rationalism. He quotes Venturi's
dictum - 'main street is almost all right' - to
emphasise the ambiguity and vagueness of
'postmodern life': 'Everything merges into every?
thing else, and mass communications creates an
artificial world of signs. Arbitrariness prevails.'13
Zumthor, unlike Reichlin, has no desire for the
'warm belly of architecture', he is looking for
'das wahre Ding' (the real thing) which is beyond
the reach of the semiotic analysis:
The world is full of signs and information which
standfor things that no one understands because
they, too, turn out to be mere signs for other things.
Yet the real thing remains hidden. No one ever gets
to see it Nevertheless, I am convinced that real
things do exist, however endangered they may be...
[They]are what they are, which are not mere vehi?
cles for an artistic message, and whose presence is
self-evident... [When we look at things that]seem to
be at peace with themselves, [it is]as if we could see
something on which we cannotfocus our conscious?
ness. Here, in this perceptual vacuum, a memory
may surface, a memory that seems to issuefrom the
depths of time. Now, our observation of the object
embraces a presentiment ofthe world in all its
wholeness because there is nothing that cannot
be understood... There is a power in the ordinary
things of everyday life.1*
It seems that Zumthor is interested here
in something other than the simplicity and
concentration of the formeforte (strong form)
that critics like Martin Steinmann associate
with the minimal tradition of Swiss architecture.
Steinmann, in his essay 'Form f?r eine Archi?
tektur-Diesseits der Zeichen' ('Form for an
Architecture - On this Side of the Signs') wrote:
Semiology has made a very important contribu?
tion in the past 20 years, identifying the mechanism
of meaning. But it has also become increasingly
clear that forms can bring about perceptions which
cannot be traced back to otherforms to which they
would refer, and those again to others... This per?
manent regression is the limit of semiology: there
must be a point where forms are their own mean?
ings. This corresponds with the finding that we are
fascinated by things but cannot explain ourfeelings
 in terms of an earlier experience with those things.
There must be forms - or shapes - which are inde
pendentfrom the experience of the individual,
which derive their meaning from their relationship
to basic laws of perception.15
In these statements, summarised here in
an abbreviated form, Reichlin and Steinmann
wanted to give their voice to a younger, disaf?
fected generation of architects. While conveying
the reasons for the dissatisfaction, they could
not suppress their concerns, suspecting a cer?
tain degree of old-style anti-intellectualism
behind the new calls for aesthetic immediacy.
A paradigmatic example of the search for
meaning 'beyond the signs' was the Swiss
Pavilion at the Expo 2000 world exhibition in
Hanover, Germany by Peter Zumthor. Made
from 45,000 freshly cut wooden boards, stacked
9m high as if in a timber yard, it looked like the
archetypal Swiss box. The walls divided the inte?
rior space in a labyrinthine pattern. The larch
and douglas fir boards were pressed together
by steel tension cables without any bolts or
screws, so that the timber, which came from
the sawmills of 13 Swiss cantons using wood
cut in 85 towns and villages, could be reused
after the exhibition.
The motto of Zumthor's competition project
was Batterie (battery), a reference not only to the
layered structure of old electric batteries but,
more eminently, to the work of the German artist
Joseph Beuys. For Beuys, the battery was the sym?
bol of the accumulation of social energy, which
had an iconic expression in the dense layering of who have reframed philosophical aesthetics as
warm materials such as felt or copper. The bat? the study of perception, abandoning its focus
tery symbolises the tension in the combination on high art. Their concept of atmosphere allows
of materials - energy, tension and atmosphere - an investigation into the primary condition of
Gesamtkunstwerk, materials that charge each
other' - comments Zumthor. What impresses
him in the work of Beuys and the Arte Povera
group is the 'precise and sensuous way they use
materials. It seems anchored in an ancient, ele?
mental knowledge about man's use of materials,
and at the same time able to expose the very
essence of these materials, which is beyond all
culturally conveyed meaning. I try to use materi?
als like this in my work.'16
Whether a work by Beuys, like the wooden
piece titled Wet Laundry Virgin, actually affects
us without tapping into any 'culturally conveyed
meaning' is, however, debatable. The title sug?
gests that materials are knowingly employed to
conjure associations with cleanliness and fertil?
ity very much in accord with the iconography of
Christian art. Form-giving, stressed Zumthor,
is the conversion of energy from a disorderly
into a crystalline state. The allegorical use of
substances like wood, felt, fat or honey places
Beuys at the centre of creation; it is the touch of
the artist that converts these raw materials into
meaningful, poetic things. Zumthor under?
stands his own work in a similar way: 'I believe
that they [the materials] can assume a poetic
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quality in the context of an architectural object
... since materials in themselves are not poetic.'17
The name which was finally given to the
Swiss Pavilion in Hanover was Klangk?rper, a
'Sounding Body', like that of a musical instru?
ment. The juxtaposition of perceptions by the
senses - the 'sound picture' of Switzerland pre?
sented by musicians walking around and impro?
vising on folk and jazz instruments, the smell
of the wood, the haptic quality of the layered con?
struction, the simple 'finger food' of the country
- created the kind of atmosphere which Reichlin
was referring to when he mentioned the 'warm
belly of architecture'. Instead of a catalogue, visi?
tors could purchase a Klangk?rperbuch, a kind
of dictionnaire raisonne of the pavilion, organ?
ised in alphabetically ordered articles. The entry
on atmosphere states:
Atmosphere: the quality of the Klangk?rper
which is perceivable by the senses. It is especially
noticeable in particular buildings, situations or
spaces. Atmospheres are difficult to grasp by scien?
tific or technical means. Nevertheless they can be
generated and they are an essential part of the per?
ception of architecture. There is new research and
publication activity on the atmospheric outside
of the realm ofarchitecture [Hermann Schmitz,
Gernot B?hme). > Energy > Theatricality [mise-en
scenej > materials mutually charging each other >
music > musicians as co-composers > text projec?
tion > stage direction > drinking and eating.18
This reference reveals the influence of the
two German philosophers Schmitz and B?hme,
aesthetic perception, the everyday experience
affected by moods and corporeal presence that
is usually neglected by theorists of aesthetics.
Speaking about atmospheres also means to
reject the usual reduction of perception to the
merely visual. Gernot B?hme describes atmos?
phere as having an ambiguous ontological sta?
tus, beyond the great divide of object and
subject: atmospheres are sensed, felt, and yet
they are touching us as very real. B?hme's essay
'On Synaesthesia', published in 1991 in the
Berlin architectural journal Daidalos, sum?
marises the concept. Atmosphere is, according
to him, the 'primary and, to a certain degree,
basic object of perception', a totality 'in which
all particulars are embedded'.19 He explains
atmospheres as suspended in space, as exten?
sions ('extases') of matter: an object like a blue
jug, for example, shows its presence as a kind of
radiation: the colour blue can be located as the
colour of this object, but still the blue affects the
whole environment, resisting objectification.
Furthermore, the colour blue has a synaesthetic
character, as it is connected with a melancholic
mood and deep, soft tones. Synaesthesia, as the
Greek origin of the word suggests [ovv - together
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and aioGnoig = sensation), is the eross-sensory
experience of connecting, for instance, colours
to sounds, as in Rimbaud's poem 'Voyelles'.
Atmospheres generate sensations. They are
not mere projections; they touch us as real, as
part of our environment. Atmospheres are felt
by intuition, unrefleeted: the environment radi?
ates a certain mood, and the observer partici?
pates in that mood with his or her sensitivity:
'Perception qua sensitivity is presence which can
be sensed. In turn atmospheres are the manner
in which things and environments "present"
themselves.'20 B?hme speaks of'quasi-objective
sensations'. He demonstrates in a more recent
book on architecture and atmospheres (using
examples such as the dusk, light, city, music
and church space) the potential of the notion
of atmosphere, allowing a new, surprising
perspective on familiar phenomena.21 He gives
some examples:
For example one leaves a lively street and
enters a church. Or one enters aflat that one is not
yet familiar with. Or one stops for a rest on a car
trip, takes a few steps and suddenly has a view of
the sea. In such primary situations it becomes clear
what is perceived first and, above all, in detail; in
a certain sense it is space itself- space not taken in
the Kantian sense of the pure observation of things
existing external and adjacent to one another, but
as the emotionally influenced restrictions orexpan
siveness which one enters, the overwhelmingflu
idum. We call this the atmosphere, borrowing our
terminology from Hermann Schmitz.12
In B?hme's argument, the aesthetics of
atmospheres helps to overcome the usual
divisions not only between object and subject,
but between high and everyday culture as well.
Artists, stage designers, interior decorators,
cosmeticians or 'salespeople creating the
atmosphere in a supermarket' are all 'aesthetic
workers'.23
What makes the reader sceptical, however,
is B?hme's reference to situations that are cul?
turally unspecific. 'One enters a flat and is over?
whelmed by the philistine atmosphere. One
enters a church and has the feeling of being
shrouded in a holy gloom. One catches sight of
the sea and is swept off into the distance. It is
only against this background or in this atmos?
phere that the details can be distinguished.'24
Although he notices the 'aesthetic position' of
the perceiving subject, this position is not exam?
ined further in the analysis; it is not even taken
into account. Thus it is assumed that there
would be an affective accommodation to
atmospheric phenomena, devoid of all cultural
conditioning - as if atmospheres would be expe?
rienced by everybody in the same way. But it is
obvious that the perception of the 'philistine
atmosphere' of an apartment is dependent on
the social and cultural position, education and
former experiences of the observer - as is the
appreciation of the 'tuned space' in Zumthor's
20 AA FILES 6l
Gugalun house. This indicates that the percep?
tion of atmospheres is culturally mediated
indeed. A detailed analysis of the perception
and interpretation of atmospheres seems neces?
sary, an analysis which would investigate the
cultural codes, thereby using the methods
provided by semiotics.
Similarly, the Swiss pavilion in Hanover
poses the question: what kind of knowledge
must the visitor possess to connect the atmos?
phere with the idea of Switzerland? The com?
ments in the guestbook show that many were
puzzled by the simplicity of the form and the
overwhelming presence of the stacked wood,
and were asking how the building was meant
to be read.
There is a clear difference between Zumthor's
explanations about how his architecture works
and his careful strategies to determine the
conditions of perception - the ways to direct the
observer's attention, to frame or screen off cer?
tain views. He emphasises the necessity of fram?
ing himself:
Beauty always appears to me in settings, in
clearly delimited pieces of reality, object-like or
in the manner of a still-life or like a self-contained
scene, composed to perfection without the least
trace of effort or artificiality. Everything is as it
should be; everything in its place. Nothing jars,
no overstated arrangement, no critique, no accusa?
tion, no alien intentions; no commentary, no mean?
ing. The experience is unintentional. What I see
is the thing itself It captivates me. The picture
that I see has the effect of a composition that
appears extremely natural to me and the same
time extremely artful in its naturalness.25
This corresponds with Uvedale Price's
description of the picturesque, as artfully staged
naturalness that strikes the observer as unin?
tended, the result of chance. Nature, as per?
ceived from the reclining beds of the relaxation
room of the thermal baths in Vals, is a carefully
edited nature showing idyllic pastures on the
green hill slopes. The new construction nearby,
everything that would potentially conflict with
this idyll, has been edited out. Zumthor declares
his authorship, taking full credit for the per?
ceived unity of the result: 'I watch myself now
and tell you... what drives me when I am trying
to generate the atmosphere of my houses. And
it is clear, these answers are highly personal,
I have no others. They are personal, individual;
they are probably even sensitivities, personal
sensitivities.'26
Zumthor's recent book>itmospheres, from
which this quote is taken, is based on a lecture
that he gave in the bam of Wendlingshausen
castle in June 2003. He talks in this lecture about
what matters most to him when creating atmos?
pheres. It's almost all too familiar, when it
comes to the nuts and bolts of the technique.
As we might expect, he emphasises the material
presence of things, what he calls 'the body of
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architecture', and the harmony of materials:
'Materials resonate, they start to shine, and such
compositions are something unique... take a
stone, and you can saw it, sand it, drill it, split it,
polish it, and each time it will be something dif?
ferent. .. Then take it to the light and it will be
different again.'27 'The sound of space' - its
acoustic qualities - mean that it functions as a
musical instrument, collecting sounds, amplify?
ing and transmitting them. 'The temperature of
space' requires that every building has a certain
temperature, and the designer has to find 'the
correct pitch'. 'The things around me' come
next, the recognition that a building attracts a
wealth of things not intended by the architect: it
is this which gives it 'a sense of home'. 'Between
composure and seduction', the 'tension between
inside and outside', the 'steps of intimacy' and
finally, 'the light on things' are the further ingre?
dients of atmospheric arrangement, exemplified
by Zumthor's own work and his account of mem?
orable spaces and movies.
The young generation of Swiss architects is
wary of following such recipes, and is making
even more radical demands for an architecture
'beyond the signs'. Philippe Rahm, an architect
from the French-speaking cantons, emphasised
in his manifesto Meteorological Architecture:
The tools of architecture must become invisible
and light, producing places like free, open land?
scapes, a new geography, different kinds of meteor?
ology; renewing the idea of form and use between
sensation and phenomenon, between the neurolog?
ical and the meteorological, between the physiolog?
ical and the atmospheric. These become spaces
with no meaning, no narrative; interpretable
spaces in which margins disappear, structures
dissolve and limits vanish. It is no longer a case
of building images and functions, but of opening
climates and interpretations; working on space,
on the air and its movements, on the phenomena
of conduction, perspiration and convection as tran?
sitory and fluctuating meteorological conditions
that become the new paradigms of contemporary
architecture.2*
Rahm's Digestible Gulf Stream, exhibited at
the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale, is a good
example of this techno-pastoral vision: a group
of naked youngsters camp out on floating hori?
zontal planes on different levels, clearly enjoying
the stream of warm air flowing between the plat?
forms. He stresses that by manipulating climate
he is modulating time, not space:
Making certain climates swell punctually or
momentarily, naturalising a context or on the con?
trary, distancing it even more, creating moments,
genera ting weather changes, projecting seasons
and days, specialising functions, shortening or
amplifying distances, reducing the length of the
days or creating a never-ending night, here and
there. Architecture projects time, in fact whole days
are built. Here, architecture generates no symbol
or function but time, seasons and days to physically
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inhabit. It affects and shifts time, prolongs and pro?
vokes suspended and supernatural moments, out
of astronomical rhythms.29
Rahm stresses in his comments the ecologi?
cal correctness of his proposals, and remains
silent about the desires of his Garden of Eden
for the senses. His proposal has a hedonistic and
an environmentally conscious aspect. Should we
understand it as a call to save the Earth's atmos?
phere or as a technique to control our bodies?
By isolating the generally neglected component
of climate, he conducts a scientific experiment,
turning the house into a laboratory. Can we take
this as a critical project?
Bruno Latour, in a text on Olafur Eliasson's
Weather Project, observes that a scientist or a
philosopher of science used to work in a closed
site, 'the laboratory, where a small group of spe?
cialised experts scaled down phenomena that
they could repeat at will through simulations or
modelling before presenting their results. Then,
and only then, could they be diffused, applied,
or tried out in the public sphere.'30 This he calls
the 'trickling down' theory of the dissemination
of knowledge: 'from a confined centre of rational
enlightenment, knowledge emerged and then
slowly spread out to the rest of the society. The
public could choose to find out the results of
the laboratory tests or remain indifferent to
them, but certainly could not add to them, dis?
pute them, far less contribute to their elabora?
tion. Experiments were undergone by animals,
materials, figures and software. Outside of the
laboratory was the realm of experience - not
experiment.'31
By declaring that architecture is meteorol?
ogy, Rahm wants to provoke: he wants architec?
ture to finally realise the deficits of the almost
obsessive search for meaning, and of position?
ing 'meaning' and 'understanding' almost exclu?
sively within the realm of the visual. But he also
calls attention to the architect's responsibility to
understand the delights and dangers of atmos?
pheric Utopias as the invisible realms of power.
Many philosophers of the Enlightenment
sought to explain human qualities through the
particularities of regional climate. Medical, polit?
ical and ethical issues of the discourse on climate
informed various cultural projects. Tropical cli?
mate was understood as a cause for degeneracy
and debility, later described as a zone of parasitic
fecundity. In the work of Rahm or in the installa?
tions of the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
we might see tropicalism as a sign of escapism,
but one that connects abstraction with the sug?
gestion of equatorial fecundity. Rahm uses the
laboratory atmosphere as a technological sub?
lime, as 'second nature'. This time, nature is not
the 'other' of reason, but a product of technology.
His more recent work suggests a recognition
that constructing tropicality means construct?
ing a place where the limits of an addictive hedo?
nism become visible, where the boring electric
sunshine of a solarium mixes with the fluorescent
light of an autopsy room, as in the opening scenes
of Matteo Garrone's film Gomorrah.
Climate, although generally understood as
an element of nature, is also a cultural category
and, as such, is frequently used to advance a
wide range of interests - political, social or eco?
nomic. The year 1973 marked a first break with
the dream of the society of excess, as signified
by the image of erupting oil gushers. Faced now
with the melancholy of limited resources, the
aesthetics of atmospheres might prepare the
ground for a more responsible way of life. A
building has to resist the weather, but it must
also be iconic, in order to advance the goals of
environmentally conscious architecture. The
new mountain shelter on Monte Rosa in the
Swiss Alps, designed by Andrea Deplazes and
a team from the eth Zurich, is an example of
environmental autarchy, depending on outside
sources for only 10 per cent of its energy.32 Still, it
is an ambiguous object: while almost entirely
cut off from the physical energy networks, it is
very much part of the socio-economic networks
of attention-making. Commissioned by the
Swiss Alpine Club, whose simple, saddle-roofed
huts have provided basic accommodation for
generations of mountain-climbers, this new
shelter offers new luxuries: comfortable beds,
hot showers and last but not least an iconicity
which allows its creator and main sponsor, the
eth Zurich, to situate itself as a powerhouse
of environment-conscious technology.33
In the diffuse sphere of atmospheric space,
ecological abstinence blends with hedonism.
The planned eco-cities in the oil states promise
true miracles: you save the environment while
skiing down a slope inside an energy-saving
hall, just as you support the economy in Europe for something that is absent (think of Magritte's
by wrecking your old car and purchasing a new (non-)pipe, or Duchamp's Fountain). As material
one: save while spending, the old advertising slo? objects, they have their own 'atmospheres' -
gan is still effective. Technology got us into this when we look at them, we are not just 'decoders'.
mess, technology will get us out of it - architects Perception and semiotic interpretation are tem?
and engineers proudly present their latest poral, intersecting processes, actively involved
'green' products, and politicians urgently need in the production of meaning.
spectacular results. The essential conflict between 'Swiss boxes'
It is interesting to see how contemporary and 'atmospheres', as interpretational schemes,
concerns regarding climate change and environ? seems to be one of shifting values as 'Swiss
mental erosion are paralleled in earlier environ? boxes' started to look dull: well-crafted but
mental projects that emerged from an era of cold devoid of interest. Donald Judd's dictum,
war anxiety. From Buckminster Fuller's urban 'boring the public is one way of testing its com?
dome over Manhattan to the inflatable Suitaloon mitment'35 loses its appeal in an environment
by Archigram's David Greene, there is a consis? where editors and curators are on the lookout
tent interest in the customisable protective for new, surprising and interesting work. In the
climate at different scales. As Peter Sloterdijk Swiss context, the boxes are not replaced by a
argued, we live in the interiors of spheres: bub? radically different aesthetics (like, for instance,
bles, globes and foams are not mere metaphors, 'blobs'), but are rather re-framed by architec?
they determine our thinking, and decide our tural critics as atmospheric containers. While in
destiny.34 Some bubbles might burst - for architectural criticism this might appear a radi?
instance, the 'real estate bubble' - but this only cal change, the work analysed here proves that
transfers us into the interior of another bubble architects perceived as minimalists never really
of economic experimentation. subscribed to some of minimal art's core con?
We have seen that works such as the Swiss cepts, such as the non-referential relationship
pavilion in Hanover or the Monte Rosa shelter of the object to the world of things - as demon?
unfold their impact through processes which strated by Zumthor's search for the 'real thing'.
can be analysed using the methods of semiology. While architectural critics saw the 'New
We are not searching 'beyond the signs'; on Simplicity' of Swiss architecture through the
the contrary, the theory of signs can help us to eyes of Arnheim, Barthes or Eco, architects
understand the perception of atmospheres. By like Zumthor spoke for most of the time in the
looking at the situations where this perception language of Heidegger, Handke and Wallace
takes place, we can consider how it depends on Stevens, which had a 'strong emotional
the attention stimulated and guided by texts and impact'.36 This does not mean that we liked
other media. But the study of the semiotics of Swiss architecture for the wrong reasons, but
non-verbal sign systems is also essential. Signs demonstrates once again that the simplicity
have their own presence and materiality, and of 'Swiss box' is a precondition for the 'fog',
are therefore not mere substitutes, placeholders the unattainability of its content.

1. Kunsthaus Bregenz, Besucherinfor?
mation: James Turrell Lichtr?ume
(information flyer for visitors, 1997).
2. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios
Ikonomou (eds), Empathy, Form and
Space: Problems in German Aesthetics,
1873-1893 (Santa Monica, ca: Getty
Research Institute, 1994).
3. John Summerson, The Classical
Language of Architecture (Cambridge,
ma: mit Press, 1963); Bruno Zevi,
The Modern Language of Architecture
(Seattle, wa: University of Washington
Press, 1978); Charles Jencks, The
Language of Post-Modern Architecture
(New York: Rizzoli, 1977).
4. Karin Gimmi (ed), Minimal Tradition:
Max Bill und die 'einfache'Architektur
1942-1996 (Baden: Lars M?ller, 1996).
5. Aldo Rossi, The Architecture of the City
(Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1982), p 29.
6. Aldo Rossi,^ Scientific Autobiography
(Cambridge, ma: mit Press, 1981), p 5.
7. Ibid,p30.
8. Bruno Reichlin, 'Jenseits der Zeichen',
Der Architekt, March 2001, p 62.
9. Aldo Rossi, op cit, p 5.
10. Bruno Reichlin, op cit, p 62.
11. Ibid.
12. Peter Zumthor, 'Eine Anschauung der
Dinge', in Peter Zumthor, Architektur
Denken (Baden: Lars M?ller, 1998), p 16.
In the subsequent English edition of
the book the title of this chapter is
translated as 'Beyond the Symbols'.
13. Peter Zumthor, 'A Way of Looking at
Things', in Peter Zumthor, Thinking
Architecture, third edition (Basel:
Birkh?user, 2010), p 16.
14. Ibid,piy.
15. Martin Steinmann, 'Form f?r eine
Architektur - Diesseits der Zeichen',
Faces-Journald'architecture 19, Spring
1991, quoted by Reichlin, op cit, p 68.
16. Ibid,p8.
17. Ibid, p 10.
18. Peter Zumthor with Plinio Bachmann,
Karoline Gruber et al, Klangk?rperbuch:
Lexikon zum Pavillon der Schweizerischen
Eidgenossenschaft an der Expo 2000 in
Hannover (Basel: Birkh?user, 2000),
pp 17-18.
19. Gernot B?hme, 'On Synaesthesiae',
Daidalos 41, September 1991, p 34.
20. Ibid, p 35.
21. Gernot B?hme, Architektur und Atmos?
ph?re (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2006).
22. Gernot B?hme, 'On Synaesthesia', op cit,
P34
23. Ibid,pij.
24. Ibid,p3$.
25. Peter Zumthor, Thinking Architecture,
op cit, p 76.
26. Peter Zumthor, A tmosph?ren:
Architektonische Umgebungen-DieDinge
im mich herum (Basel: Birkh?user, 2006),
p21.
27. Ibid.
28. Philippe Rahm, Meteorological
Architecture, manuscript.
29. Philippe Rahm, 'Architecture Invisible',
in Centre CulturelSuisse 2003-2005 (Paris:
Centre culturel suisse, 2006), p 167.
30. Bruno Latour, 'Atmosphere', in Olafur
Eliasson, The WeatherProject (London:
T?te Gallery, 2003), pp 29-41.
31. Ibid.
32. eth Studio Monte Rosa, Faculty of
Architecture, eth Zurich, professor
Andrea Deplazes, Marcel Baumgartner
(project head), Kai Hellat; Bearth &
Deplazes Architekten ag, Chur/Zurich,
Daniel Ladner.
33. eth Zurich (ed), New Monte Rosa Hut:
Self-sufficient Building in the High Alps
(Zurich: gta Verlag, 2010).
34. Bubbles, Globes and Foams are the titles
of three volumes of Peter Sloterdijk's
trilogy Spheres. Peter Sloterdijk, Sph?ren
(Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, vol 1
i998,voln 1999, vol in 2004).
35. DonaldJudd, 'Specific Objects',Arts
Yearbook 8 (New York: Art Digest, 1965),
p78.
36. Peter Zumthor, 'The Hard Core of
Beauty', in Peter Zumthor, op cit, p 29.

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