SS 2020

Bachelorstudiengang Architektur
Master’s degree programme in Architecture

Advanced Studio LANDSCAPE (EN)

Studio Tutors: Exploring Landscape.Studio Urs Egg and Vera Kaps

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (LANDSCAPE OF IMAGINATION)

fig. 1 Supersurface an Alternative Model of Life on the Earth, film by Superstudio, 3:40’

This semester we seek to navigate through the landscapes of our imagination and our day-
dreams, to be able to choose and conceive what must be the place. A site that will condition our
work mirrored by the knowledge of our perception. We will start by asking ourselves questions
regarding perception and what research and investigation and knowledge of perception might
mean for an architect—for us.
Robert Irwin is a highly respected American artist who has worked on numerous important
landscape projects and architectural interventions which he considers site conditioned work. We
will ponder upon Irwin’s Notes Toward a Model1 — an interesting theory of perception,
conception, of form and formalism.

1 Robert Irwin, Notes Toward Conditional Art, Notes Toward a Model; Getty Publications, Los Angeles, 2011
Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space2 is another source that we will use for understanding the
poetic terminology of space from a philosophical side. Simultaneously and most importantly, we
will work with various excerpts of texts or manifestos that are authored by visionary
architects—our dramatis personae—diving into their visionary world and body of work,
translating ideas and reflections as inspirational material that could be transferred and inscribed
into our own projects.

Our main focus however, lies in finding the place, writing an architectural program conditioned
by this very site. Transcending our program from paper to building according to our brief and
assignment.

(scenario — platonic dialogue)

PHAIDROS
Aber im Ernst, Sokrates, was hättest du getan als
Architekt?

SOKRATES
Was weiss ich?… Ich sehe nur, wie ich ungefähr
meine Gedanken gelenkt haben würde.

PHAIDROS
Lenke sie nun wenigstens bis an die Schwelle des
Gebäudes, das du nicht gebaut hast.3

Assignment /Aim:
Measure between your manifesto/brief and impersonation/dramatis personae and establish a
program questioning the census of the domestic. Observe and transcribe your quotes at hand
into architectural programs. Apply Paper Architecture and the seemingly unbuildable and bring
it to built form.

Es geht um die Form, darum, aus einem »unförmigen Haufen von Steinen« eine »Welt genauer
Kräfte« zu schaffen. »Die grösste Freiheit geht aus der grössten Strenge hervor.«4

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE (Naive Melody)

[…]
Home, is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from the other
I find you, or you find me?5

2 Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space; Beacon Press, Boston 1969

3 Paul Valéry, Eupalinos oder der Architekt, übertragen von Rainer Maria Rilke, pp.136–137; Edition Suhrkamp, 1973
4 ibid, Umschlagtext
5 Talking Heads, This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), Song performed in the movie, This Must Be the Place, by

Paolo Sorrentino, France 2011

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SS 2020
Bachelorstudiengang Architektur
Master’s degree programme in Architecture

Advanced Studio EXPLORING LANDSCAPE.STUDIO EXCURSION WEEK (EN)

Concept and Organisation: Anne Koskiluoma for Studio Urs Egg and Vera Kaps

A VOYAGE FROM 0° — LONDON TRIP

fig. 1 Francis Alÿs, Pebble Walk, 2005

EXPLORERS JOURNAL:
REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES1 IN THE CITY, ON LAND, BY THE RIVER, AND THE SEA
The Prime Meridian is an imaginary north/south line, our universally decided 0°longitude.
The line starts at the north pole, passes across the Royal Observatory in Greenwich,
England, and ends at the south pole. Its existence is purely abstract, yet it is a globally
unifying line that defines time and space. London is divided in north and south by its own
meandering version—the River Thames.
We want to haunt the streets2 of the Metropole that rose on the banks of this river.
We want to explore transitional areas—metaphorically and literally—where intermingling
waters are in constant motion and the tidal currents flow in two directions. We’ll invent our
own formats of documentations—travelogues as initial for THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.
cost estimate all expenses CHF/€ 1500

1
James Cook, The Journals, Remarkable Occurrences on Board His Majestys Bark Endeavour: Penguin Classics, London 2003
2 Virginia Woolf, Street Haunting, A London Adventure: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/street-haunting-an-essay-by-
virginia-woolf