gang olsena to our Polish friends...
the office went to germany for a mere 2½ days. I had borrowed a D200 with a 16 Gb memory card from my father-in-law, so you will be there a good deal longer :)
Tags: seier+seier CC creative commons
bruder klaus kapelle, germany, completed 2007.
architect: peter zumthor, b.1943
I found that triangular door difficult to stomach and I am still troubled with the way it makes all my photos from the feldkapelle look like new age posters, but the shape is entirely consistent with the internal logic of the building and I like it when architecture offers resistance. time is on the side of stones, so to speak.
more zumthor.
Tags: peter zumthor peter zumthor pritzker prize bruder klaus chapel kapelle concrete beton brut wall architecture architektur arkitektur entrance triangular door cross seier+seier CC creative commons
bruder klaus kapelle, germany, completed 2007.
architect: peter zumthor, b.1943
by nature architecture is a spiritual discipline, reflecting our values, ideas, aspirations. to the trained or sensitive eye, buildings give their makers away, expressing even their greed, opportunism, their base materialism if nothing better is on offer.
we perceive this instinctively for the most part, but with religious buildings everybody looks for meaning. in answer, zumthor offers a refined little riddle of a building, at all stages offering us clues, at no time displaying overt symbolism.
the interior concrete surface of the chapel makes the old brutalists look a little timid by comparison. as they would have appreciated, it reflects the process of construction, an aspect of architecture neglected by most architects today.
in life, we are judged by our actions, and architecture, as ruskin taught us long ago when he established the moral superiority of gothic based on the working conditions of its artisan builders, is no different.
for the chapel, zumthor developed a primitive building technique which could be - as I have understood it - executed by the people expected to use it afterwards.
trees felled in the vicinity were tied together in a tee-pee shape which became the inner formwork, triangular in section. the outer formwork was a much simpler vertical slipform. a dry concrete mortar was stamped into the cavity between the two forms. finally, a slow-burning fire was lit on the floor, drying out and shrinking the tree trunks, disengaging them but at the same time blackening the walls.
the process is explained much better here.
the building you meet is less primitive than its construction. I was immediately struck by the concrete. the technology of using dry mortar is roman in origin and that seemed a perfect starting point for what is essentially a roman catholic shrine. when the door was opened, the dark triangular space seemed to tell a very different story. "gothic", was my first thought but then, as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the imprint of the tree trunks took on an overpowering presence, reminding me of roman descriptions of meetings with their germanic neighbours and how the kings would hold court in simple log houses.
I don't believe there is a linear narrative waiting to be uncovered in the succession of apparent contradictions but there is a sense of being connected with the entire history of architecture, of witnessing a dialogue through time, in the way some of louis kahn's or utzon's buildings do.
if anything, the almost violent texture of the torched concrete brings us closer to certain conditions in modern art - zumthor has mentioned the arte povera movement as an inspiration.
again, thanks to chris for making us go out there.
more zumthor.
more words, yada, yada, yada.
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Tags: peter zumthor peter zumthor pritzker prize bruder klaus chapel kapelle concrete beton brut brutalist brutalism texture wall entrance light religious architecture architektur arkitektur jenskristianseier seier+seier CC creative commons
olmo looking suitably pious.
bruder klaus kapelle, germany, completed 2007.
architect: peter zumthor, b.1943
more zumthor.
Tags: peter zumthor peter zumthor pritzker prize bruder klaus chapel kapelle concrete beton brut brutalist brutalism texture wall light architecture architektur arkitektur seier+seier CC creative commons
bruder klaus kapelle, germany, completed 2007.
architect: peter zumthor, b.1943.
I left the place humming also sprach zarathustra. not entirely fitting, but for a moment there it was difficult not to think of kubrick.
more zumthor.
Tags: peter zumthor peter zumthor pritzker prize bruder klaus chapel kapelle stele monument concrete beton brut wall architecture architektur arkitektur stanley kubrick 2001 seier+seier CC creative commons