Valerio Olgiati: Le Corbusier lecture series March 26, 2009 by: Renata Arpagaus
Caumasee, Flims Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati gave a talk at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on Tuesda Tuesday, y, as part part of the events events that acc accomp ompany any the curren currentt exhibi exhibitio tion n at the Barbi Barbican, can, Le Corbusier: The Art of Architecture . The highly anticipated, long-since sold-out event offered a revealing insight into the thoughts of one of contemporary architecture’s most intriguing figures. Olgiati began his talk with a photograph of his recent exhibition at ETH Zurich, Zurich, where projects were presented using white plaster models. They do not express materiality. They do not show contex context. t. This This immedi immediate ately ly introd introduce uces s what what lies lies at the core core of his work: work: his non-co non-conte ntextu xtual al approa approach ch to making making archit architect ecture ure.. He choose chooses s action action over over reacti reaction. on. He believ believes es it should should be possible to invent architecture and that there is architecture that is made out of itself. He refers to examples of a barn, a church, a temple – buildings derived from a certain typology, that follow their own rules, buildings that are non-contextual. That kind of architecture has invention at its core. The first project he presented was the office he built for himself in his native Flims. On the site he had torn down an existing old barn. Due to regulations, he had to copy its volume and 12m x 12m square floor plan. He designed a wooden construction above 5 concrete pillars. Not only the exterior wood is painted black, but also the interior. Olgiati strongly believes that a dark space allows for better experiencing the outside from within. He contrasts the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright with that of Richard Meier, arguing that FLW’s dark spaces are extraverted, while 1
Meier’s white spaces are in fact introverted. Furnishing his office with white plastic tables, creating white islands surrounded by black space, he also finds ‘more contemplative, more intelligent’. Olgiati then talked about his proposal for the New Learning Centre for EPFL Lausanne, a competition which ‘of course we did not win’. He proposed a 50m x 50m square ground floor plan that evolves into a dynamic three-dimensional figure. Here he explored another of his favourite themes, a structure that at first glance seems arbitrary, while in fact being the result of precise calculations. He points out that in this design one cannot take an element away, and that adding an element would not make sense. This was followed by the Swiss National Park Visitors Centre in Zernez, a project where ‘we had to think a lot to make it so simple’. The seemingly simple building is made entirely of concrete, with bronze window frames. To bring together two such different materials without ending up with ‘an amazing silicon situation in between’, the architect completely sets back the windows from the opening. Typically for Olgiati, the building combines a very rational looking exterior with a surprisingly irrational, in this case even labyrinth-like interior. Olgiati gave further fascinating insight into his very personal design approach by showing some of the pictures he had been collecting, published in 2G magazine as an ‘Iconographic Autobiography’. These are the important images – always present in his head when he is creating a building:
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A view of Lake Como with traditional buildings ‘that have an order, that are clear’. This is a picture that his father, himself an architect, placed above his bed as a child. ’Amazing how he manipulated my brain’, he says laughingly.
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The painting Onement by Barnett Newman, ‘probably the most important’, that is not modular, in contrast to Mondrian’s paintings.
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An image of Fathepur Sikri, with its red stone, inspiring him to using red concrete to give more the expression of coming out of the earth, as opposed to white concrete with its character of being an invention.
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The floor plan of the Mitla Temple in Mexico with its extremely clear spatial hierarchies.
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The Monastery in Arquipa, Peru, with the two opposites of red public courtyards, the colour of the earth, and blue private courtyards, the most artificial colour.
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The abstract gold painting of Helmut Federle, ‘who is too intelligent to even try to do something non-referential’, and the white painting of Robert Ryman depicting nothing, the non-referential – hence the total invention, which Olgiati say he would love to do.
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A Schinkel House with an absolutely clear facade and a labyrintic sequence of spaces inside.
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A project by Kazuo Shinohara, a building that looks like some irregular shack, its interior however consisting of three similar parts with a clear order. 2
Olgati did not touch on his best known, widely published projects such as his school in Paspels, his Cultural Centre in Flims, The Yellow House, or the Atelier Bardill in Scharans. Instead he finished his talk with his competition entry for The PermMuseumXXI, a new museum centre for Perm Art Gallery in Russia. The pragmatic idea of the building is the stacking of different sized boxes, their (floor)size resulted from their various functions, giving the building its overall form. The entire construction is proposed in white concrete. Although Olgiati won the competition a year ago, he now thinks that the project will probably not happen. In an announcement at the beginning of his lecture, Olgiati said that did not wish to take questions from the audience. However, at the end of his talk, he was happy to be around and answer questions one-to-one, and a great many eagerly took up the offer. Here are some of the most memorable quotes of the evening: On making projects “We make projects by discussion. We discuss. Then we discuss some more. Then someone sits down and draws the plan” On designing “The best thing would be that a building would design itself” On structure “I never want to make structures that are clear. I want to make structures that at first glance you do not understand” On the Swiss National Park Visitors Center in Zernez “I am only showing photographs of the empty building. They went and put up such a horrible exhibition, they phenomenologicaly destroyed it” On the Swiss National Park Visitors Center having absolutely identical floor plans “Someone from my office, who worked on this project, sits here tonight. So I can not lie too much” On the execution of a building “If a building is not precise, it is not just the fault of the craftsman. It is the architect who does not think in a precise manner” On the relationship with the public “I do not want to be a servant to the public” On Schinkel “He was not just a simple man” On food “When you are an architect you think about food. French food has 20 ingredients and you do not know what you are eating. I like Italian food. You know what you eat. It is clear”
The lecture took place on 24 March 2009 and was part of the RIBA Trust Le Corbusier Season
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