2012 Stewardson Fellowship

Architecture Influenced by Landscape Landscape Influenced by Architecture

The 111th John Stewardson Fellowship in Architecture Timothy Nawrocki 2012

The making of architecture is intrinsically tied to human experience and site. The transition between inside and outside, between architecture and landscape, provides a moment where experience can be noticeably heightened.

Temperature shifts, weather conditions, and the act of either moving into the elements or out of them is a fundamental human interaction with architecture and landscape.

The best spaces understand this, and manipulate both the architecture and the landscape to create something where the two are inseparable. Searching out these types of works and trying to understand their successes and how they apply to my own work is my current preoccupation.

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Amsterdam (Oct 23-27) Delft Rotterdam (Oct 22) Brussels (Oct 28-29)

Duisburg Nrd. (Oct 20-21) Cologne (Oct17-19)

CDG>PHL 11.29.2012

Bruder Klaus Frankfurt (Oct 16) Poissy

Paris (Oct 30-Nov 29)

Munich (Oct5-8) Vitra Weil am Rhein

Basel (Oct14-16)

Chur

St. Benedict

Vals (Oct11-13)

Innsbruck (Oct 4)

San Vito d'Altivole

PHL>VCE 9.25.2012 Verona (Oct 1-2)

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Bregenz (Oct 9-10)

Venice (Sep26-30, Oct 3)

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The distance in practice between Architecture and Landscape Architecture today is dependent upon each designer’s interpretation of the two. Some designers would argue that these two fields are the same and should be treated as such, under the umbrella of design. While others believe them each to be far too complex, architecture being structural, technical, and landscape being ecological, hydrological, and should be treated as separate disciplines in and of themselves.

I would agree with David Leatherbarrow’s notion in his book Topography, that the two are simply similar, and should be treated as part of the same family, but not the same thing. I would argue a step further in this direction by saying that the two are similar, and that their similarities build on one another, while at the same time their differences provide constraints that inevitably will enrich either design when engaged correctly. Building and landscape will inevitably transform one another; an architect’s building influencing the land around it, or the landscape architect’s earthwork dictating the shape and location of future buildings. So what can each discipline’s approach be in considering and accommodating the other?

The landscape urbanism notion that landscape rather than architecture should inform the city is a productive step in the direction of thinking about “what” should order the city. More correctly is the idea that an architecture that takes landscape or the fabric of the city into consideration is better, more informed architecture. While at the same time landscape that takes architecture and the fabric of the city into consideration is better, more informed landscape.

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The push and pull between the two, between architecture and landscape, should be what informs the fabric of the new city. The existing fabric is the means by which to interpret the new while at the same time designing new possibilities.

In talking about the push and pull between architecture and landscape, it becomes important to deďŹ ne the two in order to better understand their relationships to one another. The relationship between inside and outside, exposure, and enclosure, or shelter and site can all relate to questions of where landscape ends and architecture begins.

Through my travels certain projects have emerged that capitalize on these ideas. Landscape projects such as the Duisburg Nord Park that actively engages and questions the existing architecture. Or new architectural projects that are informed by the existing landscape, such as the Kolomba Art museum in Cologne.

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The Kolumba Art Museum of the Catholic Diocese of Cologne Cologne, Germany

Peter Zumthor Architecture Informed by landscape.

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The Kolumba Art museum houses a collection of early Catholic artifacts spanning two millennia. The site was originally occupied by the church of St. Kolumba that was destroyed in the bombing of Cologne during the Second World War For a decade the church remained as a skeleton of its former self, with a small chapel being built at the corner of the site in 1950. This chapel, by Gottfried Böhm, is small in scale as to allow the ruins to remain untouched.

The church would later be called Madonna of the Ruins because of this approach. In 2003 the Diocese wanted to relocate their museum collection the site, and hired architect Peter Zumthor to reconstruct the site.

The museum is built atop and within the remains of the footprint of St Kolumba.The new design also incorporates the small 1950s era chapel. In this new construction the remains become a landscape by which the new program of the museum hovers above. The entire first floor of the museum is the preserved ruins of the former church in a semi-enclosed tomb. A floating walkway runs through the space allowing for a closer inspection of the ruins. This path ends at an open section of the ruined exterior walls housing Richard Sera’s The Drowned and the Saved. These spaces echo the past landscape while still constructing a usable exhibition space for the Diocese.

The remaining walls were incorporated into the new museum walls, and the two share a tonal quality, but a drastically different tactile quality to highlight the two as different systems within the new architecture. This successfully blends the gothic ruins of St. Kolumba with the modern museum. Through the use of a perforated brick screen the system, the remains of the church are encased in a semi enclosed shelter, shielding the old structure and the

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museum goers form the rain, but not the seasonal temperatures of Cologne. This connection with the outside poetically recalls moving through the ruins in the way they previously were experienced post World War II, at night, wandering through them, cool damp air, and a hushed silence. This is what I imagine the designers doing the first time they visited the site. The weight of its history, the experience of creeping through the ruins, a fenced off quiet place, and the architects sought to capture this moment.

Thus the experience of the landscape informs the architecture. This dialogue between past and present, between architecture and landscape allows the project to include a sense of reverence in its layering and detailing.

“A museum of contemplation in which there is an ongoing dialogue between past and present” Sarah McFadden In the upper floors, the limited number of windows directs museum goers to specific sites across Cologne. The four windows are expansive floor to ceiling apertures that present a series of views that complement the chalices and vestments that comprise the collection of the Kolumba. On the ground floor two courtyards that hug the old Gothic church walls become highlights to old and new, with spaces for contemplation and quiet prayer.

Zumthor makes all the effort to coerce the viewer to understand the absence of the church. The building itself does attempt to highlight this loss and in many moments it does this quite poetically.

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“The architectural drawings (for the Kolumba) try to express the aura of the building in place as closely as possible. But the very effort of this representation often serves to underline the absence of the object itself, and what emerges is the type of deficiency culaquier representation, curiously about the reality that promises, and perhaps, if the promise has the power to move-a longing for his presence.”

Peter Zumthor

From the Museum: This year’s theme “Art is Liturgy” finds its corresponding architectural expression in the building designed by architect Peter Zumthor (1943).The new building, dedicated in 2007, develops seamlessly from the remains of the Late Gothic ruins of St. Kolumba Church, and pays it due respect. In terms of urban development, it manages to reconstitute the lost core of what was once one of the most beautiful sections of Cologne’s inner city. At the center, a quiet courtyard stands and takes place of the former medieval cemetery. The largest room of the building encompasses the 2000-year-old collection. It’s “filter brickwork” forms a membrane that allows air and light to pass. It houses the archaeological excavation site, the church ruins, and the chapel of the “Madonna in the Ruins” with its independent function. Above this, whose room structure derived from floor plans that have come down to us. Thus, it is possible with the works on display, to make a reference to the church that was lost in the war, and even in a museum context, be able to give an idea of the aura the works exuded in a liturgical context.

Kolumba is museum of light and shadows that reveals itself in the change of the daylight and seasons.

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Therme Vals Vals, Switzerland

Peter Zumthor Architecture Informed by landscape.

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Another seminal work from Zumthor, the Therme Vals in The Graubünden region of Switzerland, also has a deep understanding of landscape. The planted roof, designed to reflect an ancient ruin, becomes a key point of literal and ephemeral connection between landscape and architecture. The sensitivity to site and the creation of a place heavily rooted in its context becomes a strategic method to designing in such highly charged site conditions. The acts of progression and movement through the site along with the catchment and celebration of water flow directs the way the architect cerographs the movement between spaces..

Although Vals does not have to relate to a network as complex as a city, the structure is very sympathetic to its existing conditions and neighbors. By embedding the baths into the side of the hill, the building not only becomes part of the landscape, it also does not block the views of the neighboring hotels.

“If you reconsider the idea of bathing and if you think of the hot spring you can think of a building that is more in harmony with the typography and geology of a place, and not just with the immediate aspect of its surroundings.The idea came to me of a bath house born from the mountains, just as a hot spring is born from the mountains.”

Peter Zumthor The architecture itself is shaped by the existing topography. The structure is inserted into the mountainside as to not obstruct the views from the existing hotel rooms.

The pools exist both inside and outside and allow for the bathers to move inside and outside seamlessly through the pools.

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Musee d’Orsay Paris, France

Gae Aulenti Victor Laloux Existing Conditions Become a Working Landscape

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The Gare d’Orsay due to its smaller platform size ceased operations in 1939. Plans for either demolition or refurbishments stalled for several decades until the late 1970s where work began to convert the old rail station into a new museum designed to house post impressionist and art nouveau works. The designers considered the existing station to be a landscape by which to insert a completely new layer and style of architecture within. A fine example of flatness and simple forms stemming from a postmodern sensibility, the building also uses this context to enrich the experience of the works within.

The large train shed is emphasized and used a great hall to showcase works within the large volume of space. This technique is also reminiscent of exhibitions in the Grand Palais nearby, the space dominates the works, but also allows them to be seen in a space vast enough to pull the museum walls literally away from the works and give them room to breathe and be seen in a manner that natural light can fall evenly on them.

The station becomes an existing landscape to react to.The new levels and rooms hug the exterior walls to accentuate the tallness of the space while at the far end the circulation corridors allow museum goers the opportunity to get up close to the old train clock towers. This play between old and new is key to any great renovation, and the sensibility of Musee d’Orsay reflects the understanding of the existing context as means to enrich the user’s experience This bold statement comes from deep understanding of the experience within the original station. The massiveness of the roof structure, the pushing of all program to the edges and the ability to insert something incredibly foreign in style to the space allows the new to complement the old without being held back its monumentality.

In fact the new insertions, although shorter, convey a new monumentality of their own in the simplicity of its thin armor-like cladding..

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Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord, Germany

Peter Latz Landscape informed by architecture

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Perhaps the most crucial aspect of the current practice of landscape architects is the rehabilitation of post-industrial sites.

The abandoned architecture left from mass manufacturing has been heavily placed on the necessity of parks to physically and culturally remediate sites. This is very evident in the Duisburg-Nord Landscahaftpark in Western Germany.

Landscape architects have been tasked with reprogramming structures, and repurposing the cities perception of certain industrial archetypes into viable parklands for recreation.

At Duisburg Nord, blast furnaces have been transformed into rock climbing walls, industrial vats formerly for molten metal transformed into parterres, and large cranes and catwalks into observation platforms.

From Duisburg-Nord: Grey iron and rusting steel are often our ďŹ rst associations when we think of a disused ironworks. The whole idea of the Landscape Park Duisburg Nord shows that a so-called BrownďŹ eld site can elevate itself far beyond these prejudices. Over a period of more than ten years, a culture, nature and leisure park has been created around the old ironworks which is unique in terms of its multi-faceted combination of uses.Walking, cycling, playing, letting off steam, enjoying the view from Blast Furnace5 and relaxing in the beer garden or restaurant are just a few of the many possibilities a visit provides. And at night Jonathan Park’s light installation shines over the houses of the city - a Duisburg landmark visible from a distance.

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Villa Savoye Poissy, France

Le Corbusier Inside and Outside

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Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, just outside of Paris France on the RER A line, sits quietly behind a tall stone wall in the town of Poissy. The house at first glance appears to very resistant to its surroundings. The manner in which the building sits in a field, apart from all surrounding vegetation suggests that this project is opposed to nature. The building also sits on a set of pilotis, or stilts, that would even further suggest this resistance, refusing to touch the ground. Upon further inspection the structure is rigorous in the way it engages the outdoors.

Typical in aesthetic to Le Corbusier’s International Style homes, the Villa Savoye, although clearly an object in the field, very directly engages its landscape.The building most successfully articulates Le Corbusier’s five points of architecture, conceived to redefine the inherit form of buildings. The open Floor plan becomes a means by which one can flow seamlessly between rooms and also between inside and outside. The pilotisallow for the building to create an exterior space underneath the living spaces that is protected from the elements, while the roof garden brings more outdoor living above. His ideas for a free façade with strip windows also allow for panoramic views from the all of the living areas to the grounds beyond. The distance from the house that the tree line begins creates a smooth balance where all of the windows of the house are framing the foliage in the distance.

More noticeable is the way the interior ramp changes from and inside to outside. The access that was once interior access to the service spaces below pushes out to become

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the ramp to the terrace above. These transitions happen two more times. One for a small balcony in the rear and the other a larger second level courtyard. This courtyard becomes a primary circulation point for the house where most rooms have direct access to it. The second level living room frames the courtyard on one side with a wall of glass. Not only does this create a strong visual tie between inside and out, the wall is also on a track to slide the entire side of the living room open to the courtyard in warmer months. This simple flexibility allows this room to be better connected to its surroundings and less hermetically sealed in warmer weather. The living room still has a strong visual, yet insulated connection, to the courtyard in cooler months.

Along the periphery of the house, along wooded paths, small white benches are placed at specific moments to admire the home. Although this move clearly represents the building as an object to be admired, this distance between architecture and landscape creates a moment of tension that allows them to blend together and complement one another.

The Villa Savoye becomes a seminal work in Le Corbusier’s life, and the mingling and blending of inside and outside space definitely contributes to that success. The play between inside and outside becomes a working method for his tower in the park concepts obviously, but it reads much better at this smaller more human scale, where we are not so far detached from the ground. This becomes are precedent for several of the projects visited these past months.

The ability to achieve semi-enclosed spaces that require strong architectural and principles and equally strong landscape techniques that become inseparable through time.

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Maison de Verre Paris, France

Pierre Chareau Inside and Outside

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Designed by Pierre Chareau and Bernard Bijvoet, the Maison de Verre, French for “House of Glass,” is a hidden gem in heart of the St. Germain district in Paris. Built in 1932, the house is an expression of industrial objects and the mechanical aesthetic.The transparency of place within this house made of custom glass blocks gives an interesting sense of the relationship between inside and outside. The house tends to feel claustrophobic at times due to its lack of operable windows for so many apertures, but the house constantly reflects the weather and light rendition outside.

The house is also an interesting study in dealing with existing conditions due to the fact they were unable to convince the elderly woman on the top floor to move.

So it was decided that this new house would be built underneath her third floor apartment. To accomplish this, the house was essentially designed as an a subway tunnel would, with posts placed in a tight grid to hold up the above structure as worked pressed on below.These posts, left exposed, also widely influence the machining aesthetic of the interiors.

The Maison de Verre greatly influenced the work of LeCorbusier, who lived nearby and would constantly peek in the courtyard during the day to take a look at the progress of the house. This machine aesthetic was to be refined by Corb in time. The honesty of materials, the transparency between inside and outside, and the manner of dealing with eccentric site conditions makes the Maison de Verre a very relevant case study in the relationship between landscape and architecture.

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Kunsthaus Bregenz Bregenz, Austria

Peter Zumthor Inside and Outside

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“The art museum stands in the light of Lake Constance. It is made of glass and steel and a cast concrete stone mass which endows the interior of the building with texture and spatial composition. From the outside, the building looks like a lamp.

It absorbs the changing light of the sky, the haze of the lake, it reflects light and colour and gives an intimation of its inner life according to the angle of vision, the daylight and the weather.”

Peter Zumthor, The relationship between site and building are very strong in Zumthor’s work in Bregenz. Contrary to several of his projects I visited, the Kunsthaus Bregenz exists within an urban context. The museum must deal with urban edge conditions and it manages a rather simply form to accommodate the complexities of its short block condition. The architecture exists as a short glass box, about 50 feet in height that hugs the edge of the former post office building. This allows for the other side to act as an access point to the small piazza in front of the museum. The piazza is also framed by a tall blank wall from an existing building and the adjoining café also designed by Zumthor. This creates a small, yet flexible public space for larger art installations and overflow seating from the café in warmer months. Thus the space, although shaped simply, performs many tasks for the small village.

The relationship between inside and outside is powerful in the sense that the building is designed to diffuse light into the galleries through a series of frosted glass panels.

Here the glass is expresses as both the exterior cladding and the interior ceiling. Both of them give off a warm glow of light during the day, and are transformed by colored artificial lighting at night. This dialogue between inside and outside allows both spaces to be informed by the other’s atmosphere.

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From the Museum: Within the Urban Context The Kunsthaus Bregenz was built as a solitary construction in a prominent location not far from the lakefront. It fills the space on “Seestraße” between the Theater for Vorarlberg and the main post office that had been empty for many years. The entrance lies on the eastern side of the building facing the town. The administration building, situated in front of the museum towards the city centre, acts as a transitional structure to the smaller and low buildings of the old part of the town. All functional facilities of the Kunsthaus other than those directly associated with the presentation of art are housed separately in this smaller building, which accommodates a library and a café besides the administrative offices.

The actual exhibition building and the administration building frame an open square, which is closed off on the south by the back wall of the theatre, however opens up on one side towards the city. This square links the Kunsthaus to the city life of Bregenz and is used in many ways. The KUB café puts tables and chairs outside during the warmer seasons so that the square is bustling with café patrons. Often the current exhibition includes open-air events.

Peter Zumthor´s design stood out among others because it was the only design to propose a square as an urban open area. All other designs planned a densely built-up area on the available plot.

The facade consists of etched glass shingles with several functions: they lend the building’s main body lightness with their transparency, insulate against cold and heat and form an essential part of the lighting arrangement for the building.The incoming light is refracted for the first time on the facade before entering the interior.

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Fondazione Querini Stampalia San Vito d’Ativole, Italy

Carlos Scarpa Inside and Outside

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In looking at Scarpa’s Fondazione Querini Stampalia, we can understand the play between inside and outside. The building also conjures a strong sense of site specificity with Venice itself. Instead of trying to keep the Venetian canals out of the building, something that is an increasingly difficult task for all typical structures in the city, Scarpa creates an intermediate space that allows the water in. The architect embeds a series of low lying troughs along the periphery of the first floor rooms that receive the canal water during high tides or stormy surges. This overflow space accommodates the existing connection of the place and accentuates them to create rooms that are truly tied to site. The building processes its unique environment in an architectonic way, using materials and space to realize the essence of a place while continuing to be highly functional and usable.

Scarpa goes a step further by using a series of horizontal planes in the space closet to the canal and along the perforated exterior wall screens that welcome the canal inside. These planes become a datum by which to understand the ever changing tides while passing on to the galleries in the next room. This transitional space becomes the key hinge point between inside and outside. These small details combines with the kinetic energy of the water creates a place uniquely sited that directly engages the landscape it belongs to.

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The previous entrance to The Foundation was a simple bridge also designed by Scarpa. This bridge, typical to Venice, becomes the threshold between the public space of the piazza and the private space of the foundation. The bridge, in stark contrast to typical Venetian bridges, is made of simple wood and iron.These materials, in contrast to the stone and brick of typical local bridges, react to the coastal region in a much different manner. The materials show signs of age much more quickly with the wood gaining a greenish gray patina and the iron growing ever darker due to the open salt air it is exposed to. The bridge sits atop bases of typical Venetian stone, but the bridge itself is designed as a separate entity altogether. Dark in tone, but light in structure the bridge reflects a delicacy unlike any other bridge in the city. The tactile qualities of the brass and wood handrails also help convey a sense of time and place in the way they weather over time.

“If the architecture is any good, a person who looks and listens will feel its good effects without noticing. The environment educates in a critical fashion. As for the critic, he discovers the truth of things” Carlos Scarpa

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Brion Vega Cemetary San Vito d’Ativole, Italy

Carlos Scarpa Architecture and Landscape.

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“I consider this work, if you permit me, to be rather good and which will get better over time. I have tried to put some poetic imagination into it, though not in order to create poetic architecture but to make a certain kind of architecture that could emanate a sense of formal poetry.The place for the dead is a garden.

I wanted to show some ways in which you could approach death in a social and civic way; and further what meaning there was in death, in the ephemerality of life other than these shoe-boxes” Carlos Scarpa

Situated in the Veneto region of Northern Italy, in the remote town of San Vito d’Ativole, lies a small cemetery with reaching influence in both landscape and architectural philosophies. This cemetery reflects the passing of time. The manner that the materials weather, the plants grow, and the shallows pools become inundated with algae all reflect time’s effect on space. This was all very intentional for Scarpa.The poetry of form to convey and reflect time embodies the surreal qualities of a cemetery. A place seemingly frozen in time, but in fact reflects the fleeting nature of it. The people at rest create an aura the gives one a heavy feeling upon entering a typical cemetery, but here the feeling is much more serene and sedated.

A passivity washes over you and the feeling of time presses upon you, but slower that you expect. The immediate urge to be quiet, listen, and tread lightly is heightened here.

It may be from the subtle babbling fountains or from the heaviness of the materials used, or from the sheer amount

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of overgrowth. These techniques, both architectural and landscape, become successful when they work together and become the connections between different components of the cemetery.

The sequencing of spaces also helps to give the visitor a sense of being within time. The passing of time is first revealed at the old cemetery entrance. Upon entering the original cemetery (Which Brion-Vega borders on two sides) you immediately see the entrance to Brion centered at the end of the path. The vines and overgrown trees overtake the gatehouse that matches the proportions of the neighboring mausoleums. Upon entering under the hanging vines through the main gate you are greeting by a small trickling of water that slowly saturates the gravel path and steps within. This has slowly worn the materials allowing them to be smoothed over time. At the end of the hall lies the two overlapped circles, a common motif for Scarpa, but more significant here due to them being a poetic gesture alluding to the loving couple resting within.

The circles terminate the path leading to a t-shaped intersection. Ones leads to a small dock-like space amongst a large pond of lilies, while the other leads down into the main lawn.

Upon entering the lawn the path cuts into the earth and the visitor descends into the ground as they continue on.

This play in the landscape is obviously another poetic gesture, but it also gives you specific vantage points of the tombs in the field beyond. It gives you the chance to get

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under the slightly sunken canopy that shields the couple from the elements and see the way their tombs are slightly angled, towards one another.

The way in which water connects the different building elements is especially compelling. Small troughs of water, creates these cuts across the landscape that create these long deep sight lines between objects. Aside from the tombs, which lay in a small lawn, all of the ancillary spaces contain shallows pools of water. These pools reect the architecture while at the same allowing the algae to stain the rough concrete surfaces used to construct all of the buildings within the grounds. This connection once again echoes the passing of time and the blending between architecture and landscape. As the plants grow and overtake the structures, and as the structures weather, they slowly become one composition that overtakes the entire space, creating an atmosphere of calm . The architecture and the landscape become inseparable over time and must work together to create this unique experience.

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St. Benedict Chapel Sumvitg, Switzerland

Peter Zumthor Architecture Informed by landscape.

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Situated atop a mountain in the small town of Sumvitg, St Benedict’s Chapel is a great example of transitional space that plays with the relationship of outside to inside. The walk to the chapel from the Train station is in itself a drawn out transition or pilgrimage, about a three kilometer walk up very steep terrain. From the train I walked up the hills to Sumvitg alone, with a few cows to interrupt the silence.

Once in town I found a woman and asked the direction to the chapel. Once we both understood each other with me fumbling my limited German and her finally understanding what I was asking (my guess is boy dressed in too much black in a town such this he must be another architect), she told me I must go up. I asked which way up, and she responded with no “It’s too high to see from here, just go up.” So I did, and within a short walk I found a sign for it, 2.5 kilometers away. I took a “shortcut”, which with shaving off a half of a kilometer creates a much even steeper slope to make up this difference, which I didn’t think about until I got going. Slowly the road eroded to being unpaved, then being a simple dirt path, and the finally being just grass, with some small trail markers and the previous impressions of foot prints to guide the way.

The most interesting thing along these trails on the way up is that there are still street signs giving directions. Except at this point the signs no longer tell distance, they show time, the time it takes to walk. This subtle difference really does give the entire town a different sense of time from that most of us are accustomed to. Once atop the mountain, I was able to see the small chapel just at the top of the next ridge.A small round about walk led me into town and along a small gravel path leading up to the chapel.

The entire building is embedded within a steep slope with worn wood shingles providing the entire cladding. With these two in mind, the materiality of the wood, and the

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manner in which the building sits gives the small structure a sense of weight. Because of this it felt like it was there for far longer than it had actually been. The wood shingles are typical of Swiss of roofs in the area, but used in a very nontraditional way. To greet you is a small typical cast concrete stair with a small bent iron handrail, very simple. The stairs are held off the structure by a small gap giving a small reveal to the stairs that make them appear more as an object in space rather than part of the chapel.

This makes sense seeing as this is the only location where concrete is exposed.This keeps the small wooden cylinder pure in form allowing the stairs to act as something.

The door to the chapel is heavy, giving a sense of this the move from outside to in. Once inside, the entry is slightly lower than the rest of chapel where a small step separates the entire from the chapel oor. This small protrusion allows the chapel to retain its cylindrical shape without obstruction.

The entire space emits an aura of silence, and this is evident in the building materials and the way they were considered. The walls are painted brushed silver and in front of them there are vertical slats of uncut timbers offset from the wall six inches by steel rods.This is the wall treatment all the way around the room. The pews match the tones of the timbers, as the does the alter itself. Above this there is a small glass clerestory wrapping the entirety of the chapel, with clear views in all directions only of the blue sky above, a clear allusion to the heavens.

This peaceful setting, a town of less than one hundred becomes a place to be still, reect, and pray. The high windows with views of the skies above reveal the intentional play between inside and outside. Aside from this high clerestory perched ten feet above the viewer there are no

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windows that could have looked out across the mountain valley it sits atop. The viewer can only look up to look out, the backdrop of the altar is the sky itself. The clouds and sky become the part of the detailing and any other view would have simply been a distraction.

The method of looking only to the sky is also used at the Bruder Klaus Chapel, where a small oculus at the top of the structure is the only natural light let in.The Bruder Klaus, a slightly smaller chapel for two people, is located in a wheat field outside of Wachendorf Germany. Taking the train about an hour outside of Cologne and then a cab the five Kilometers to the fields, you reach small eroded walkway that leads to the tall concrete monolith that is the Chapel. Here the contrast with the landscape is highlighted. Unlike the local materials used in Sumvitg, the Bruder Klaus is a concrete extruded trapezoid that is about as tall as the nearby tree line. It sits in within acres of fields that grow crops that never come close to matching the height of the structure.

Once inside, just like at St Benedict’s, the form reveals the manner by which the structure was made. Large timbers stacked in a teepee-like shape and then cast in concrete creates the wall’s undulating rough surface. Once the concrete set, the timbers were burned out, leaving a dark sheen on the concrete. Small glass bulbs were embedded in the concrete formwork that now creates a strange array of dim light. At the ceiling is a large opening, exposed to the elements brings light deep into the space. A puddle in the same shape as the oculus remains on the floor form a past rain. This simplicity of materials and allusion to the heavens also creates a place of silence. A bench, barely large enough for two people, is the only pew. The space is meant to be just for the farming family that commissioned it, a narrow tall space that stretches to the skies above.

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Bruder Klaus Chapel Mechernich, Germany

Peter Zumthor Architecture Informed by landscape.

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The method of looking only to the sky is also used at the Bruder Klaus Chapel, where a small oculus at the top of the structure is the only natural light let in.The Bruder Klaus, a slightly smaller chapel for two people, is located in a wheat field outside of Wachendorf Germany.

Taking the train about an hour outside of Cologne and then a cab the five Kilometers to the fields, you reach small eroded walkway that leads to the tall concrete monolith that is the Chapel. Here the contrast with the landscape is highlighted. Unlike the local materials used in Sumvitg, the Bruder Klaus is a concrete extruded trapezoid that is about as tall as the nearby tree line. It sits in within acres of fields that grow crops that never come close to matching the height of the structure.

Once inside, just like at St Benedict’s, the form reveals the manner by which the structure was made. Large timbers stacked in a teepee-like shape and then cast in concrete creates the wall’s undulating rough surface. Once the concrete set, the timbers were burned out, leaving a dark sheen on the concrete. Small glass bulbs were embedded in the concrete formwork that now creates a strange array of dim light. At the ceiling is a large opening, exposed to the elements brings light deep into the space. A puddle in the same shape as the oculus remains on the floor form a past rain. This simplicity of materials and allusion to the heavens also creates a place of silence. A bench, barely large enough for two, is the only pew. The space is meant to be just for the farming family that commissioned it, a narrow tall space that stretches to the skies above.

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In a similar fashion to Bruder Klaus, Zumthor’s shelters to protect a Roman Archeological site in in Chur are incredibly simple in construction, but their impact and the spaces they create highlight the landscape they protect. These small boxes are open to the elements and allow light and air to permeate through wooden louvers on all sides. As with his other works, the materials are simple, but beautifully considered, with modest yet sophisticated details.The wood louvers, on the exterior, have been softened by the sun, leaving them a weathered gray. On the inside they are a warm tone that glows as they catch the sunlight seeping in through their openings. This creates a subtle glow around the entire room, highlighting the ruins themselves.

Just like at St. Benedict’s, the architecture itself becomes the backdrop to frame and highlight the landscape. At the roof a large skylight allows plenty of sunlight into the ruins as a means to see them in as much natural light as possible.

The structures themselves allow the protection not only for the ruins, but also for the visitors. Although very porous, the louvered walls keep out the wind and rain allowing for visitors to stay longer. The warm tones of the sun on the wood slats also gives one the sense of the space being warmer than it actually is. The shelters also reduce noise from a busy street nearby, giving the ruins a more contemplative feeling. This simple combination of materials and the manner by which they were detailed allows some the positive aspects of the world outside (sun and fresh air) to permeate the space while keeping out the negative ones (noise, wind, and rain). The work is secondary to the landscape and although it completely covers the ruins, it only serves to highlight them once you are inside.

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Perhaps Zumthor’s most successful method is his use of physical models. Oftentimes these models are large scale mock-ups of the interior spaces they represent or large landscape models to understand the context of the work.

Quickly done with foam, clay, and printed paper for surface textures these models accurately convey the feeling of the spaces they represent.

For the Kolumba museum, the models are amazingly accurate to the feel of the juxtaposition between the dark wood walkway and the ruins below it. The materials act in a similar fashion to the way the materials they represent would act in actuality. The wood planks, built to scale in the manner of construction typical to a planked walkway, and the ruins below shaped quickly in clay layers convey a sense of not only material representation, but also constructible clarity.

Zumthor’s Models for the Serpentine Gallery in 2011 also convey a remarkable sense of detail as a means to capture the aura of the proposed space. The renderings submitted are pictures of the model itself with scale figures inserted later.The details on such a small project range from the chairs modeled to scale, to the water spigot placed along the stark blank walls as a way to show exactly where things are located. This not only shows precisely what is happening, but also gives a strange sense of realness to a seemingly crude render.

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Similarly, the models for the Kunsthaus Bregenz are also built in a constructible highly detailed fashion as a way to test how light will play with the materials applied and the building’s detailing.The model does clearly reveal the inner workings of how this “light box” illumintates the gallery interiors through use of several layers of glass.The ceilings glow in a muted way that highlights the spaces while also mediating between natural and artificial lights, all hidden in the ceiling above.

The models for the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel also reflect the technique of its construction. Pieces of Bamboo, tightly tied together, and then cast atop is both a representational way to convey the essence of the building, but it also helps to test the method of construction in actuality. In fact it appears that this becomes a scaled test for the full scale making of the architecture with the bamboo, standing in for timbers

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Common Ground 2012 Venice Biennale

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“Architecture doesn’t just happen, it is a coincidence of forces, a conspiracy of requirements, expectations, regulations and, hopefully, visions. It requires collaboration and its success is subject to the quality of that collaboration. This participation is not just between professionals but undertaken together with society, those who commission, regulate and most importantly occupy our buildings and cities.

It is tempting to imagine that good architecture is the consequence of freedom, both intellectual and practical, but the understanding of limits, the coordination of constraints and negotiation with resistance are fundamental to a healthy architectural culture. It is only through dialogue and a willingness to understand the diverse concerns and responsibilities involved in the process of making architecture that these forces can be coordinated towards a significant result.

If we accept this then we must also accept that good architecture is not just dependent on genius nor can it only be achieved only through confrontation and despite circumstances. Individual talent and creativity depend on and contribute to a rich and complex culture of shared affinities, references and predicaments that give validity and meaning, not only to architecture, but to its place in society.

I have invited my colleagues to examine what we share over what distinguishes us from one another, and in so doing to demonstrate that the quality of architecture depends on common values, efforts and visions. We must not forget that as we plan our future we are always building on what has come before.

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Common Ground gives us the excuse to consider the efforts of architects not as solitary and fashionable gestures but as part of a rich and continuous investigation of intellectual, social and physical ideas, given purpose not only by their shared concerns but by the desire to make a meaningful contribution to our physical world.

‘Common Ground’ provokes us to admit the continuities and influences that I believe define our profession. The phrase also tries to train our attention on the city, which is our area of expertise and activity, but also something created in collaboration with every citizen, and the many stakeholders and participants in the process of building.

The theme of the Biennale was a provocation to my colleagues to demonstrate their commitment to these shared and common values, encouraging them away from a monographic presentation of their work, towards a portrait of the collaborations and affinities behind their work. That they have all engaged in this with such commitment and energy is a testament to them and confirmation of what we know but don’t articulate sufficiently: that despite our different concerns, backgrounds and points of view we do indeed share ‘common ground’.

David Chipperfield. 13th Venice Biennale.

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Architecture, Landscape and the City Dutch and Parisian Open Space

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Several open spaces across Paris and the Benelux region give insight into the design of successful public space, while at the same they provide some inventive approaches to incorporating both landscape and architecture. The Promenade Plantee, the precedent for The Highline in Manhattan, was once an abandoned elevated railway that was converted into a linear park.

The long narrow park winds its way through buildings and over time the newer architecture was designed with views and access to the Promenade Plantee in mind. This interconnection between a public space designed for connectivity across the city and the architecture it abuts is currently what is happening along New York’s Highline. In time these spaces as well, building and park, become inseparable and rely on each other’s contextual clues to be a successful public space.

The Schouwburgplein, a plaza in the heart of Rotterdam designed by West 8, also utilizes the relationship between existing buildings to create an open space that actively engages the cityscape it stitches together. The plaza is a simple boardwalk oor that is activated by several oversized Lamps and pieces of moveable furniture. The plaza encourages people to actively engage it by raising and lowering the massive lampposts or rearranging the furniture as they need.This act of play and openness creates a sense of welcoming that encourages people to not just linger here, but go out of their way to hang out here, a new destination in Rotterdam because of the way it understood the culture of the city and the landscape of Rotterdam itself.

The Parc des Buttes Chaumont is a great example of the manipulation of a former landscape to reinvigorate a site.The site, a former quarry, was used to create a park that appeared to be amongst the cliffs. Due to the immense depth of digging during

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its operation as a quarry, the park is strangely lower than the rest of the neighborhood; all but the central mountain, towering above the rest of park that is slightly higher than the neighborhood. An interesting juxtaposition, but this technique works two fold, to remove the noise and views of the city.The Romanesque transformation from a gritty industrial setting to one sublime and picturesque is atypical for the time. To work with the landscape and view as an opportunity instead of something to be terra-formed is not akin to traditional landscaping of the period.

This project, ahead of its time, sets a precedent Landscape architect’s task for restoring industrial sites.

More contemporary projects across Paris manipulate sites in similar fashions today. The Quai Branly museum hovers above a shade garden that is dramatically lit and night, and the Foundation Cartier employs a glazed street wall façade with a lush garden framed beyond it.This play between inside and outside, public and private, creates spaces that allow the play between landscape and architecture to be realized.

The Parc de la Villette, conceived famously as the park of the future in a 1982 competition, acts as another direction in the future of public space. A fully realized deconstructivist work, the park is incredibly localized. It caters to the adjacent neighborhoods with playgrounds and recreational facilities placed towards the park’s edges, on all sides.These smaller pocket parks within the larger framework of the grid of follies (which are actually small playgrounds too) creates a park that is visually cohesive but is more successful in its specificity.

Parc Andre Citroen also incorporates traces a former industrial site. The grounds of the former Citroen Car factory is used as a method for creating new park spaces based on the former plans of the factory. Although more of an academic approach the very modern stylized park does incorporate several new programs for the neighborhood, such as large community greenhouses, walking and bike trails, and herbal botanical gardens.

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Concluding Remarks: The places visited are directly related to my experiences in Rome as well as my Bachelor of Architecture Thesis. I believe these two prior endeavors directly informed where I chose to visit and at this point in my life and career, what I should be seeing first-hand. Studying abroad a year prior in Rome definitely influenced my thesis work the following year, and this was directly because of what I chose to visit while there. Upon visiting certain places in 2011, like the Therme Vals or the Querini Stampalia for example, I greatly began to have different understanding of what I valued in architecture and design. These ideas carried on through my thesis work, and those in turn influenced this travel fellowship. The ability to understand such value in seeing places first-hand and the opportunity to not only revisit some of these places after thesis has greatly helped me develop as a more thoughtful designer. The places I discovered through thesis and made my way to with the Stewardson continued to further this understanding. The works seen these past three months will undoubtedly live inside me forever, but I think more importantly these experiences have allowed me to better appreciate the work we do. Architecture is magical, it gives you a feeling that overwhelms you at times, and this can only be experienced first-hand. The ability to be within some of these places, just like the places in Rome, have once again been life altering.

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