Context perceptions: the dilemma of authenticity in the architecture of Herzog and de Meuron and Peter Zumthor

Irina Davidovici
Cambridge University

In a significant critique of contemporary Swiss architecture written in 1996, Kenneth Frampton identified two divergent tendencies in the works of Herzog and de Meuron (HdM) and Peter Zumthor(1). HdM were criticised for their graphic enhancement of material textures, and for their interest in the dramatic enclosure over the inhabited space. In contrast, Peter Zumthors work demonstrated an ontological focus which, instead of blurring the boundaries of architecture with those of art, sought an authentic experience in built things, in the concreteness of human dwelling. At present, Framptons insight into the superficial and profound poles of this spectrum is seemingly confirmed by Herzog and de Meurons present global ambitions, which reflect a will to divorce their increasingly sculptural buildings from the tangible claims of a local culture. However Zumthors more recent designs, anchored into a chthonic archaism, point to a nostalgic and prescriptive worldview that is ultimately just as isolating. These developments raise the question in a new way. The alternative reading proposed here is based on architectures involvement with context, with the city as a medium of exchange. Both practices share a belief in the autonomy of the architectural artefact, supplemented by references largely material offering the possibility of reconciliation with any context. Whilst Zumthor favours "primordial" materials like timber or stone, their interpretation is not traditional but attuned to formal articulation, according to abstract principles such as surface qualities, rhythm etc. His quest for localisation of meanings in the perfected architectural object arises from the fear of a deeper cultural disorientation. When, however, it is deemed possible to offer salvation from meaninglessness through perfecting the architectural artefact, we are in a domain similar to the romantic concept of monument: it preserves the view that nothing can be taken for granted, therefore implying there is no context other than what can be articulated conceptually. By contrast HdMs works, while interpretable as "superficial" in their extravagant forms and materiality, point to a strategy that is more successful in applying itself to a variety of programmes and scales. Their capacity to acknowledge and work with ambivalent conditions (which in themselves may be a source of deep concern) is more contextual in a general sense than is any effort to save us from them through a radical in fact private - aesthetics. The sobriety and care with which construction is approached endows these works with the dignity of luxury products, testifying both to a seriousness of purpose and even wit. On the other hand, the relation to city conforms here to a perception of context in which the individual can have no greater participation than opportunistic attachment to transitory references. Each building as a whole contains the potential for reference, but not that of becoming an integral part of a civic order. (1) Kenneth Frampton, "Minimal Moralia: Reflections on Recent Swiss German Production," in Labour, Work and

Architecture. Collected Essays in Architecture and Design (London, New York: Phaidon, 2002). 324-331.

Irina Davidovici is an architect and writer based in London. She grew up and began her architectural studies in Bucharest, Romania before completing them at the University of North London as the student of Adam Caruso and Peter St John. She worked with Herzog & de Meuron on Tate Modern and the Laban Dance Centre in London then gained a Master in the History and Philosophy of architecture at the University of Cambridge, England. She published numerous building reviews and essays on minimalism and contemporary mannerism in art and architecture. She is currently writing her doctoral thesis on contemporary Swiss architecture at Cambridge.

When Merleau-Ponty makes the structure of our space central to our sanity, he also adds that it is the structure of our space not our concepts. HdM and Zumthors common reluctance to situate architectural representation in the sphere of human activities to address what Merleau-Ponty calls "situation"(2) fails to acknowledge those aspects of our lives that remain the same through theoretical metamorphoses, and suggests that all modes of reference to concrete life originate in concepts. There follows a fundamental dimension of estrangement at the heart of the enterprise, which neither the objectified building, nor the strategy of construction-worship, can redress. In the context of this analysis, the topography of city (3) is offered as a sufficient sketch of what is required for an alternative interpretation of context. One hopes that through an understanding of our cities as more than open fields for the exercise of individual freedom, they will solicit an attentiveness commensurate with Merleau-Pontys claim. (2) Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 157-70. (3) Carl, Peter et al. City-image versus Topography of Praxis, in Were Cities Built as Images? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10:2 (2000), 334.