SWITZERLAND SKETCHBOOK MARK TERRA-SALOMÃO 2015 48-365 | Profs
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SWITZERLAND SKETCHBOOK MARK TERRA-SALOMÃO 2015 48-365 | Profs. Kai Gutschow and Jeremy Ficca TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 2 DAVOS | SUMVITG CH 6 BREGENZ AT 10 CHUR | FLIMS | VALS CH 14 ZÜRICH | ETH CH 16 LUZERN CH 20 VITRA | WEIL AM RHEIN DE 24 BASEL | BERN CH 28 DORNACH | LAUFEN CH 32 RONCHAMP FR 36 HÉRÉMENCE CH 42 LAUSANNE | EPFL CH 46 LA TOURETTE FR 48 FIRMINY FR 54 LYON FR 58 MORCOTE CH 62 COMO IT 66 BRIAN & SAM | A TRIBUTE 68 INTRODUCTION It is difficult not to focus on the details in Switzerland, as hackneyed as that may sound. This analysis was accomplished largely through the medium of freehand drawing, of architectural sketching: the complex interaction between light, eye, brain, and hand. This was our assignment, but that’s because it is the best Although, never having visited Switzerland or any of Europe outside of Iberia before, initially I was a bit more struck by way to explore and start to understand that which you do not understand. Consequently the sketches I drew were the grand landscapes and sweeping vistas than details, whether architectural or otherwise. The majesty of the Swiss usually efforts to get at things that at first puzzled me about a particular building or place. I looked at how things go Alps, snowclad well into June, stops your pulse. Rail travel to and from the mountain range is as smooth as a BMW together, how light and point-of-view alter perception of a façade, where birds like to fly into a building and why that on a freshly-paved straightaway. The Helvetian villages are equal parts picturesque and respectable, ancient but not might be, how adjacent buildings speak to each other, whether people use a space as I would, and other issues. abandoned. Indeed, construction and maintenance work never stops, and you wonder how they find time for it all. We were asked to conceive of sketches as tools that instruct as much as they record. I tried to take this to heart, Switzerland’s neighbors are also blessed. The Austrian wildflower meadows invite frolicking despite busybodies’ recording things that can’t be seen through a camera lens or the lenses of my eyes. Occassionally the gestalt image huffing. The French — more liberal with their affections — won’t question seven grown young men washing down pot of a building or landscape was striking enough that I had to try and understand it through drawing, and try my hand at after pot of mussels in cream with beer and wine, but will smile teasingly and knowingly. If Liechtenstein is a joke, recreating it on paper. In many cases — as at La Tourette Monastery in L’Arbresle, France — a central image spawned or it’s a very rich one. Italy — even the little I saw of it — is better than how I always imagined it. Germany made my heart was comprised of hierarchies of details, in the sprit of Carlo Scarpa or, as I said, matching parts to wholes . flutter in rain and shine. Quickly it becomes obvious that these tableaux are best preserved in yourself as cherished memories. Photographs, drawings, prose, verse, and all other media except the complex interaction between light, Each sketch is in part a record and in part instructive, and ultimately I find that they all serve as catalysts for cher- eye, and brain cannot capture the full spectrum of your emotion in such cases. At least not for me. ished memories, even after only a few months since the real thing. They are no substitute for the dreamlike memories of the trip that I replay in my mind’s eye, but they can trigger them. For example, while looking back at sketches from So, I decided to discover and analyze details. Of course, the goal was not to look at details for the sake of looking at Peter Zumthor’s Saint Benedict Chapel is certainly useful in an architectural sense, when looking at them I cannot details, but of fitting parts to wholes. The progression of my thinking was something like this: If I was going to begin help but think of that glorious first day in Graubünden, the hay barns climbing up the Alps like goats, the chapel understanding the landscape, I’d have to begin understanding the lifestyle, and if I was going to understand the life- ringed by cows, their bells clanging inside the sanctuary, the villagers leaving out herbal syrups for you to flavor the style in part I was going to have to peruse the architecture, and if I was going to peruse the architecture I was going to spring water with (as if it needs more flavor!), everything saturated and sensuous, my open-mouthed stare of amaze- have to figure out the ideas behind it, how it was built, and so on. ment dumber than these silly words I’m trying to use to explain what I felt. And I’m not even talking about Morcote! 2 3 None of this is to say I didn’t worry about quantifiable realities. I firmly believe architecture is a balance between the The Switzerland study abroad trip was an excellent experience. The new places visited, new foods consumed, new creative and the straightforward, the artistic and the technical — however you prefer to say it — and neither should be people met, and new (and old!) architecture studied will continue to provide inspiration for a long, long time. It was ignored. A lack of craft can totally stall the expression of a great concept, just as a very well-put-together box doesn’t challenging and therefore rewarding to practice sketching skills and techniques. As exciting as the generative mania guarantee much thinking went behind it. of studio is, sometimes I feel there is not enough quiet time to really think and craft through hand sketching, but such opportunities were abundant in Switzerland. Swiss architecture usually fulfills high technical standards, which is not always the case in the United States, but in many ways it also differs conceptually, even at a basic level. For example, in the United States, safety egress is usual- I’m thankful for the opportunity I had to do all of this with some of my closest friends and colleagues, and wouldn’t ly plopped down as a tower block or core. In Switzerland egress is often conceived of as a clear architectural element trade it for anything. The nights in Basel when the raging Rhine seemed to calm and became a canvas for the impres- or object — as an exterior stair — which makes its function quite obvious. These stairs are well-crafted, really beautiful sionistic bridges and city lights, the buildings forming a constellation city pivoting from a central point on the river, utilitarian objects, with railings and guards used as architectural opportunities. That is an idea I can shamelessly say the duck newlyweds Helga and Olaf swimming their evening stroll, the green trams like clockwork in their patriotic I will apply to future projects, where appropriate. Also, the Swiss put metal sheeting roofs over their bike racks! With FC Basel attire, the whole city turned out to celebrate that same football club’s umpteenth Swiss championship gutters that feed rainwater to pervious surfaces! Each slot in the bike rack is staggered up or down so that the bikes’ victory, and a young group of friends’ labrador retrievers attracted to our cheap German hot dogs and beer will always handlebars don’t tangle up! I’m not sure why I haven’t seen that in the United States; it just makes sense. These are be especially dear to me. Hopefully someday I’ll make it back to many of the places we visited, and to the few we had but two examples of many of the details that to me suggest a larger understanding of the immense possibilities and to leave behind. human experiences that design and architecture can and should accommodate. In that sense, then, my sketches are not only triggers for good memories or records of my personal working-through A few words about the organization of this booklet: In general, the sketches that follow are grouped by building of how materials meet in a certain condition, but they are also repositories of greater architectural concepts or ideas and location, with locations listed more or less in the chronological order in which we visited them. In some cases I that I had not witnessed before, and which can be applied to design problems in novel ways. Sketching is not about explain the sketches at length so as to link some of the ideas from the sketches and buildings to some of the ideas copying a detail you like: it is about understanding why you like it and applying the idea of that “why” to your own I talked about here in the introduction, and vice versa. Other times I try and let the drawings speak for themselves. work. As always, I strive to fit parts to wholes, and vice versa. Hope you enjoy! 4 5 DAVOS | SUMVITG CH 6 7 The Saint Benedict Chapel exemplifies many of the qualities that I subsequently sought out in other places we visited and tried to represent in my sketches. It strives to be a complete work, where the form is ap- propriate from a practical standpoint — the teardrop SWITZERLAND | PETER ZUMTHOR 1988 BENEDICT CHAPEL | SUMVITG, ST. shape is meant to dissipate the force of avalanches, and from a conceptual standpoint — the chapel references Christian metaphors having to do with ships, eggs, and creation. The pure constructive quality of the details is obvious, but they also reinforce the idea of what a chapel should be, as the ribs that form a protective sanctuary and raise a sacred platform above the profane ground.