VALERIO OLGIATI – English Texts Quart Publishers Laurent Stalder and Sandra Bradvic, Foreword 14

VALERIO OLGIATI – English texts Quart Publishers Laurent Stalder and Sandra Bradvic, Foreword 14 Caumasee Project, Flims 14 Laurent Stalder, Fifty-five Images 20 Office Valerio Olgiati, Flims 20 Medical Center, UAE 38 Residential Building Ardia Palace, Tirana 44 Residential Building Zug Süd Schleife, Zug 50 National Palace Museum Taiwan, Taipei 54 PERM Museum XXI, Perm 62 Community Center Bäckerareal, Zurich 68 School Building Paspels, Paspels 70 Bruno Reichlin, This is not Das Gelbe Haus 74 House K+N, Wollerau 80 Das Gelbe Haus, Flims 96 Studio Bardill, Scharans 110 Extension Museum Rietberg, Zurich 124 Mario Carpo, On Both Sides of the Fence 128 Projection Room Gornergrat, Zermatt 128 Learningcenter EPFL, Lausanne 134 Master Plan Cuncas, Sils 142 Residence Sari d’Orcino, Ajaccio 146 Municipal Museum Aarau, Aarau 152 Office Building Binz, Zurich 158 Multifamily Residence K, Zurich 164 National Park Center, Zernez 170 Laurent Stalder and Sandra Finally the texts, which arise from the Bradvic Foreword To begin at the architectural work, are illustrated with small beginning: classical architectural theory puts format pic tures from the architect’s Icono gra- the drawing at the beginning. Due to its phic Autobiography, which as a personal abstractness and universality the drawing is compilation of mental images in turn served the most obvious adjunct to the idea and is as a basis for the projects. Each different therefore laced at the beginning of the design viewpoint allows a different beginning: it is process, whereas other forms of the text that stipulates the order of the representation such as perspectives or projects; it is the illustrations from the models—antici pations of built reality—are Iconographic Auto biog raphy that are updated intended as a means to examin a building and in the projects; it is the plan that precedes its compo nents prior to their realization. The the digital images; it is the renderings that call stages of a design project, from an idea to a into question the visual reality of the realized building, are in this way hierarchically photographs; and it is also the content that and chrono logi cally fixed. The individual determines the book’s form, and the book’s projects presented here may be read in this form that organizes the content. Mental and same se quence. Abstract graphic real images; photo graphs and plans; illustrations—ground plans, sections and illustration and model; text and image; eleva tions—are followed by the ‘illusionistic’ support and medium; all of these constantly forms of representation—rendering or photo- change sequence depending on the authors’ graphy. And the same applies to the sequence viewpoints, and force the reader to perman- of the accompanying texts. They lead from ently redefine the beginning. This is therefore the analysis of the design process through not a book that retro spec tively summarizes that of the indivi dual buildings, up to the the architect’s designs but first and fore most theoretical classification of the work. This an inde pendent object that invites arrange ment, which organizes the interre- exploration. If this is illustrative then only in lation ship between drawing and photography, that it demonstrates a method for precisely illus trations and text, still repre sents only investiga ting the foundations of a project, and one possible approach. Yet to shift one’s for re-imagining the latter’s structure. To find perspective and regard the book, not as an the beginning therefore means, also for the illustration of a design process but as an reader, to adopt a perspective from which to independent object, is to open up a variety of query a project. Insofar one never stands at approaches. Thus the illustrations—plans, its beginning nor at its end but always—as is renderings, but also photographs—are without the case right now—somewhere in the middle exception newly created digital images that of it. allow the supposedly imagined world of draw ing to merge with the reproduced world of photography. The projects in turn do not follow an order based on chronology, typology or scale but are sub ordi nate rather, to the argumentation in each individual text. Laurent Stalder Fifty-five Images The specific buildings, artworks and places—“very term “iconographic autobiography” under different hier ar chies of space” (Column which, in 2006, Valerio Olgiati published a Palace in Mitla), for example, “non-modular” collection of 55 small pic tu res —which (Barnett Newman, Onement 1, 1948), “cultic accompanies the essays in this present projec tion of the universe” (Monte Albán), volume—says more about what the collection “infinite wealth of possibilities of is not than about what it is.1 It is not a handy interpretation” (Sigurd Lewe rentz, Church in guide to iconog raphy in the sense of a Klippan, 1962–1966), or “static calcu la tions” systematic encyclopaedia that might serve as (Eladio Dieste, Centro Comercial, 1985)— a work of reference on architectural issues which scrutinize each picture’s subject matter, and motifs. On the contrary, the collection one also finds remarks with a perso nal touch defies inclusion in any single category, be it such as “magic beauty” (Fatehpur Sikri), on the basis of type, topic, me di um, content “happy man [with a] hand some mus tache” or the place or period of origin: archi tec tural (Indian miniature, c. 1760), or “appa ri tion” plans (12), photo graphs (30), prints (2), oil (Taj Mahal). Other illustrations such as the paintings (6), water colors (1) and film- stable “of the Olgiati family in Flims,” the clippings (1) alternate in a seemingly arbitrary small landscape painting of the Palazzo sequence. The architectural images origina- Odescalchi by Jean Dubois, which “hung near ting from Europe (14), Asia (11), America (10) Valerio Olgiati’s cot,” or the five houses and Africa (1) cons titute by far the major part designed by Tadao Ando, Kazuo Shinohara, of the collection yet a number of landscapes John Lautner, Villanova Artigas or Paolo (8), genre paintings (2), abstract compositions Mendes da Rocha, which the author “would (2) and a single still life (1) also feature. Of live in” also evi dently have biographical the 36 illus trations of monumental and conno tations. Ano ther part of the collection anony mous architec ture, only eight buildings comprises photographs or mementos of the date from the 20th century. The captions that archi tect’s travels: pictures of the grounds of accom pany the pictures at first seem equally Crathes Castle or Fatehpur Sikri, for cryptic: “Zevreila reservoir” is refer red to as example, or the aforementioned Indian minia- an “artificial lake” for example; an ture. Neverthe less, the collection neither illumination by the Limbourg brothers as an constitutes an autobiog raphy in the sense of a “abstract and ideal” illustration; and the pictorial recol lec tion of the architect’s life proportions of the Palazzo Strozzi are nor is it to be valued simply as an attempt at described as demon strating an “extre me inven tory. Although the images reflect the displacements of mea sures.” Elsewhere praise author’s personal experience, their purpose is given to architec tural craftsmanship such as by far exceeds any mere accumula tion of the “absolute” or “inconceivable precision” perso nal souvenirs. Valerio Olgiati’s intent in of an example of a Japanese dovetail joint or collating the Iconographic Auto bio graphy is of the masonry of a wall in Cuzco. Yet nor more funda mentally to demonstrate an is the collection an autobiography in the authoritative and hence superordinate order sense of an illus tra tion of the author’s life. in architectural thought, which underpins his Certainly, alongside factual descriptions of own work. To interpret the Icono graphic Auto bio graphy merely as a design instrument mist and merge with the surroundings as an means to decipher its signs,2 of which the atmos phe ric entity, dependent on weather individual images already signify a multitude: and time. It is no coinci dence that the cloud the com posi tion of the Ionic temple plans with its elusive, imma terial, indefinite shape— refers to those of organi za tional struc ture; so ubiqui tous in the Iconogra phic Auto biog- the cross-section of Borthwick Castle to raphy—has in Western painting repea tedly those of spatial hier archy; the shaded color represented the bounds of that which can be drawing of San Cataldo cemetery to those of repre sented, the dissolution of form in favor meta physi cal ima gery; the detail of a terra- of the enigmatic.3 In the Icono graphic cotta façade to those of craftsman ship; the Autobiography, too, atmos phere describes film still of Brigitte Bardot—presum ably—to that for which no terms of description exist. those of wishful thinking. The indivi dual Beneath a travel sketch by William Hodges ima ges can be endlessly rearranged to form stands the caption, “This is what the world innumerable new connec tions, which, given one did not know looked like.” Similarly, the the enigmatic cap tions, can lead to ever new Iconographic Auto biography refers to the Taj inter pre ta tions—and, in the absence of clear Mahal as an “apparition” whilst the light- guide lines, also to misinterpretations. These flooded space of Sigurd Lewe rentz’s St. signs, which account for the Icono graphic Peter’s church is praised for its “infinite Autobio graphy’s coherence, refer—in a wealth of precise possi bilities of inter pre- simplified manner and to an increasing degree tation.” Indeed, atmo sphere in architecture of abstraction—to three possible levels of begins where cons truc tion ends.

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