Good evening and welcome.

Thank you all very

much for being

here on this wonderful

Monday evening so close

to the reviews and the

end of the semester.

So we're really appreciative.

It's an incredible treat to be

able to have Peter Markli here

with us tonight.

And I think it's even

a very special honor

that Peter is here

with his family,

Elisabeth and Anna, that

have come from Zurich.

I've been trying to get

Peter to come and give

a talk for a few years.

And it's really wonderful

that he is here.

I could say a lot

about him, and I won't.

But we have been friends

and collaborating.

And it was a
wonderful thing for me

to be able to work
with Peter on his book,

his first book for

publication called

Approximations, which happened

now about 15 or 16 years ago.

And I think it took

us quite some time

to get to the point

of having the book.
And of course since then,
we've had many other encounters

and conversations about

other projects, which we also

hope that there would be

some other publications that

will be happening.

In addition to that book

Approximations, Peter has also

had a number of
recent publications,

one on drawings and another

monograph about his work

called Everything
one invents is true,

which was published

last year and is,

in a sense, a sort of companion

publication to the book

Approximations that
was done in 2002.

Why call the book

Approximations?

And in a way, in short,

part of the reason

is because the way in

which Peter Markli works

is always, in a sense, trying

to approach some version, if you

like, of the concept of

the ideal, of ideality,

and deliberately
not achieving it,

not to try and do things

that essentially are perfect.

So the concept of approximating

the ideal and the notion

of approximation itself was

a very important, in a way,
phenomenon to use as a
reference point for the book.

The other thing that will

probably become quite apparent

in the presentation is that

from the very beginning,

from the very beginning

of his training, thinking,

and practice, Peter

has had a number

of very specific reference

points, where he lived,

where he studied,
who he studied with.

And I think from that early

stage, two figures, one Rudolf

Olgiati, the father of Valerio

Olgiati that many of you know,

and a sculptor called Hans

Josephsohn that he will show

were, in a sense, two reference

points between architecture

and sculpture.

And the materiality of the

work of Hans Josephsohn

is obviously a very important

presence in his work.

The other thing is really the

constant reference to history

and the way in which history

is very present in the project

of contemporary architecture.

And this is something

that many of us

have been discussing about

the relevance of history

and the manner in

which we might be

able to refer or utilize or

make history something that

is present.

But it's very difficult to speak

about those things and for you

to imagine Peter's practice as

something which in some form

or fashion is conventional,
because it isn't.

I think that his

practice is very

unconventional by
contemporary standards.

And I want to just read

you a few lines from--

because I was just

going through the book

that we did and I did in 2002--

and just for you to

capture something

of the method or work.

Because Peter basically

works by himself,

even though he has

an office, which

is an office that realizes

his work and his production.

But he himself works alone.

So in the context
of an institution,

when someone like me constantly

talks about collaboration,

he is someone who is
really, in some ways,

very much working as an artist

in a studio producing work,

not in constant
communication with others.

So maybe these few lines

will give you a sense.

It's a longer piece,

so I won't read it.

But just because this

is the way that the book

Approximation starts
about Peter's work.

It starts with a quote

from Paul Cezanne

to Charles Camoin in
1902 where he says,

"I have little to tell you.

Indeed one says more

and perhaps better

things about painting when

facing the motive than when

discussing purely speculative

theories, in which, as often

as not, one loses oneself."

Like Cezanne, Peter

Markli also believes

that one can say better

things about one's work

when facing it,

addressing it directly.

Perhaps that is why despite a

highly articulate formulation

of his ideas, he
has spoken little

during a 20-year
professional career that

has produced some apparently

simple yet remarkable

buildings.

Even by the usually reticent

standards of Swiss architects,

Markli has been more

self-reflective than most.
He spends long periods
thinking through every aspect

of his projects from

inception to realization,

yet he has not previously

documented his work

in a systematic fashion.

This publication will

hopefully go some way

towards remedying that

intentional neglect.

In many respects, Markli

works in self-imposed exile

from the normal conventions

of running a practice.

He works alone, and

the studio where

he spends most of the time

developing the initial drawings

and models for projects is in

an anonymous, rundown, courtyard

building close to the

periphery of Zurich.

That's how it used to be.

That area has become

much more fashionable

now in Zurich, so in
the last 15 years.

But I'm saying these

things just for you

to get a flavor of the

circumstance, the environment,

the kind of conditions that

an architect uses in order

to find the productive

conditions for his work

and the way in which he

oscillates constantly

between drawing in
a very direct way

and how those drawings

then become really

part of the material

of a building,

an office building, an
institutional building, and so

on.

It's a really incredible

dedication and devotion

to architectural practice.

There's a lot more to

say, but we should really

hear from Peter Markli.

And as you know, we have

someone in San Francisco

who's doing this simultaneous

translation for us.

It's a first for us.

So with best wishes

to Peter Markli,

would you please welcome Peter.

Thank you.

[applause]

[speaking german]

I welcome you cordially

to this presentation.

My profession was art of

buildings, which means

that that became my language.

Art of building means that

with your profession--

that is, the art of

building, but there are also

painters, moviemakers,
writers, and so on--
that you try to express
your view of the world

with your products,

with your buildings.

This is a very early

building of mine.

You can see it's a

duplex residential house.

I was very young at the time.

I did have a language, but the

language was still very limited

because I was young.

But I didn't have a small,

limited feeling, emotion.

The emotion is there.

You don't need an education.

My passion was
great at this time.

And passion, emotion, and

language were still limited.

And that was the building

that I built for two families.

And what I always was interested

in was that the building has

a mood, that it
exudes something,

has an appeal which can give

the people some kind of dignity.

This is the meaning of our

profession, the purpose

of our profession, whether

it's a single building

or urban planning project.

The floorplan of the two-family.

And here you see these circular

elements which, for example,

my students left out.

But these are so-called columns.

And when architects today

leave out the columns,

it's legitimate,
but they will have

to be able to explain exactly

why they are omitting them.

And the column,

in our profession,

was the most expensive element

that you could possibly have.

And they have to take

responsibility if they leave

linguistic or language elements

in the art of the building out

or if they retrieve them,

because some elements need

to be retrieved, because the

classical modern age cannot

represent the entire

future to come.

But classical modernism has

to be reviewed critically.

Next slide, please.

The next, please.

[speaking german]

In the middle, you'll

find this two-story hall.

Then you have the

interior of one.

Next, please.

[speaking german]

And a photograph of the outside.

You can see there is

a little door frame.

And I would like to explain

to you with these three
photographs how I arrived
at this type of design.

I was there visiting.

And we mostly
discussed this area

that I pointed out

in that building.

This is a place where

much was invested in.

And Rudolf Olgiati has

built in these areas

where they had these

archaic columns.

And about the

chapter structure, he

said that there needed to

be an intermediate space

between the columns

and what is behind.

So it's floating
over the columns.

And every chapter structure

that has been built

has this same function.

It's an architectural
element that

will always produce shadow.

And if a leaf is shown

on the chapter structure,

then it is the element in a tree

that can carry the least load.

So building does not always

mean to show how heavy a load is

but to try to abstract from

the load to dematerialize.

And this is what

I was using here.

This model from Rudolf Olgiati.

And the general model was
this Roman-style church.

And you see that elements

were taken from there.

And together with the columns,

it has gotten this design.

It was said at the outset that

I got to know the sculptor Hans

Josephsohn during my studies.

And at that time, big

museums were built in Paris,

for example.

And we had these

fantastic discussions

that we could actually make

a building, one specifically

designed for his

works in Switzerland.

And this was then

implemented in Ticino.

In the north, you have the Alps.

And in the south, to the south,

you have the Gotthard line.

So this is a very small

place with a very nice

Romance-style church.

And the building is set in the

situation between the river

there.

Next, please.

And the structure

of the building,

the shape of the

building is such

that you see the traces of work.

These are side views here.

And these sculptures were

suitable for being lined up

in rows.

We selected two types

of sculptures, reliefs

and semi-sculptures.

And we needed space

around these sculptures.

Height was not the most

decisive element here.

And as I said
before, this building

was designed specifically

for these sculptures.

And what I understand

by the art of building

is actually expressed
in this area.

The idea is the side

view of the building.

And the question

when working on it

was, can this narrow

lower part cooperate--

can two parts cooperate to

create a joint impression?

So these are traces of work.

It's the same thing as

when a writer starts

to delete something.

You see the variations here.

Art of building means

you have an idea,

but that does not

mean that you also

are looking through

variants that

might be totally different,

that you study variations.
And this is how it
was eventually built.

So there was a little recess

built in through which incident

light comes in.

So light from the top

asymmetrically placed.

This is the ground plan,

a very simple plan.

For me, the question

always is, what do you

understand by imagination?

What do you understand

by language?

Architecture is a language.

There are conventions

between people

to be able to communicate.

Or is language
privatized in a manner so

that the next person

will not understand it?

The art of building

is developed in a way

that you definitely

have to create

a relationship with the past.

There has to be a
connection to the past.

You cannot reinvent

or invent yourself.

And what you do must

appear fresh and novel

in terms of current conditions

but not detached from our past,

from what has been there before.

So we look into the past

and rebuild the future.

So you have to decide for

yourself how much you allow

of that to get into your work.

So the ground floor

is really very simple.

You have these various chambers.

And you have a general

rectangular long stretch

with two doors in the middle.

And these are the spaces

in which these sculptures

were exhibited.

And this is the only

space, so the doors

are of the same length.

And the asymmetrical is

depending on the situation.

So the access door is facing

away from the village.

You will see that later.

If that was a
supermarket, the door

would be on the other side.

And the spatial can show

you what my question always

is when we discuss
about the language

of the art of building.

If I personally walk around a

building by, say, Frank Gehry,

does it have various

different sides?

Or are these sides all uniform?

And does this overall plan

have more varied sides
than the building by Gehry?

The other question is--

and I'm saying that because I

have traveled from far away--

if I explain a language
as the constructs--

I'm interested like

the deconstructivists

in things like build

horizontally or not

build horizontally.

And language, of
course, is not complete.

If I have to build horizontally

for various reasons,

I can leave the language.

And I have not met yet

any deconstructivist

who would want to eat his food

from a table that is askance.

And these are the

questions that you

have to ask young people

from all the offers

that are available today.

What is the language

you wish to speak?

The sectional view,

different room heights.

And this is how you approach

the building from the village.

You have the top light there.

There's just a transparent

plate with Japanese films.

It lets diffused light into the

building and no shadows at all.

Here you see this

small entrance.
You have to get the key
down from the village,

and then you can enter

the museum there.

Can you go back one?

One, one.

Yeah.

[speaking german]

So that was the drawing.

And this idea is not far away

from what was eventually built.

These are early

works by Josephsohn

created in the 1950s.

In inverted commas,
abstract reliefs, then

the deep space with

these plastic reliefs,

this row of plastic reliefs.

And here is the room

with the sculptures.

They have to be away from

the wall and be on pedestals.

So the spatial
reaction is important.

Here it was a real

experiment, because there

was no comparable building.

So this is a fairly narrow room.

Usually if you try to

place such sculptures,

you will make the room wider.

And what we wanted was that the

sculptures speak for themselves

and are not arranged

within a space.
These small chambers for
doing a 90-degree movement.

It's a very rough concrete.

And we then got a contract

to build new headquarters

building for Synthes company

on a former military premises.

And this building is used

to produce surgical parts

for all the bone fractures, like

screws and other parts needed

to heal fractures.

This is the former barracks, the

military object that was here.

This first building is protected

under the Monument Act.

The urban planning

situation is it's

close to a river outside

of the city of Solothurn.

We designed this
building in connection

with the Baroque city.

This long building and

the arsenal were taken,

and between the two,

a space was created.

The contractor wanted an

underground parking space

there.

And we said, you

cannot do that here.

We wanted to have
the parking space

out here so that the

longitudinal building,

this oblong building,

gets a specific design.
We included parking decks
and extended the arsenal

with these parking decks.

So the entire area

was usually thought

to be meant for the public.

These are the sketches we made.

This is the top view.

They are different from the

drawings, because the drawings,

they look into the

language, into the design

of the building,
and these sketches,

they capture such

different things,

like the positioning,

this urban planning

situation, the way the building

looks in its environment.

And that was the

centerpoint first.

And step by step, it was

moved closer towards the river

to create an urban space

between the arsenal

and the new building.

And a large part of my work,

which I love very much,

is the search for an idea

of a given spatial program

that we translate
or have to transcend

into what later will--

yes, of course, will

fill the functions,

but which also has a mood

that it reaches human beings,

the soul of human beings.

So these sketches,
these ideas are always

made on smaller sheets

of paper, A4 letter size.

You see the arsenal here

again, the parking decks,

and this vertical element

of the new building

and the driveway and the river.

This is very economical as

far as cost is concerned.

And I recommend that

you never forget

about all these

offers that today

that you need to draw

all by hand still.

Economical means you can carry

it with you in your pocket.

You can take it out in a cafe.

And art in general is highly

economical and efficient.

It is very important
to say different things

with one and same element.

If a building has
superfluous parts,

then it's no longer

art of the building.

We have to look to what we

need to express our feelings

and everything that

is too much has

to be found and be left out.

And that is the great art.

It is not great
art to overdo it.

To know what precisely expresses

my abilities, current abilities

in the moment, and what

expresses the program,

that is decisive.

Here again you have a ground

floor plan of the arsenal.

You see a high roof and

these super verticals.

So this is now a project drawing

of the arsenal with the parking

decks in the back.

It was applied stones.

It's the same stones used to

build the Baroque city center.

And also the new

building has parts

of this typical material

of the town, together

with other materials, of course.

A sectional view here.

And then these wonderful--

for me-- wonderful works

where you just have dots,

nothing but dots.

And these dots sometimes can

mean an architectural element

or a tree.

And when you look

through it in diagonal,

these incredibly complex

structures are developed.

This is the ground

floor of that building.

Here we have the

parking structure.

So the ground floor

is structured such

that it has an
entrance into the yard.

This is a
representative entrance.

There is not a single

separation between these spaces.

It's just the way in which

the materials or stairs that

were used inside, you

can see that you either

come from one side to

the other or vice versa.

There's a formal
hall, a lecture hall.

Yeah, this is the

lecture hall here.

A room for practical

exercises and the workshop.

So this is asymmetrically
styled along the river.

In the upper stories,

we propose that this

is the actual communication

surface, communication area.

So you can create individual

office spaces up there.

How do you arrive at the design?

I think that's the

story of our profession

is that you prepare

for every day,

and then you have some sort of

a vocabulary on which you can

build and process a project.

This is a very small sketch.

But this sketch is
very important for me,

because sketches can make

things that are of iron cast.

If you draw them 100 times,

no longer that iron cast.

And the same we

find in mathematics,

if you know an equation, you

can derive others from it.

And if you do not know the

equation and only a derivation,

it is possible to
discover some way that

hasn't been seen before.

And these sketches

are exactly the same.

You have these clusters

here, and they've

coincided in one point

from the vertical elements.

And I made several sketches.

Once again, you see

the chapter structure

is in the horizontal plane.

It starts with a
small relief here.

And it optically guides

the eye very strongly

into this horizontal play.

And afterward, you find

nodes between elements.

Here is everything in
the horizontal plane.

And we submitted this

sheet for a competition.

You see the ancient architects

looked at it this way.
You have the column.

You have the

superstructure reliefs.

And we took all that that you

see on the left-hand side,

and it was summarized

in this node here.

And this is the consequence

of these drawings.

The element in this building,

the vertical element,

it was then split

up and the node.

These are the parking decks.

And if everything gets

these stone applications,

then it will be more expensive.

And so we just applied

them here and there.

And these interspaces

emerged because they

wanted to have a joint here.

And so we left a
large interspace.

The material from

this arsenal and then

applied to this other

structure, applied

to this concrete structure.

And you see the pavement there.

It is cobblestoned.

You see the columns

here at some spacing.

The new building is in

this big landscape area,

so the spans are enormous.

And what we thought is

the so-called facade

is not that alone, but in

combination with this part.

And this basically makes

up the general appearance.

And so it's bound back with

the help of this node there.

Whether this is a residue

of a classic socket

is a different question.

And in this portion,

we address the scale

of the people that are

moving about in here.

These pillars were painted

with a color of white

so that the gray color

can shine through.

Next, please.

Next, please

[speaking german]

Here you see these nodes again

moving all the way to the top.

This is the entrance hall

with the main staircase

on this side, very lofty

and a very bright atrium.

And then these

corner rooms, where

you have a number of

rooms to hold meetings in.

And I was not just an architect.

I had also friends

who were artists.

I knew painting.

I knew sculptures.

And I had no difficulty to

work with these new conditions

in architecture, because I
had very many language options

that I discovered in
architecture from painting

and from sculpturing,

sculpturing as far as joining

things and as far as

painting is concerned,

this wall, for example.

Only half of the material

is on a gray priming.

This is the portion

where the workshop is.

This table and the workshop,

everything is open.

And then we have

curtains as part

of art elements in the building.

Various students had

project proposals,

and these are what they proposed

for these spatial curtains

built like tubes.

The lecture hall.

Once again, curtains and rods.

And the informal lecture

hall, where you come in.

You find the textile

material here,

a leather, incorporated here.

The offices.

And here you have a

view of the interspace.

Back, the view towards

this Baroque city.

And the view towards the river.

It's a column building.

And now we are coming

to a studio house.

We were asked to build

it by two musicians.

And they were talking about a

spatial program, a house where

the workplace formed the center

of the house and the rooms

that you would normally

call your living rooms

were organized
practically like the crust

of a bread around the studio.

This is the situation.

Very modest buildings,

very beautiful landscape.

This is sketch showing the

height lines, the entrance.

And number one

would be the studio.

Another sketch of
how you approach

this structure and the facade

for this entrance situation.

And in this section, you can

see it was important to me

that the roof did not have

exactly the same inclination

as the slope had but went

into the same direction.

And then there is a basement

only here in the front.

Otherwise, we would have to

dig out material at the back.

And the side facing the

valley is open, very open

with these layered, fragmented

walls that create shadows.

So the actually surrounding

wall that goes around here

is not repeated in
the upper story,

because that would

have a dramatic effect.

This is a ground floor plan.

There's a very small

curvature here.

And the entrance goes directly

into the studio, or this way.

Here is a narrow room,

living room and kitchen.

And upstairs, where you have a

bathroom, a toilet, very narrow

rooms for the children.

And it was built in this

manner and integrated.

It fits into this landscape.

And you can see

these layered walls.

Otherwise, it looks very much

like a conventional building.

So what we [inaudible]
here most of all

is this wall that

faces the valley.

You see a very big gutter,

and the wooden structures

between these concrete

wall elements.

This is the building where

the people lived in--

had a budget.

The budget has nothing

to do, in my view,

with the art of the building.

The question is if an architect
can handle a budget or not.

If you have a smaller budget,

that doesn't mean you cannot

create any art, and it doesn't

automatically mean that

the spaces have to be small.

But the main topic is the people

in Switzerland, [inaudible]

people in Switzerland,
have this idea.

And what I know, that for

some of them, the toilet

bowl or a golden
water tap is more

important than the actual space.

But these owners of the building

were very open to any ideas.

And I made a drawing of the

house and met with the owners.

And then it was too

expensive for them.

And then we just sat

together at the table

and talked about places

where we can save money.

And we did not give up

any square foot of space.

So it's a bituminous roof.

It has electrical bottom.

And the walls were protected

because they were not--

they're just walls, not visible,

and painted a little bit.

And we used a type

of insulation called

foam glass, which is black.

And we left these black parts
of the insulation deliberately

visible.

So we have bricks, white

collar, red outlets,

and black insulation.

This is the kitchen.

It is mobile, so you
can move it around.

This is a gas range and oven.

The bricks here are painted

up to a certain height,

also not all the way down.

And you see the wall

is a little rougher,

and the gray color

shines through.

The gray from the concrete

can be an element,

and the red of the brick

can be part of the design,

and the black of the insulation

can be part of the design.

So all together, if it works,

is essential and very beautiful

house built with very

simple materials.

And another building

can be as beautiful

using more exclusive materials.

And both can have the

same level of art in them.

Here you see the

furnishings, a floor lamp

and various instruments,

a big table, a fireplace.

Working and living area

completely unified.
There's the insulation.

And they happen to have

a closet like that.

The shower and bathroom.

And so this light up there,

we made a frame, a white frame

so that we could put

the electric cable down.

And we knew we would make

this type of framework.

So this is the
general light, not

the vanity light or intimate

light that you sometimes also

have in a bathroom.

Next is the film, please

[speaking german]

For the first time in my life,

I had a video camera in my hand

and did something.

And an employee of mine

actually made it visible

what I did there.

[music playing]

And put music to it.

That was the [inaudible].

[music playing]

And then we had dinner in there

together with the musicians.

The last person you

saw is the composer.

Many thanks for your attention.

[applause]

I hope you have some

questions for Peter.
There's so many issues that
are raised in the work.

And I'd rather we devote

the time to your questions.

I'm always happy,

as you know, to be

the person asking questions.

We already have a hand out here.

Could we get a mike here?

And you can use--

This?

Yeah.

Thank you so much

for the lecture.

Can you hear in German?

I have a few questions

about your relationship

with Hans Josephsohn.

Wait, wait, [inaudible].

So one of the work

that you showed,

the museum for his sculpture,

the proportion to me,

the sculpture, the

proportion of sculpture

inside of the building--

the proportion of the

building, they somehow

match together very perfectly.

But because the works,

the sculptures are old,

they're not going to shrink--

but I wonder if you would

have another museum for him

of relatively new
works and the works

are going to shrink, I

assume, then how do you--

I'm just curious how important

the dimension of the sculpture

is to your building.

And if the sculpture shrinks,

then would you be irritated?

[music playing]

I'm sorry.

First of all, these

sculptures can be exchanged,

can be moved around.

The second is its typologies.

And the typologies range

from 1950 to the year 2000.

So there are reliefs from the

1950s and reliefs from 2000.

The third, the building, the

entire structure and campus,

is the most favorable house

you can see for 40 sculptures.

The question is if
it's effective or not.

And if it is effective.

Now I know, well, I was

about 30 years old back then.

Then I today don't know if

I had another opportunity

to create a place for this

sculptor Josephsohn, what

this would look like.

I have no idea.

But I do have ideas to

answer your question

how I would build museums.

But we all lose
these competitions

when we propose these, because

they are nonconformist.

And you will actually

make a statement

what is decisive and

important for the future.

And if you talk about

art, art basically

belongs to the people.

And I am asking myself, I'm

wondering why all our museums

are so bunker-like,
why they are--

I know about insurance

issues and this and that.

But one could

create a more open,

or at least the appearance of

a more open and more inviting

design.

And I find it quite

questionable how

they're designed
towards the outside,

towards the audience,

the visitors.

I would be very interested

to exhibit [inaudible] where

a farmer goes by with his truck.

And I have made this proposal,

but it was not accepted.

And once again, Alberto

Giacometti would also be great.

So there's many great things.

But if I ever were to build

something again for Josephsohn,
I think I would be most
intrigued by needing

even less money but be as good.

That would be my incitement

for the next project.

And with these

bronze sculptures,

it's not difficult with

the air of the climate

in the room, the air

conditioning of the room.

It is the humidity that

is damaging to paintings.

If you have low humidity, you

see paintings in old buildings

and churches that survive.

What I didn't quite understand

is what you're shrinking,

but you-- plastics?

If you reduce the scale.

So the art is dependent

on the scale, right?

So not shrinking.

But if Josephsohn's
sculptures are very big,

if you were dealing

with sculpture that was

smaller-scale, would the scale

of art and the architecture--

OK, yeah.

That's not the

question of the size,

never, never, because

if you will give me

a sculpture like
that, I will build

you a sock, enormous sock, that

the sculpture became very big.
And you can [german].

And you can save a lot

of money in doing so.

[laughter]

And if Josephsohn had very

large or very tall sculptures--

but this is a theoretical

question which you actually

are not allowed to ask,

because if you see his reliefs

and his references

to human figure,

his sculptures are just barely

larger than a regular human

being would be.

I don't know.

I cannot imagine if he had

made monumental works of art.

It's simply-- but

as an architect,

I could also accommodate

a very large sculpture.

Please.

Hello.

I would like to
ask you in the way

that history is important

to you in context, as we

saw in your lecture, how do

you go about using history

and not fall in the trap of

using it just as an image

but actually as the very

complex thing that it is?

How do you use the essence

of history in your project?

Thank you.
[speaking german]

We have an advantage
compared to art historians.

We have to perceive
history with our eyes

and not by reading books.

We are not bound

to a chronology,

but we are required.

For our question, our things

we need in the present,

we have to look into the past

to find potential answers.

And art always means to build

on previous art, previous work,

and to transform it into

present-day and future

meanings.

That is the process.

And because our present

in social matters

as well as in building
physical matters

has completely new

issues and questions,

it is impossible to
build in a retro style,

because we have
completely new questions

that we need to answer.

And if you take these

seriously, every time

has two, three very

important issues

which are answered in

a sovereign manner when

you accept the content

of these issues as issues

and do not create

readymade sculptures

and transport them

into the present.

Form has to find itself

in a new way every time.

Otherwise, it is not
topical, not current.

If you have the

American Expressionists,

there's no need to paint

them a second time,

because the very

specific conditions they

had to get to their works.

Do you know the article

Barnett Newman in 1948

that he wrote in The Nation?

It's very beautiful

how he worded it.

I don't even know

if I can get it

right from the top of my head.

You want me to quote him?

He said, based on the historical

situation where he was

and where the Europeans were,

he also knew European art very

well, that the Europeans

always stick to the motive

and the subject and

cannot get away from it,

not even Mondrian.

And the Europeans

were capable of taking

these subjects and to transcend

them into a spiritual world.
The American Expressionists had
taken pure ideas, no subject,

no topic, just a pure idea.

And if it comes to transcending

that into a spiritual world,

they can transcend

their abstract the world

into a very real and

perceivable world.

And you as an architect always

have a job, a program, that is,

always try certain parameters.

And you have to

just take it as it

is without whining
about the budget

or because there
were parasites there

and there are these

problems, those problems

with the electricity and

because the craftsmen don't

know what they're doing.

Stop whining about

all these issues.

If you want to be an architect,

take this dry program

and translate it into an

emotional, perceivable world.

That is your job,

simply speaking.

And that's how you

find your language.

This means we have a

subjective choice from history.

Egypt, Renaissance, many

thousands of years back,

Renaissance, 500 years back,

are much more current for me--

I could talk about

it for two hours--

than the classical modernism is.

I find much more material for

answering our today's questions

back there.

Thank you for your lecture.

I was hoping that you could

expand a bit upon the way

that materiality
and budget, what

you spoke about both multiple

times in the lecture,

both inform the

way that you design

and how you approach a project.

[speaking german]

I can only talk

about it in this way

because I can only work when

I am happy and work with joy.

That the creation of

material basically

is not the first one in the

hierarchy, hierarchy up there.

The urban planning

answer in conjunction

with a program,
that is at the top.

And these decisions are

made at an artistic level,

but equivalent to that is a

politically active person as

well.

And if you don't know anything

about life and are not
politically engaged, you will
not be able to create potential

beauty, because beauty cannot

be consumed like a piece of pie.

And what motivates me is beauty.

And I keep thinking, oh, I would

like to be able to do that.

This means I have an idea,

an urban planning concept,

a spatial structure
that comes together

without a surroundings,
and then I have a budget.

And if the principle

lets me select materials,

and it's not even many, it's

the same to me, as beautiful

as something else.

So first, something
has to be created.

An idea has to come.

And the idea does not

come through the material,

but the urban planning situation

and the spatial situation.

When you have an idea, it is

small without any variation.

But when you start

working on it,

it's like a character

in a novel, that

right of determined, but

it gets its own life.

You cannot see all

its traits yet.

But then in the history

that is playing out,

the character in the novel must

add new traits of character.
And we have to work in constant
communication with our plan.

And the more we

have on this plan,

the more it speaks to you.

And it's important to me that--

and you apply two things at the

same level, the being in love

with your plan and an

incredible distance to it

that does not make you a

slave of your plan, that

lets you look at it from afar

and see something like, wait,

you have to move in this

direction or in that.

And as far as a plan has

developed, the less free

you will be.

You will have to

communicate on the way.

This is the most

important thing.

And then you discover the

more and more you work on it,

you find ways and

directions where to go.

And unless you just

have an ideology

or pattern, rigid
pattern how to build,

this will create things, because

you also change in the process.

You will create things

that you might not

have been able to

create two years ago,

because you didn't

have the calmness.

And now you're capable

of using this material

and can produce just

as beautiful things

that you thought two

years ago that material

is unsuitable for your work.

And this is the way how

you have to address it,

and you know that the world

is open towards the top.

And you can piece by piece

add and approximate whatever

you would like to achieve.

If you achieve something

100%, your world

becomes limited or you're just

at the target close to the sun.

You've reached your goal.

The point is something you

do not quite achieve 100%.

And that's the nature of things.

And I do not know an

absolute masterpiece at all.

I know wonderful
masterpieces only.

Well, I didn't say

much about material.

But I accept every material

that you would give me.

And then I say, well, let's see.

Maybe we'll find something.

We can do something with it.

And I would be open.

I would always compare it

to sculptures, sculpting
and painting.

Look at painters or sculptors.

A sculpture by that
sculptor, it could

have been said that he wasn't

able to show sensuality

of the body.

He had this motive in the face

and the body of his main model

who had a sensual model.

He did not have a

real subject there.

And then he invented

this wonderful foot.

He knew everything
about history.

He knew about
Etruscan sculptures.

And he made these

wonderful sculptures.

And if you cut out a piece, this

small piece of this sculpture,

will be very different

from an archaic sculpture

of the Greeks, because here

even a fragment contains

a little bit of a substance.

That's our novel, our new times.

We can reach the

same level in art,

but we have become

way more vulnerable,

much more vulnerable, I say.

But we can create

participation in art.

So we heard you speak of

proportion before, but--
[speaking german]

Yeah, sure.

I'd like to do that.

I could talk until tomorrow, if

you have that many questions.

If one has to say

things in one hour--

and proportion has

always something

to do with measurements
and dimensions.

Like back then when

I was a young man,

these proportions
and measurements

are an important
element, to give an idea,

substantial and
indestructible content.

My drafts have a basic

stability that is indestructible

and cannot be destroyed

at the building site.

For example, if the foreman is

in a bad mood because he has--

whatever the design

is, the proportions

provide stability to the house.

And they go way over the

question of materials used.

And what systems you

need, proportions,

dimensional systems in
numbers, that is open.

You have to decide for

yourself how this all works.

You can write the numbers

down in the plans.
But if you have this basic
stability in your draft,

in your design, the house, the

building, or the urban space

will always be good.

Whether a simple material is

used and it's correctly built

or an inexpensive
material is used,

the most tragic

buildings for me are

those that have bad

dimensions and want

to cover it up with very

expensive applications

of materials.

I'm sorry for these buildings.

The dimensional design is much

farther up in the hierarchy.

So when you determine

your dimensions,

no one will talk you out of it.

No one will even

interfere with you,

and it doesn't cost any money.

And this is the area where the

main stability of a building

comes from.

And therefore I
recommend that you

deal with the

measurements, dimensions,

and seek to implement that.

I don't know a nice beautiful

German word about the teaching.

Our architectural profession

works via emptiness and not
via the fullness.

We think the first

draft is empty at first.

Between two elements

there's space, empty space.

The empty space in

between our elements

can build an almost

electrical tension.

The air in between can be

just normal, commonplace,

or it can be exciting.

And the dimension,

the measurement

between, if there's no
tension, the building

will have less constant appeal.

But whatever we
do, it's always how

we handle the emptiness between

the spaces and the stability.

To provide tension
to the empty spaces

is what you determine

by giving measurements

to both the material elements

as well as the emptiness.

And you have to measure

out so many sketches

and translate it
into dimensions.

And if you work with

a proportion system,

and if you have

an accurate line,

you can make an approximation

to the left or right,

and in our system even,

at the center once again.

And that's where the tension is.

And the deceitful

thing of a sketch is

is that it deviates
from the orthogonal.

And that's why I sometimes

say, in a facade,

should we move the

line a little bit

inward or outwards to provide

tension to the overall facade?

And this is something

that takes a lot of work,

a long period of work

where you have to find out

where these dimensions are and

how they relate to one another

to create this tension

that you need to achieve.

And that costs.

That is work.

That takes a lot of time.

And because I was a

dropout during my studies,

I couldn't make the drawings.

And therefore I
dealt with it later

and found a dimensional

system, which is basically

based in very simple geometric

shapes, the triangulum,

the golden section

as the main ratio.

And from there you

go to 1/8, 1/16.

And people keep asking me,

does this have something
to do with music?

And I'm saying no,

not with music.

It's just simple

what I've found.

The triangulum is
very close to 7/8,

and the golden section

is very close to 5/8.

And because I'm combining the

discussions about these two

concepts, the triangulum

and the golden sections,

I said I combine
these to some extent.

I work with these.

And division is only allowed

by even numbers, so 8, 16,

and so on, never 3, 5.

And the computer loves it

when it gets integral figures.

Computer likes precise numbers.

A computer is a very good tool.

It's an instrument.

Sorry, the dimensions I

meant, not the computer.

They're an instrument to use.

So can the computer.

Peter, thank you very much.

[speaking german]

Thank you very much

for a great lecture.

Thank you very much to our

translator in San Francisco.

[applause]
Thank you.

As you can tell,

this conversation

can go on for quite some time.

I think Peter just mentioned the

word computer at the very end.

And the relationship between the

hand drawing and the computer

could be, of course, the subject

of a much longer discourse

and discussion.

But what I hope

has been made clear

is way in which Peter works

is really very, very different

than so many other

experiences that we see today.

And his relationship just to

the drawing, the thickness

of the pencil, the

relationship between the body

and the drawing itself

that really produces

the final outcome is all

part of a longer conversation

around this question of

precision and clarity

and the way in which the

ambiguity of the line itself

is actually part of the

procedures of thinking

and revealing.

And there's a lot

more about history

and his love of the Romanesque

and things like that.

But hopefully he'll

come back and he'll
spend more time with all of
us and discuss these things.

Really, thank you all very much.

And I hope that you found

the conversation productive.

Thank you, Peter,

for everything.

Thank you.

[applause]