ie Stories Antontus in Egg, 1988-1997, a built vision of “Analoge Architektur” ré Bideau Antonius Is located in the green countryside in Egg. Its tranquil buildings resemble models that inhabit the miniature world of model railways. The small wooden rch with shingle cladding on its unspectacular facades alludes to the architectural jiion of Eastern Switzerland. Built in 1921, it was used for several years as a parish irch by the Roman Catholic “diaspora” in the strictly Zwinglian Zurich country smunity. When relics of St. Antonius reached Egg from Padua, the St. Antonius rch suddenly became a pilgrims? destination of regional importance. Ironically, it the church's original architect who was responsible for this rise to fame, for Josef ein only agreed to give his financial support to the construction of the church on condition that it was dedicated to St. Anthony. With its own partitioned-off + courtyard, its own presbytery, youth centre and car park, the complex had no on the village landscape of Egg and kept its distance from the village - a mstance that enhanced the artificiality which is in any case inherent in the ber complex. fact that the small parish church mutated into a structural complex with a con- trated history is a result of the success story of the young place of pilgrimage. Its ry tells of growing numbers of pilgrims and a special liturgical programme, of s for a complete structural renewal in the early 1970s, and finally of the’compe- 1n for renovation and extension in 1988 that was won by Miroslav Sik. With his ject, which was realised in two stages and completed in 1997, Sik remained faith- to the laws inherent in the St. Antonius complex by organically developing the fisting situation. A well as the addition of a hall and further rooms for the use of the ‘sh, the programme included improvements favourable to the church's liturgical ditions - for example a view from the transept to the altar and the reorganisation the chapels and secondary rooms. Thus, within the framework of a cosmetic in- ention, the aim was to fulfil functional requirements, and to intensify the pre- tent atmosphere for the numerous pilgrims lowing patterns and erasing traces jerever new spatial definitions were allowed, Sik continued along the lines of the mn set out in the existing building. He moved the centre of the complex, which viously faced Flurstrasse and was arranged around an inner courtyard, back to- dds the rear of the site and constructed a long, punt-shaped new building looking a churchyard behind the presbytery. Some old trees have been integrated In this of the complex, and the extension towards the rear preserves a coherence of le, material and stylistic motifs. A similar unifying effect of buildings to form a 25staffage, a background to the architectural image, can be seen in the La Longeraie church community centre in Morges, the campus complex to which Sik carried out renovations during the same years as his work on St. Antonius. Whereas the extension building in the competition project still included an ex- pressive roof landscape equipped with five lanterns, a strip of overhead lighting was integrated in the ridge of the constructed building. This pragmatic elimination of the “steamer motif” emphasises the basic theme of the eminent rafter roof over regu- larly spaced double-winged window facades, and it also enhances the plastic effect ing that evokes the metaphor of of the conical tapering at both ends of the bi Noah's Ark as an allusion to the communal life of the building. Sik based the huge receptacle on a simple spatial concept which succinctly di ture and establishes the two symmetrical axises. Whereas the northern half of the fes up the building struc- extension building accommodates the parish hall and the entrance area, the southern half's organised in two layers in order to house smaller meeting and auxiliary rooms on the same spatial cross section. As the only significant room of the extension, the parish hall stretches the whole width of the building as if it were housed beneath an upside-down boat’s hull. The visible laminated girders of the narrow-meshed binder construction stand ona slight- ly conical plan. The binder construction gives the hall’s deep-drawn rafter ceiling the appearance of an expressive spatial shell in which the window wall and the ceiling ike depth stepping effect can be seen in Lohlein’s nave with its unconcealed ornamented binder construction. Never- theless, the parish hall is an exception in the St. Antonius complex because here Sik merge, tent-like, into one another. A similar stage-t introduces themes with far more multi-faceted references that allude above and beyond the immediate setting. While the solemn traditionalism of the timber archi- tecture is evocative of rustic ceremonial halls such as that of the Thédtre du Jorat in Mézieres, its polygonal, symmetrical spatial geometry Is reminiscent of expression istic communal spaces. Nevertheless, the building as a whole is far removed from any form of architecturally staged intoxication, a mood of sound, rational calm and an almost. “Werkbund”-like atmosphere of good form being invoked through the broken colours and the almost textile elaboration of the ceiling and walls. In addition, the chosen proportions prevent any over-dramatic escalation of the spatial cross section and spatial experience divorced from the overall context of the complex. In spite of the fact that it Is open to several different interpretations, the unconven- tional parish hall is just one section of the serial rafter construction of the compact, barn-like building, the interior of which is dominated by the materials and formal motifs resulting from the architect’s rudimentary treatment of structural themes. Similarly, our perception of the building's exterior is governed by the main pictorial Idea. Rather than engaging in an exploration of typological or structural organisa tional principles, Sik established a vague balance between the parts, thus neutralising the whole composition. The assembly of extended buildings does not assume the 28character of a conglomeration, let alone a textbook division of the architectural substance into “old” and “new”. In fact, the design concentrates on enhancing the characteristics of the overall identity of the site with elements such as the eloquent monopitch roof and the dark brown wooden shingles which cover the finely frac- tlonated facades of St. Antonius like a supple skin. It Is the exterior space that sets the scene. This seemingly arbitrary interpretation results in a typological merging of completely dissimilar parts of the building. The obliteration of traces is not only applied on the historical level: it becomes the fundamental design intention. The critique of criticism Post-modernism endowed the discipline of architecture with a new social relevance brought about by the combination of self-reflection and subversion. In design practice after modernism, a self-awareness of the critical function became a means of self-identification - and an effective tool. Topol such as “design as criticism” and “design as research” were expressions of the fact that an open interpretation of individual work had fundamentally changed both the architect's role and the mode of the architectural statement. The theme of contextuality became the focal paradigm within the “critically” expanded consciousness, opening up a new perspective of infiltration, ambiguity, discontinuity and dissonance to be activated like a system of symbols. A sovereign way of handling context now became part of the field of competence of a kind of architecture that was more concerned with interventions, sometimes with the positioning of new buildings, than with developing universal spatial concepts. 30Yet Sik excludes dialectics of context and intervention, history and the present by subordinating all his design dispositions to a dominating visual theme. In addition, he limits the development of his own signature to the specific setting of the task in hand. This attitude could be interpreted as a criticism of contemporary building production and its “star” system; as an approach, however, it is based on the concept of Analoge Architektur on which Sik once had a provocative influence as a teacher and designer. Reverting to perception advocated by his former teacher Also Rossi at the ETH during the 1970s, Sik developed a programme of “poetic realism” at the same school, a concept putting the post-modern “anything goes” into perspective for the new sentimentality of the 1980s. This established a down-to-earth ultra-formalism which helped itself to the history of architecture in a way of its own. A subjectivism of atmosphere and perception replaced the variously interpretable codes of a post- modernism whose intellectuality was no longer in favour. Thus the methods of analogous architecture were not immediately directed against reactionary modernist positions, a few of whose champions were still active during Rossi's time at the ETH, for Sik was more concerned with challenging, by means of pointedly formulated manifestos - and above all in his legendary project reviews ~ the design reflexes that had become established “since” modernism. Favourite objects of his attacks were the concept of place supported by the Tessiner Tendenza and the academic pastiche of “igh and low”. For Kenneth Frampton’s profound “critical regionalism” and for the avant-garde’s flirtation with popular culture since the 1960s, Sik had nothing but contempt. In 1985, as senior assistant to Fabio Reinhart (who himself had been assistant to Aldo Rossi), Sik established a kind of “master class” at the ETH which differed in almost every way from the rest of the school. In the spirit of a unified representation technique, a well as a strong personal design element, plan and section were sub- ordinated to the image as an independent instrument of research. Design develop- ment shifted towards the ritual production of large-format perspective renderings céloured with Jaxon chalk. Conceptually and didactically out-worn teaching concepts were ousted by dedicated beaux-arts craftsmanship, whose products were sent on - and discussed at - successful exhibition tours. The renderings made a radical impression at the time, largely because their repertoire suggested that the ideas of the “analogists” encompassed vanished lines of development and tabooed episodes of architecture of 20th century. The probing and development of the “right” picture took place In a phenomenological cloud which claimed to be free from ideological values and autonomous as an architectural language. This meant that questions about the use of tradition never developed into the focal issue - or into the culturally pessimistic argumentation which was later to characterise the rhetoric of the Berlin discourse on traditionalism. As a glimpse at the structure of the former studio at the ETH in Zurich readily shows, the teaching experiment, which lasted for several years, played the role of an incubator for the transfiguration of reality in 1980s design 32culture: the need for authenticity which now characterises the mood of the German- Swiss scene was programmatically anticipated and professionally legitimised by the harmonious notion of vision postulated in the studio of Professor Fabio Reinhart. Sphere of activity: kitsch It is certainly no coincidence that a work of timber architecture that is as strongly characterised by motifistic and atmospheric elements as St. Antonius in Egg proved amenable to the Analoge Architektur method that works with a kind of sentimental hyperrealism. Sik immersed himself in the essential character of the popular oasis. The physical changes of the church interior that resulted from the conversion might almost be described as a kind of scene-shifting and a co-ordination of various crafts (painting, carpentry and artistic ironwork). Not even the most radical of the spatial Interventions can be regarded as a “thematic” intervention since they merely endow the visual relationships with a new functional order: a visual connection between the choir area and the benches in the laterally adjoining “aula” was created by joining the latter and the transept by two di larger services, the apse was moved further back, a pragmatic lengthening of the nave that resulted in a modest cross, with the axis of the aula facing a new baptistery (in a ilar openings. Since this provided space for former flower room). Anew “people’s altar” was erected at the point of intersection between the two main axises, sculpted, like the baptismal font, out of a monolithic limestone block on the basis of a sketch by Sik and introducing an unexpectedly archale element Into the church. 36372 (ey. A Sie ¢ Wi iB i Z 3839If all-too realistic pictures are kitsch, then the renovation of St. Antonius must be described as kitsch. In the face of the involuntary down-grading of “radical” architec- tural iconographies resulting from the construction of parish centres (particularly in the 1960s and 70s), itis clear that the success is entirely on the side of the tradition- alists. By doing no more than adapt the built framework to the pilgrims’ piety, Sik limited his sphere of activity to the organisation of atmosphere and circulation, to a liturgical rearrangement within a supple typology. In Egg, the architect's intention, the genius loci and the expectation of the client seem to coincide, and the borderline between the concept and the Catholic reality has been eliminated without the addition of an interpretative break. Basically, however, despite - or perhaps because of ~ his affirmative approach and his rejection of all avant-garde reflexes, Sik oper- ates on camp territory ~ the subversion of reality through a strategy of self-denial and copying which Susan Sontag has described as the precondition for pop art. As a thinking model, the architectural analogy leads to an almost Warhol-like short- circuit. Avoiding all strategies of distancing and distortion, Sik fluctuates between the preser- vationist approach of the Ballenberg Museum and a way of seeing peculiar to Pet Fischli and David Weiss, whose series “Siedlungen, Agglomerationen” dealt wi the same Zurich periphery in 1993, During the 1980s, various representatives German-Swiss architecture adopted the diffuse spatial qualities and atmospheres the town outskirts and agglomerations for their first design ventures. Yet a cro: section through contemporary discourses reveals that the periphery has forfeit its former thematic interest: today, with its motifs somewhat plundered, it takes the appearance of a refuge of an eternally romantic “dirty realism”. Gone Is provocation for design in discussing the peripheries in the face of the museum-li “frozen” city centres. But the quicker a typologically and formally coded spatial cept seems to be disintegrating, the more autonomous and glaring is the emerg of other characteristics of identification. In the wake of a global levelling ou plices and spaces are becoming associated with events rather than with centres peripheries. Today, the relationship of architecture, media and identities is the sul of a different discourse that questions the architect's competence regarding production of images and pictures. For just as the architecture challenged by market vacillates between the two poles of the service and the cultural industri also challenges architects to adopt extreme positions: if we were to embark on overall survey of architecture, two main opposite camps would probably em one them convinced of the importance and the other of the harmfulness of pe signature. A decade after the manifestos of “analogous architecture”, their built renderings the impression of a staged, constructed reality. By putting the architectural i faithfully and unambiguously at the service of the task in hand, the Egg cor has acquired a semantic double meaning that divests it of Its critical compe 40St. Antonius has disqualified the analogous architectural product much in the same way that McDonalds disqualified the Venturi & Scott Brown “decorated shed”. In the new wake of “imagineering”, Sik’s visual policy is perfectly reasonable on a conceptual level. Despite its nostalgic rhetoric, it is unreservedly orientated towards 2 sensuous experience of everyday life on which its phenomenology is based. It reacts to situations, adopts an affirmative approach towards ideas put forward by clients, and responds without dissonance. Whereas today’s zeltgelst is involved with rapid, fleeting virtual images, Sik’s narrative technique is concerned with “slow”, i. e, handed-down, painstakingly elaborated images. With his architecture of mood ity being given to the structural and and atmosphere, he no longer insists on typological control of space. Like a quality-conscious spatial furnisher, Sik distils his effects from the interplay of architecture and arts and crafts. His sphere of activity is the sampling of motifs and moods, which have come together, sentimentally, in the pliable receptacle of St. Antonius. 41