PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

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Valerio Olgiati, Atelier Bardill,
Scharans, Switzerland, 2006–07
walled up in the old farm building is remarkable in its combination of respect for the past and openness to the present. The Chesa Madale-
na is now a contemporary art gallery showing works by Richard Long or Balthasar Burkhard without any contradiction. Especially in “old” cul-
tures like those of Europe or parts of Asia, the awareness of the past and a respect for its lessons have surely risen greatly in recent years.
Architects like Ruch are both the confirmation of this trend and instigators in their own right of a new sensibility that can accommodate the
past and present simultaneously.
Another Swiss architect, Valerio Olgiati, has taken a somewhat more radical approach to the construction of an artist’s atelier, in the
heart of the old village of Scharans (Atelier Bardill, 2006–07, page 382). In the place of an old wooden barn, he has erected a red poured-
in-place concrete structure that assumes the profile of the farm structure, while opening its heart to the sky with an oval courtyard. Though
the use of almost blank concrete walls might be considered shocking in this context, it is a fact that the new structure has captured the aus-
terity of the original architecture of this Swiss mountain village. Olgiati made his concrete red because the village demanded that the new
structure have the same color as the old one. Thus, in the process of respecting a request formulated for historic preservation reasons, he
has made a thoroughly modern building, with an internal courtyard worthy of James Turrell’s Skyspaces.
Terunobu Fujimori is a Professor at the University of Tokyo specialized in the history of Western-style buildings erected in Japan from
the Meiji period (1868–1912) onwards. He is particularly knowledgeable about the emergence of modern architecture through the work of
such figures as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Gropius, and yet when he himself began to build, he created very unexpected buildings
that seem deeply rooted in the past. Fujimori writes, “From my first project, I have tried to adopt the following two rules as a design policy:
1) The building should not resemble anyone else’s building, past or present, or any style that has developed since the Bronze Age;
2) Natural materials should be used on parts of the building that are visible, and at times plants should be incorporated in the build-
ing, so as to harmonize the building with nature.” 6
Though the very desire to design structures that resemble no other might be seen as pretentious, Fujimori remains as modest as his
6.07-square-meter Teahouse Tetsu built in the grounds of a museum in Japan (Kiyoharu Shirakaba Museum, Nakamaru, Hokuto City,
Yamanashi, 2005, page 174). He compares it to a “house for a midget from a fairytale,” but also makes reference to some of the most impor-
tant cultural symbols of Japan, like Sen no Rikyu (1522–91, the historical figure who had the most profound influence on the Japanese tea
ceremony), in describing the project. Made for observing cherry blossom in the area, Teahouse Tetsu also finds its purpose in the most deeply
felt Japanese customs and traditions, from the tea ceremony to the annual sakura (cherry blossom) frenzy that grips the country. Like the
“fairytale midget” evoked by the architect, this tiny project is an object of humor, but it is also the product of ancient traditions. It is “dis-
placed” in an intellectual sense, somewhat like Olgiati’s Atelier in Scharans. Nothing is as it seems here, and that is a fact that makes
Fujimori’s surprising work fundamentally contemporary. It is about the condition of architecture as much as it is rooted in the more or less
distant past. In the case of another of his projects, the Too-High Teahouse (Miyagawa Takabe, Chino City, Nagano, 2003), Fujimori writes, “In
the distance is the house where Toyo Ito grew up. Even though the two of us grew up in the same area and during the same period, what we
create is completely opposite. The relationship between human beings and their environments is not simple and straightforward.” 7
INTRODUCTION
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