Atmospheres

1. How does Peter Zumthor talk about the "Magic of the Real" and explain how this compares, in terms of the subtleties, to Michael Benedikt's "Architecture for Reality"?

Zumthor discusses the possibilities of how to create an atmosphere, how to take a feeling or mood and translate it into a physically defined space. Benedikt talked about architecture in more of an analytical tone, looking at how structures affect us, while Zumthor looks to make the architecture the cause for Benedikts affect.

2. Material Compatibility, Temperature of a Space and Levels of Intimacy are some conditions that both Peter Zumthor, in “Atmospheres”, and Richard Serra, in “Weight and Measure”, make a point of articulating when consider space. Where in their explanation of these overlapping conditions are they similar and where do they differ?

Their explanations are similar in that they want to define the mood and or reaction of whoever is occupying or inhabiting the space. Serra seems to want to create a hard definition of the space and an instant recollection of the experience while Zumthor wants to create a space that creates a mood without the occupant noticing.

3. Zumthor looks towards experiential conditions when creating architecture, what are other methods architects use when generating architecture and what is the corresponding building?

4. For Zumthor at the end of the day, after figuring use, sound, place, light and the other listed conditions, if the coherence isn’t beautiful the process is started again. Beauty is simultaneously subjective for the individual, as held “in the eye of the beholder”, and universally recognizable. Define your subjective understanding of what beautiful architecture is.

Beauty of architecture is very difficult to define, as it is usually a composite of several aspects. My subjective understanding of beautiful architecture is a definition of space that allows that moves the user both physically and spiritually while remaining also aesthetically appealing.