Evening, 11^th November 2009 Graz, Austria.

A crowd of eager students and professionals gathered tightly into a crowded lecture hall of the Graz Technical University. People were packed right to the back, filing up the stairs, across the floor and even out down the corridor. All were present in anticipation of Valerio Olgiati’s arrival. He was billed to talk about his philosophy, professional approach and his latest architectural projects.

The presentation was in German and so my understanding was rather limited, but the visual presentation was clear and I was able to confer with colleagues afterwards. Taking the stage, Olgiati quickly made his charms known with a series of well timed and evidently popular jokes, delivered as he was fitted with a series of microphones.

Olgiati is well regarded world wide. He is associated with an impressive list of eminent teaching institutions and sporting an ever-growing catalogue of elegant and imaginative built work. And so it was something of an event for him to be speaking in Graz – not to detract from its own healthy regional scene which has long been of international significance.   [For a detailed history of it's most famous expressionist 'schule' and more minimalist practices see Peter Blundell Jones’ excellent, ‘Dialogues in Time’ published by the Graz HDA (Haus der Architectur). who, in co-operation with the university, organised the evening’s lecture.]

Olgiati began with a rather unapologetic announcement that his buildings, or at least their representation, are non-contextual.  He supported this assertion with a series of slides taken at an exhibition of his work where large white models of competitions and realised projects, detached from site and locale, were assembled in the beautiful haupthalle of the Semper designed Zurich University/ETH building.  I was immediately sympathetic to this approach.  In his later explanations, particularly of the EPFL, Lausanne University building, it was apparent that context could be a key factor in his design strategy but he never let the issue tyrannise or develop into empty rhetoric.  Consequently, it would seem his buildings stand for themselves without making excessive demands on their immediate environment and without forcing a single or even multifaceted interpretation of the human life and history that surround them.  They simply do their thing quietly and proudly in a provocatively self-resolved fashion.

‘Nächste’ was one of the few words I could pick out consistently but I felt I was following as he lead us through his projects. Firstly was a museum for the Swiss National Parc in Zernez – two symmetrical towers of monolithic insulating-concrete with only a few spare fixtures in bronze. All six floors are physically identical although none are true repetitions as they occur at different elevations or are reflections of a twin. The near identical cubic towers are mirrored diagonally across a shared corner, another square where vertical circulation also occurs. The window cases are brought inside the matching 190cm high apertures and fixed to the internal face of concrete walls. Olgiati reasoned this on the disparity of the required tolerance of metal fabrication and the comparatively ambiguous tolerances one must expect from concrete. This disparity is most commonly absorbed by silicon or expanding foam but not here. As the concrete is itself the insulation there is no need to detail around cold bridges and the frame is simply mortared to the wall.

A similar system is used in ‘House for a Musician’ although here the concrete is coloured red and is divided by an insulated cavity. More is made of the treatment of the concrete too. The walls and their rosaries, which make the building so distinctive, are cast in hand carved wooden forms no-less.

There was also a little time for an explanation of his favourite projects and how they had informed his philosophy. We saw a palace from Schinkel – laberthine behind an ordered façade – the spiritual path of Hindu, Mughal and Shinto temples and their materials of hot red stone or transient wooden frame. Everything linked elegantly back to his built work, most notably to his new studio, a black wooden box hovering in a concrete tray over a black asphalt yard come basement. Just as in the Shinto shrine, this otherwise loose structure is stiffened by a central column. Similarly, the path through spirals clockwise whereas in the shrine it had circled.

After the talk concluded a short pre-filmed interview was screened. Olgiati sat and watched with the rest of us and did so encouragingly but he flinched perceptibly on occasions, particularly when making affirmations of his desire for totality within each project. That is totality of material, totality of construction and totality of the expression, although with Olgiati they often become inseparable. He insisted that such was the order of this totality that he wished a project would break to pieces, crumble, if a single element were removed or altered. There is something enchantingly medieval about this alchemy. Materials matter not only for their preciousness but because ideas, work and personality are teeming within them. They have a life of their own.

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‘MODERN ARCHITECTURE IS STILL IN ITS INFANCY. WE BELEIVE THERE IS UNLIMITED POTENTIAL IN THIS FIELD WITH REGARD TO HOUSING AS WELL AS PUBLIC SPACE.’

Visiondivision is the creative home of the offbeat Anders & Ulf and is quickly becoming Stockholm’s answer to neighbouring Copenhagen’s Bjarke Ingels Group. Their infectious brand of inventive positive architecture has already gained international patronage and a popular cult following. They join me now in interview.

Please tell us a little about who you are, how your partnership formed and of your experiences prior to its formation?

We are both from Stockholm, but we met when we started at the university in Gothenburg. It was during this time we did our first projects together, both school projects and competitions. We quickly understood that we both had the same syndrome; an almost autistic urge to be creative and explore the field of architecture. During our school years we probably did about 80 projects together, we didn’t even sit in the same atelier; so we used to make projects in the school cafeteria, in the corridors and at the lunch restaurants, it was very spontaneous and joyful.
Later, we decided to get outside of Sweden to broaden our architectural and personal horizons. Even though we were often at opposites sides of the world from each other we kept in contact, mainly via msn. Coming home after a couple of years we realized it was time to form a solid office out of all this aspiration and ideas that we had, so visiondivision was founded.

‘ARCHITECTURE IS NOT ALWAYS ABOUT REDUCTION. FOR US, IT’S A LOT ABOUT STORYTELLING. WE WANT TO MAKE GREAT SCRIPTS SO ITS USERS CAN FORM THESE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE STORIES. WE WANT TO SHOW POTENTIALS IN THINGS, TO SHOW WHAT A BUILDING CAN BE ABOUT.’

A noble cause, what have your achievements been so far?

Well, we started our career with a number of competitions. The Merchants of Venice, Bird Bridge, Pamukkale and Noble Savage, among others, won us a good deal of press attention and interest but no first prizes yet. We haven’t had a problem finding projects though and we’ll keep trying to make them as great as possible, however small they are, and hopefully show the rest of the world that visiondivision means business.

To complement these tantalizing unrealised projects you’re also finding a good deal of work completing smaller scale commissions. What are you currently busy with?

At the moment we’re overseeing three parallel construction sites in Stockholm, designing a branch of shoe stores on Reunion Island and hopefully building a small hotel in Colombia later this year. We’re also planning an architecture production initiated by Svensk Standard for the Nordic Culture Festival in Beijing. But we’re also working on a couple of international competitions and have high expectations for the outcome.
We really like jumping between scales; the competitions are a great contrast to our built work which so far have belonged to the smaller category that are also extremely fun to create with relatively fast results. Our favorite ‘mini’ so far has been a bath for an old man in Northern Sweden called the Cauldron Claw, perhaps mainly because it was great fun to incorporate an 85 year old welder in our office for two intensive weeks.
We’ve also built a Secret Sauna and a shrine inside a mountain for a team of Bolivian miners. These small operations are a testing ground for ideas that are often transmitted into our slightly larger work. For example we have added an outside cinema for six people on the hillside behind one of the houses that we are now erecting and two caves that you can reach from separate trap doors from the two bedrooms. They become like several small projects within the overall design. It’s great fun.

‘THE PROJECT WAS MORE LIKE AN ARCHITECTURAL JAM BETWEEN US AND THE CLIENTS AND WE CAME IN WITH THE ATTITUDE OF RATHER PUTTING A GUITAR SOLO TO THEIR BASELINE THAN BEING A STERN CONDUCTOR.’

It seems that you have a very close relationship with the clients of your built work and also that if anyone is to build one of your epics that they must also be a very special person. Giving examples, can you explain how you involve the clients, how you win their trust?

We believe all clients are special in one way or the other. And we guess we often win their trust by emphasising what is special about them in our design but also by trying to involve them in the building process. Take the South American shrine “Capilla para el tio” as an example. The project was very well received and we think it mainly depended on the fact that we did the project together with the miners. During the whole process the miners were included, not only in building the chapel but also as advisers concerning the architecture. The project was more like an architectural jam between us and the clients and we came in with the attitude of rather putting a guitar solo to their baseline than being a stern conductor. Drinking and smoking with the miners before the daily building sessions also contributed to an overall friendly atmosphere.
Another project that is about to be built right now is the “Spröjs House” (Mullion House) which is based on the fact that the clients liked houses with mullions but expected us to give them a design without these mullions since they thought architects don’t do this kind of design anymore. We usually don’t but in this case we made an exception and instead tried to make a house with a concept based on improving the mullion fashion by making them useful in the everyday life of the client. We usually find the concept in our clients’ different life stories or preferences, and these are just some examples of it.

It’s clear your client’s are important in defining the direction of a project but your there is also more to your inspiration. What’s your point of departure?

Our complex planet is such an amazing thing, but a lot of this mind blowing beauty and variety has been lost in the everyday life. We want to try to reconstruct this in a way, to show the richness of the world we live in, to add things that make you think and enjoy life more.
Architecture is not always about reduction. For us, it’s a lot about storytelling. We want to make great scripts so its users can form these extraordinary life stories. We want to show potentials in things, to show what a building can be about.
A lot of new architecture is homogenised and dull and it doesn’t offer us anything new or unexpected, we think that modern architecture is still in its infancy and that there is an unlimited potential in this field with regard to housing as well as public space.

See Noble Savage on YouTube

I quite agree but how should we tap into this field of unlimited potential? I don’t think it need require stupendous sums of money it’s more of a cultural question. Isn’t it enough to invest our buildings and public space and with a little more spirit?

We think providing novel yet practical solutions is a matter of self-confidence. We’d rather make a proposal that surprises the client than something predictable. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t, but as architects we think it is our obligation to make our own diagnose and answer to the certain needs of each client. These answers, in our case, often tend to be a bit more spirited, rock ‘n roll even. Most of the time these proposals are well received, maybe because the clients are more rock ‘n roll than architects tend to think.
When a client decides to build a new house, or indeed any project, they open their entire future for reappraisal, they think about themselves and their environment, what they want to change and they are full of hope. This can launch a state where one is more open for new ideas because the situation in itself is perhaps new and uncharted. We try to offer a bold answer to this challenge and one that the client can be proud of and feel positive about.

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Zurich is full of surprises and enchanting sights. My introduction began from the train station which takes advantage of the flat valley bottom, occupying a manmade platform that straddles the River Limmat soon after it emerges from Zürichsee. In an enlightened piece of civil engineering, the cool crystal waters flow unpolluted beneath and re-emerge to feed an inner-city hydroelectric plant that doubles as a bathing channel complete with diving boards and banked with bars, volleyball pitches and skate parks. Still unaware of these attractions I decided to head to the station entrance to collect some information. A few teenagers, who must have arrived on trains even earlier than me, sat around sheepishly thinking of opening their first cans as technicians set up speakers which occasionally let a great crackle rip through the cavernous station hall. It was clear some festival was about to begin. In fact it was the day of Europe’s second biggest techno party, the Street Parade, and the degree of chaos Zurich would invite into its centre later that day was to cause me much surprise.

However, the festival was not the reason for my visit, I had come to seek the city’s quieter attractions – its art galleries, libraries and universities. For centuries a list of pre-eminent architects and noble institutions have been steadily endowing Zurich with magnificent public buildings, many of which I am sure I passed in complete ignorance. The first one that I stumbled upon was an extension to the Zentralbibliothek which I first took to be by Mario Botta. Actually an Alex and Heinz Eggimann design, it proved to be a careful work in proportion, fine material, light and precise junctioning.

After breakfast and a stroll along the riverside park I spotted a strange, if not ugly verdigris dome sprouting unexpectedly from an old building. Not anticipating too much I nevertheless decided on a closer investigation and found a way inside. It soon became clear, however, that I had discovered something truly special. The windows, that would formerly have opened onto a courtyard, now looked onto a whitewashed cube, almost entirely filled by a series of pale wooden ellipses ascending in tiers until a glorious sky lit canopy high above. Entrance to this extension was from the rear of the building and several storeys below.

This first storey was quite empty, only a symmetrical pair of friezes, depicting racing bulls bounding across an horizon and two Brancusi-esque sculpted wings of jet decorate the hall. In this flamboyantly minimal space with the great hoops hovering above, suspended all but invisibly, and the central aperture pouring light deep into the shadowy ground floor, it was easy to find focus. To leave one’s thoughts, memories and responsibilities to circle with the bulls or their ghosts, as ceremoniously as one would leave a jacket and hat at the door. On the first floor I was soon informed by the librarian that I had found the Zurich University Law Library and, although it was already sufficiently evident to me, that it had been designed by Santiago Calatrava. Taking an assuredly speedy glass elevator to the top floor, I emerged adjacent to the building’s crowning glory – a W-shaped shade that slowly unfolded in a wave to meet the sun like a majestic wing – centre to tip.

By this stage I was already quite converted to Zurich’s disciplined yet natural attitude. Its intellectual and financial investments spoke for themselves and they had certainly won my respect. When I returned to the streets they had been transformed by the day’s events – party goers, young and old, drunk or better, filled the streets, following noisy carts towards the lake, leaving behind piles of mess and the odd semi-comatose heap. Yet, however energetic the crowd were, they seemed a weak threat to the established order. And as I climbed away from it, up towards Semper’s University Building which presides over the town with its grand domes and halls, old Zurich finally seemed to break its silence as a medieval bell shook the stones as it marked the hour.

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