The architecture of resistance of Peter Zumthor: phenomenology, place and experience

Abstract

This article is based on a research that investigates the correlation between contemporary architecture production and the possibilities of symbolic, historic and cultural significance. We analyze Peter Zumthor’s works, for which we tried to identify strategies and their effects, noticing in his practice an unusual approach, still poorly studied. The analysis was
divided into two main themes: place as historic and sociocultural context; and the concept of experience from phenomenology and its expression in architecture. Six works are analyzed based on theoretical and iconographical biography, as well as original material. Materials and their strong consideration are decisive in his projects, allowing their visitors to have embodied experiences. The role of the body and of sensorial perception is carried sensibly and poetically. The approach of the constructive tradition allows a dialectical elaboration between rural and urban, local and global, architectural autonomy and regionalism, tradition and contemporaneity. His works are statements of resistance against universal generic solutions that aim to recover the central role of experience and tectonics.