What is your favorite building?

 Many of us can speak to a certain building that we like or appreciate. What many of us cannot always describe is why a that building calls to us. Sometimes the things that we like about them are intangible in a way that we cannot easily describe. Buildings can have a profound impact on the experience of those who inhabit a space. Peter Zumthor would probably argue that it has to do with the atmosphere of the place. He describes that “quality architecture is… when a building manages to move me” (Zumthor, Atmospheres).

Zumthor describes buildings through emotions but during class, we discussed that some people consider buildings a social construct, and then consider them products of the “inexorable laws of physics, economics, buildability, climatology and ergonomics” (Alejandro Zaera - Polo). However we choose to rationalize the experience that we get when we walk through a building, it’s very interesting that two people can walk through the same building and have completely different experiences and conclusions about it.

 Peter Zumthor_Atmospheres