Creating Atmosphere

Zumthor: “people interact with objects, as an architect, it’s my passion”. I would go as far as saying that this is why Zumthor formats all of his images in his publications with lots of white space, each image a bit off-set from the page, to create or allow for atmosphere around the ‘object’.

Buildings and their atmospheres affect our mood as we experience them, this is something that initially drew me to studying architecture. I wanted to understand how this was possible, how to be good at it, master the components of designing it – this may be what Zumthor calls “the magic of things, the magic of the real world”. This is what makes architecture so complex and difficult to do well. We must use the natural and artificial to create the real. So many moving pieces together create the ‘magic of the real’. It is also partially out of our hands as architects. The way that the user will inhabit our designs is often not fully realized until it is actually built and being used. I think the beauty of the human mind and its needs of existing in the real world are also aspects that allow architecture to have this air of atmospheric presence.

Zumthor, “Buildings and Projects”