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Valerio Olgiati

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Valerio Olgiati
Born1958 (age 65–66)
Chur, Switzerland
OccupationArchitect

Valerio Olgiati (born 1958) is a Swiss architect. He initially studied architecture at ETH Zurich, a public research university in Zurich, Switzerland.

Olgiati was well-known for constructing the School Building in Paspels[1] in 1998 and the Yellow House Museum in Flims[2] in 1999. Other recognized buildings by him include the House for the Musician/Atelier Bardill in Scharans,[3] the Villa Além in Alentejo,[4] the UNESCO World Heritage Bahrain Pearling Trail Visiting Center in Muharraq,[5] and the Baloise Insurance Building in Basel.[6]

Architectural theory

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Schoolhouse Paspels
Yellow House Flims
Atelier Bardill, Scharans
Villa Além, Alentejo
UNESCO World Heritage Pearling Site Visiting Center, Muharraq
Baloise Insurance Building, Basel
Celine flagship store, Miami

Olgiati calls his work "non-referential architecture", the title of a 2018 treatise by Olgiati and architectural theoretician Markus Breitschmid about the social purpose of architecture for the people of the 21st century.[7]

Olgiati and Breitschmid write that "non-referential architecture is not an architecture that subsists as a referential vessel or as a symbol of something outside itself. Non-referential buildings are entities that are themselves meaningful and sense-making and, as such, no less the embodiment of society than buildings were in the past when they were the bearers of common social ideals."[8]

The first documented use of the term "non-referential" in architecture appears in a reprint of an interview between Olgiati and Breitschmid in the Italian architecture journal Domus.[9] In 2014, Breitschmid publishes a rebuttal titled "Architektur leitet sich von Architektur ab" (Architecture is Derived from Architecture) in the Swiss journal Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, thereby responding to an architectural claim made by others that attempts to imbue meaning into architecture from the extra-architectural, such as the economic, ecological, political.[10] Architect Christian Kerez investigated the limits of referentiality and speaks of "non-referential space" as a quality of his contribution for the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2016.[11] In the same year, architect Peter Eisenman points out that architecture has been moving toward a non-referential objectivity for some time, in as much as architectural form is increasingly reduced “to a pure reality.”[12]

In 2018, Olgiati and Breitschmid published the architectural treatise Non-Referential Architecture. It analyses the societal currents of the early 21st century and argues that those currents are radically different from the epoch of postmodernity.[13] The book proposes a new framework for architecture and defines the seven underlying principles for non-referential architecture:[14] 1) experience of space; 2) oneness; 3) newness; 4) construction; 5) contradiction; 6) order; 7) sensemaking.

One of the hallmarks of non-referential architecture, according to Olgiati, is that each building exists for itself. Each building is governed by an architectural idea – and that idea has to be form-generative and sense-making.[15] "Non-referential architecture denotes but it refuses to explain or narrate and it leaves behind any vestiges of a theatrical mode of persuasion and propagation."[16] Describing the intent of the exhibition ‘Inscriptions: Architecture before Speech’, held at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2018, K. Michael Hays argues that today’s architecture presupposes “not a particular meaning, but a specific kind of potentiality — a non-semantic materiality, a non-referential construct that can be developed into an actual architectural project.”[17]

Career

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Olgiati mentioned that the most important step for his formation as an architect was his temporary emigration to Los Angeles, and not his upbringing in a specific culture, country, or landscape nor was it his architectural education. According to Olgiati, living in the radically heterogeneous United States of America allowed him to begin to understand the world in formal and natural terms and not in symbolic and historical terms.[18]

Zug-Schleife, Zug

This shift away from basing architecture on any kind of referentiality found its early theoretical form in his Iconographic Autobiography, first published in 2006.[19] The Iconographic Autobiography is an anthology of 55 illustrations. The Iconographic Autobiography foreshadows non-referential architecture in as much as it points to references, yet these references are not meaningful.[20] Olgiati has said that he believes that only basic insight from the experience of space is able to move architecture of the present time within its highly heterogeneous society.[21]

Valerio Olgiati operates his architecture office with his wife Tamara and his staff in Portugal and Switzerland.[22] Among other venues, his work has been the subject of single exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, and at the Former Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City.[23] Olgiati has held various teaching appointments, among them the Kenzo Tange Chair at Harvard University, at ETH Zürich, at Cornell University and at the AA in London. Olgiati holds a professorship at the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio since 2002.[24]

References

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  1. ^ Martin Tschanz. “Schulhaus, Paspels, Graubünden, 1996-98,” in: Anna Meseure, Martin Tschanz, Wilfried Wang (eds.), Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert, Volume V: Schweiz, München/Frankfurt a.M.: Prestel/DAM, 1998, p.314f.
  2. ^ Hubertus Adam. “Von der Idee zur Erscheinung. Valerio Olgiatis Umbau des ‘Gelben Hauses’ in Flims,” in: Neue Züricher Zeitung, October 29, 1999, p.66.
  3. ^ –, “Valerio Olgiati. Atelier Bardill, Scharans Switzerland,” in: a+u, 452, 2008, Tokyo, pp.54-61.
  4. ^ Tom Vanderbilt, “Castle in the Sky,” in: The Wall Street Journal Magazine, New York City: September 2016, pp.
  5. ^ Ali Ismail Karimi, “Pearling Path Visitors Center by Valerio Olgiati,” in: Architectural Record, 207, No.3, New York
  6. ^ Hubertus Adam, “Die Kraft der Materie,” in: archithese, no. 1, Zurich: 2021, pp.9-15.
  7. ^ Valerio Olgiati, Markus Breitschmid. Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati. Written by Markus
  8. ^ Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati. Written by Markus Breitschmid. Basel: Simonett & Baer, 2018, p. 13.
  9. ^ Valerio Olgiati [in an interview with Markus Breitschmid], “Sulla non referezialita” in: Domus No. 974, Milano: 13/2013, pp. 45–46.
  10. ^ Markus Breitschmid. “Architektur leitet sich von Architektur ab” in: Werk, Bauen + Wohnen, Zurich: 9/2014, 45-47.
  11. ^ "A Combination of Wonder and Structure: Christian Kerez on Swiss Architecture". 24 March 2017.
  12. ^ Architecture fiction. Eisenman [dead link]
  13. ^ Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati; Written by Markus Breitschmid. Basel: Simonett & Baer, 2018.
  14. ^ Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati; Written by Markus Breitschmid. Basel: Simonett & Baer, 2018, p. 7.
  15. ^ Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati; Written by Markus Breitschmid. Basel: Simonett & Baer, 2018, pp. 13-28.
  16. ^ Non-Referential Architecture. Ideated by Valerio Olgiati; Written by Markus Breitschmid. Basel: Simonett & Baer, 2018, p. 97.
  17. ^ "'inscriptions' exhibition at the harvard GSD surveys architecture before speech". March 2018.
  18. ^ Markus Breitschmid, “Valerio Olgiati’s Ideational Inventory,” in: El Croquis, No. 156, Madrid: 2011, pp.18-19.
  19. ^ Valerio Olgiati. “Iconographic Autobiography,” in: 2G, n.37, Barcelona: 2006, pp.135-141.
  20. ^ Olgiati/Breitschmid, “After Postmodernity: Non-Referential World,” in: op.cit., pp.32-41.
  21. ^ –, “Biographies,” in: op.cit., p.266.
  22. ^ –, “Valerio Olgiati. Non-Referential Architecture,” in: a+u, 601, 2020, p.4.
  23. ^ –, “Valerio Olgiati. Non-Referential Architecture,” in: a+u, 601, 2020, p.5.
  24. ^ –, “Valerio Olgiati, 1996 – 2011,” in: El Croquis, No. 156, Madrid: 2011, pp.18-19. 17 –, “Valerio Olgiati. Non-Referential Architecture,” in: op.cit., p.5.

Monographs

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