Work within things + For the silence of sleep

It is said that one of the most impressive things about the music of Johann Sebastian is its architecture”. Its construction seems clear and transparent. It is possible to pursue the details of the melodic, harmonic and rhythmical elements without losing the feeling for the composition as a whole – the whole which makes sense of the details. The music seems to be based upon a clear structure, and if we trace the individual threads of the musical fabric it is possible to apprehend the rules that govern the structure of the music.
Construction is the art of making a meaningful whole out of many parts. Buildings are witness to the human ability to construct concrete things. I believe that the real core of all architectural work lies in the act of construction. At the point in time when concrete material are assembled and erected, the architecture we have been looking for becomes part of the real world.
I feel respect for the art of joining, the ability of craftsmen and engineers. I am impressed by the knowledge of how to make things, which lie at the bottom of human skill. I try to design building that are worthy of this knowledge and merit the challenge to this skill.
People often say, “A lot of work went into this” when they sense the care and skill that its maker has lavished on a carefully constructed object. The notion that our work is an integral part of what we accomplish takes us to the very limits of our musings about the value of a work of art, a work of architecture. Are the effort and skill we put into them really inherent parts of the things we make? Sometimes, when I am moved by a work of architecture in the same way as I am moved by music, literature or a painting, I am tempted to think so.
I love music. The slow movements of Mozart piano concertos, John Coltrane’s ballads, or the Sound of human voices in certain songs all move me.
The human ability to invent melodies, harmonies, and rhythms amazes me.
But the world of sound also embraces the opposite of melody, harmony, and rhythm. There is disharmony and the broken rhythm, fragments and cluster of sound, and there is also the purely functional sound that we call noise. Contemporary music works with these elements.
Contemporary architecture should be just as radical as contemporary music. But there are limits. Although a work of architecture based on disharmony and fragmentation, on broken rhythms, clustering and structural disruptions may be able to convey a message, as soon as we understand its statement our curiosity dies, and all that is left is the question of the building practical usefulness.
Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do think of it primarily as either a message or a symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.

_Peter Zumthor