A talk by Claudio Silvestrin

The extract below is an interesting part of a bigger discussion which I read in a journal. It is a brief talk by Claudio Silvestrin on a topic titled Something or nothing:Minimalism in art and architecture, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 8 December 1998.

Claudio Silvestrin:
I tend to describe my work, particularly with clients, as simple. However, the word 'simple' can be open to many interpretations, some of them even quite negative. Some time ago, during a very interesting project for a German art collector, we kept talking about 'simple' and 'simplicity'. To avoid the possibility of any misunderstandings, I eventually decided to write him a letter:
Dear whatever, I'd like to take this opportunity to say what I mean by 'simple architecture'. Our human body is, in appearance, very simple, yet the skin veils a complicated machine. If we cut a body in half we would immediately realize that behind the simple and easy appearance there is a magnificent complexity. This is nature, and some would say of God's making. It is nature which, I believe, we will learn from in our making of the environment. Some artefacts have the same characteristic. A mondrian painting, for instance, looks simple and easy to the eye, but you know, probably more than I do, how much energy and thought Mondrian gave to achieve simple paintings. I believe that the greatest architecture, however simple in appearance - like for instance, the Cistern monasteries - has a great deal of thought and detail behind the surface. There is nothing easy about a Mondrian or about a Cistercian building.
Because the interest here is, I presume, on the theoretical aspects of this terrible word Minimalism, I will try to explain some of the thought and architectural principles which challenge me everytime I'm faced with a project.
First of all it's tough to define architecture. Many people have tried, I'm not sure how successfully. Perhaps it doesn't really matter. I, however, had a go because I thought it was important for me to make my thinking and also my standards as clear as possible.
When one actually sees the solidity of a mountain or the vastness of the sea, when one comes upon it suddenly, there it is in its monolithic presence. Everything, including ones own ego, has been pushed aside, except the majesty of that mountain or that sea. Such a sight absorbs you completely - it is beauty itself. If you are fortunate enough, think of a building that absorbs you with the same intensity - that building I call architecture; the others are nothing but edifices.

Series of architectural principles follows:

- Try to construct a new architecture - honest, austere, clear, calm.

- Time suspended in stillness: try to stop time or at least give us the illusion that time is suspended in stillness.

- Clearing of the horizon, a horizon free of clutter.

- An architecture that brings sight closer to the senses - it lets the earth be earth.

- Nearness of the sky: to bring the sky as close as possible to our senses. Architecture compliments nature. If I walk in a landscape and I look up at the sky I have a certain perception of that sky. If I build a room with very high walls, when I look up at the sky I have the sensation, the feeling, that the sky is coming towards me.

- The void perceived of massiveness. This is how I go about projects. I never see space as empty. I see it almost if its a mass of stone, a mass of air, a mass of material. So the air is material, the mass is material.

- Task to reveal unlimited nature in a limited fragment.

- Architecture as a place in which to feel serene, still, at peace, free from disorder and vulgarity.

- A site configuration in which any form of conflict ceases, the eye calms, the cogito gives up doubting, the direction becomes clear

- To feel the presence of silence, of the non visible, of the non-material - a great task

- The work (of art) seen in its full presence. Try not to fail the material. Transform the material. Although the material is there, you transform it so that you make it almost not there anymore.

- It is not a matter of scale, proportions, light efficiency, floor finishes and white walls - it is a matter of awakening people's sensitivity.

- The attempt for the feeling of inwardness - since we are always so desperate to look out and have a view of modernity.

- Purity of view.

- Architecture as a technique to bring to the fore spiritual energy, stillness of mind.

- Good architecture makes us silent.

- Visual orientation. That's something which a lot of modern architects have forgotten. Sometimes I go into places and I'm so confused. I have to rely on graphics to tell me to go right or left. There is no sense of direction, of easy movement for my eyes.

- It is the act of preservation of space that counts.

- Thickness of space. As there is thickness to the top of a table, to a particular object, there is also thickness to space.

- Abstraction of functions.

- Opening up a new seeing, that is, relaxing the willing eye for a seeing free from possessiveness.

- Harmony between elements, between figures - no opposites, no clutter, no tension, no fragments.

- Space is not distance, it is immensity.

- Subtle lifting of gravity and weight. How to make the heaviness of a wall become lightweight so that there is challenge, there is attraction to the earth's gravity.

- The sun's piercing engraved onto plain surfaces.

- The intensity of the sun wrapped in shadow - coolness. It is by manipulating shadows and understanding the value of shadows that you can really glorify light.

- The endurance of materials freezes the fashions of time. It is not by chance that nine out of ten times I use stone in my works, stone being a material that doesn't have any fashion whatsoever. It's been there for 10, 20, 30 million years. When I walk on a stone floor, its not like walking on any material. You have the history of the earth under your feet.

- Beauty is like love - it is timeless. There are things which are timeless, like beauty, like love. However the media today attempt to label things and to give them a time. I believe that certain things never die. You cannot locate them on a calendar.

- A place to which we can come and for a while be free from thinking about what we are going to do.


http://www.claudiosilvestrin.com/