Architecture without premature meaning

Thermes de Vals by Peter Zumthor

When psychological atmosphere can be used as one kind of material, a space experienced only by our sensory could be created, just right for its purpose and for its place.

“In a fragment of a second you can understand: Things you know, things you don’t know, things you don’t know that you don’t know, conscious, unconscious, things which in a fragrant of a second you can react to: we can all imagine why this capacity was given to us as human beings – I guess to survive. Architecture to me has the same kind of capacity. It takes longer to capture, but the essence to me is the same. I call this atmosphere. When you experience a building and it gets to you. It sticks in your memory and your feelings.” -Peter Zumthor

In order to keep pace with technology advancement and urbanization, we are overwhelmed by symbolic and efficient form of architecture nowadays. The primal experience of a space, formed through interaction of our body and surrounding environment is lost. Temperature, sound, smell, light, shadow and memory are the simple elements that could be found in our daily life but being forgotten. My thesis is about rethinking the relationship between architecture and emotional experience, more about the pure presence, less about the beauty of the form.