Discuss how phenomenology becomes a fundamental concern in the works of Peter Zumthor through both the formal and the spatial characteristics of his design for the Steilneset Witches memorial
“Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.” Peter Zumthor. Buildings are not just buildings because they have to enclose a space but carry with them so much of the past. The art of designing constructing but also remembering and acknowledging the past and its people.
The following writing breaks down the correlation between the Steilneset Witches Memorial based in Norway and the concept of phenomenology through creating and understanding of what happened in the 17th Century during the execution of the witches and understanding the concept, construction and design of the memorial through analysing the formal and the spatial characteristics of the place.
Most buildings evoke a feeling of some sort in the user or tenant of that building. Whether this be an eerie feeling, happy one, one filled with love or one that…show more content… Two ramps are used as an approach and the design is in such a manner that either ramp can be used as entrance or exit. the transition from the light outside, embodied by not only the environment but also the white cocoon floating in the scaffold, to the dark interior enables the person to envision the terrible darkness that the town had gone through during the Vardo trials. The interior is painted in tar and has a ribbed ceiling, like the roof of an enormous mouth, which evokes the feeling of being in the belly of a whale like Jonah. There is a wide oak-floor corridor that runs the length of the interior and is attached to the timber frame by steel rods so that it doesn't touch the textile membrane. Visitors have a firm footing, but the walls move in the wind, shuddering and snaking with heavy
