Relative Autonomy
We are interested in an architecture which can be experienced bodily as well as understood culturally. Prerequisite for the subjective experience of the building volume is its perception as an entity to which the recipient can relate to and which allows him to describe his experience notionally. In addition to the perception of architecture as such, a conceivable relation to the place, to the landscape, to the city is important. The city is for us in this respect a society of houses which are able to communicate with one another, but can also stand for themselves.
Architecture must not only position itself at the concrete place, but also in a cultural context. The relation to or the use of cultural material – which comes mainly from the realm of architecture itself, but also from other spheres – enables the viewer to gain a rational access to the building. Beyond this level of extraneous reference the design must develop a layer of self-referent logic that is immanent to the project. Only if that works out and the project thus can exist separated from its conditions it will have the chance to become itself cultural material that can be related to.
