Material experimentation in Peter Zumthor’s creative process
Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion 2011, Peter Zumthor. Image: Susana Ventura.
Material experimentation in Peter Zumthor’s creative process seeks to explain the different materials experimentations present in the creative process of Peter Zumthor which lead him to the final work of architecture, resulting in his atmospheres. Experimentation processes are mainly characteristic of avant-gard architectures that develop new forms of thought in architecture design, however mainly through form paradigms and models. Nonetheless, Zumthor has been inquiring and creating experimental processes through material composition, rooted in the work of land-artists such as Joseph Beuys or Mario Merz, that imply the overall design of the final work of architecture. The present paper explains several experimental processes present in a series of Peter Zumthor’s works, with an important focus to the design process of the Serpentine Summer Pavilion during 2011, one of the works that the author has accompanied Zumthor during its process of creation during the author’s PhD research.