NDLR

AUTOBIOGRAPHY ICONOGRAPHY

Valerio Olgiati

The illustrations on the following images are important ones stored in my head. When I design or invent a building they are always hovering somewhere above me. These are the basis of my projects. They are with me when I sit gazing at the "white sheet of paper", so to speak. It is always my aim to build something that is related in some way or other to these images - either the image itself or what it illustrates. Often the way it is illustrated is what fascinates me.

For about a year now I have attempted, even in discussions with my assistants, to select only those images that have special defining signifiance for our work, for my work. All the rest were excluded.

Naturally I want also to rise above the traditions handed down to me. Even to the extend that my architecture would become non-referential. That would the best thing, the most independant way.

But I am aware that is impossible. Still, I often find myself thinking about it. This contradiction forces me to think, to sort out, to design an architecture that in the end in "only" abstract and can therefore be dense and rich, if possible. Only a single mind can produce truly fascinating architecture.

Always assuming one believes that fascinating architecture has to be prototypical and unique. Beneath each of the followig images there is a short caption, sometimes accompanied by a commentary. Where there is no commentary, I have not yet been able to come up with a rational explanation of the image or what it illustrates.

Valerio Olgiati, 2G n°37