Peter Zumthor - St. Benedict’s Chapel

St. Benedict’s Chapel sits on the side of a mountain in Switzerland. It was built to replace the old Chapel, which was destroyed by an avalanche.

There is an extraordinary sense of purity in this buildings form. It is a simple extrusion, unencumbered by complicated programming and flagrant architectural ‘articulation’.

Despite this, form is not the appeal of this building, nor was it likely to have been the driving force of the architect. There is something richer going on – a poetic relationship with the surrounding context, and connection with the collective memory of its people.

St. Benedict’s is a teardrop, and its pointy end faces up the mountain. This gesture is loaded with meaning. For example, it draws on and contemporises traditional religious Cathedral design techniques. Where a traditional cathedral ceiling might be punctuated by a series of tall spires (the taller the better), St. Benedict’s is inflected towards a single point. This point is not vertically oriented, but is rather turned toward the mountain top. It becomes embedded and uses the mountain itself in a gesture of ‘rising to the heavens’, as a traditional church spire intends to do.

The teardrop form itself is an incredibly emotive architectural device. It identifies the sense of sorrow and joy often associated with the religious ceremonies conducted within the Chapel walls, and also the spiritual and emotional aspects of faith itself.

Beyond this, the building speaks of the memory of the place, and of the structures relationship with not only the site, but the natural phenomenology of it. In addition to the spiritual metaphor, the singular point of the building facing up the mountain expresses itself as a kind of avalanche protection device. This may serve a functional purpose, but more importantly it continues a narrative recalling the destruction of the old Chapel. This sensitive understanding of a collective memory is what makes this building great, as it relates to the culture of the place and its people. It becomes a building for its people.