To Exist: A Dilemma of Humanistic Ideals in Architecture

“If you remember me, I don’t care if everyone else forgets”

- Haruki Murakami

How about memories? In the discussion of humanist ideals where we strive to achieve physical connections to the surrounding world of the past, present and future, where does the intangibility exist?

Architecture creates spaces. Good architecture creates functions. Great architecture creates memories.

Peter Zumthor and his recent work Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum attempt create a place for the furtherment of humanistic ideals as the capability that us human can achieve with our limitations and opportunities. Zumthor perceives architecture as a tangible chance to prove the potential of humans to truly live within this world. His architectural principle revolves around the construction of experiences and memories to the users and let us, even for a single moment, live in the present time.

“Memories

and thoughts age, do But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade”

The museum transports us back to the present through the careful articulation of the space juxtaposed into the natural environment of Finland. A newly established series of black buildings blend into the mountaineous terrain of green luscious forest like they have existed there for a long time. As we enter the museum, the architecture greets us with a direct light pointing us toward the history of the mine; the tools, the books, the document. We trace our way through the small intimate dark hallway by our fingers and eyes, touching and seeing the unfamiliar space. Then, we found a portrait. A portrait of trees, rivers, sounds, buildings, and nature is facing us, and asking us to welcome it into our memory.

The experience inside the building was once in a lifetime memory in a human’s life. But what did it cost us? With Zumthor striving for perfection in his architecture, he insisted on certain materials and environmental conditions to resemble his vision.

Peter Zumthor architecture is what humans strive towards. And the endeavor to achieve Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum ask humanity to challenge the constructions, emotions and ambitions of humans through architecture. While the memory is an important part of humanity to drive us forward, should we sacrifice the humanistic development to satisfy our ambitions through the consumption of materials that will cost a future to us?

At last, to know that you are fighting for the betterment of something, whether for human, for architecture, for society, or for yourselves, is what makes us live another day

As I walk myself through the development of humanistic approach and question its ideology, one thing becomes certain, live.

At first, we built things around us for it to be with us in that moment, and in a glimpse of us in the future. Then, the future gets wider. The future has nature and us coexisting peacefully together. We start to think if we can hold each other’s hands in the future - existing as a collective with the nature and for our dreams to finally come true. Thinking about the future then makes us remember the past. We value the past as we learn from it. At last, we come back to the present, and we make it the most beautiful moment in life.

Humanistic architecture is a way for humans to live in a moment, to paint the future, to warm us up with memories, and to feel alive again and again.