Peter Zumthor, a Basel born Swiss, is an internationally accredited and decorated architect. He is one of the most revered architects of the 21st century. Zumthor is best known for his materiality and attention to space. His style is said to epitomize the principles of phenomenology. Buildings should be experienced, a specific mood and feeling should felt by the person interacting with the space.
In 2006 Peter Zumthor was commissioned for the Steilneset Memorial monument by the town of Vardo, Finnmark County, the Varanger Museum, and the Norwegian Public Roads Administration in collaboration with the French-American artist Louis Bourgeois. The memorial is located in Vardo, Norway. Zumthor is the only foreign architect to have ever worked in association with the National tourist routes in Norway for such a project. The memorial commemorates the trial and execution of 91 people for witchcraft in 1621. The memorial monument Zumthor created is made up of a stretched suspended silk cocoon, supported by a long line of pine scaffolding. Inside the cocoon lies a 120m long oak floored walkway. 91 windows line the walls, with a light bulb floating behind each one. This illuminates the window in memory of the 91 people who were burned at the stake. Each window contains a plaque alongside it which contains…show more content… The interior walkway is a condensed space reaching forward toward a point, blurred by light of the window pockets and the warm bulb glow. It has a beautiful silence that can be associated with attributes such as self-evidence, composure and sensuousness. Also there is no hierarchy of spaces, but a journey of feeling in an enclosed environment. The structure is representing the memory of the executed, but as an individual structure it is not representing anything. It is merely just being. A philosophy Zumthor uses to design by (Thinking Architecture,