Gody Kühnis, Peter Märkli, Trübbach-Azmoos, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 1982
Of Houses guest curated by Cristian Valenzuela Pinto (Deseopolis / Sin Título Zine): Mysterious
Contents ‘‘I
never really interacted too much with the first family – said one of the
interviewed neighbors. They were odd people with odd routines and customs. There
were always people coming in, they often received visitors and sometimes the
number of people that went into the house did not quite correspond to the size
of it. One
of the adults, a short bald man which I assume was the family father,
religiously greeted me and everyone that passed by, while he watered his garden
every morning -he added.’’ ‘‘On
afternoons exotic aromas came from their kitchen, and smells of food that
seemed out of season or at strange daily hours made me suspicious. On Saturday nights there was always moderate music, laughter and the murmur of
long conversations coming from the veranda. One
morning they all showed up at my door, talked about how beautiful the landscape
was and then said goodbye, apologizing for any inconvenient that they might
have caused. After that I never saw them again.” “Others
live there now – he concluded. We have never spoken or greeted, but they behave
like normal people.’’ (Photos © Heinrich Helfenstein, Petr Šmidek. Source: www.archiweb.cz ; Mohsen Mostafavi, “Approximations: the architecture of Peter Märkli”, London: Architectural Association, 2002.)
