Though trained at ETH Zurich during the years of Aldo Rossi’s chair, Valerio Olgiati (Cuera, 1958) has produced an oeuvre much removed from themes like type and context. Powerful in their schematism, monolithic in their materiality, exquisite in their details, Olgiati’s buildings are thought out less as sociopolitical instruments than as emotive objects whose shapes arise from the composition process. The projects selected for this issue: the Pearling Path Visitors Center in Bahrain, Villa Além in Portugal’s Alentejo region, a one-family house in Laax, and a residential building in Zug, both in Switzerland.

Though trained at ETH Zurich during the years of Aldo Rossi’s chair, Valerio Olgiati (Cuera, 1958) has produced an oeuvre much removed from themes like type and context. Powerful in their schematism, monolithic in their materiality, exquisite in their details, Olgiati’s buildings are thought out less as sociopolitical instruments than as emotive objects whose shapes arise from the composition process. The projects selected for this issue: the Pearling Path Visitors Center in Bahrain, Villa Além in Portugal’s Alentejo region, a one-family house in Laax, and a residential building in Zug, both in Switzerland.