Secular Retreat

Location

Devon

Size

Sleeps 10

Architect – Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor is frequently described as the greatest architect at work in the world today. He was awarded the internationally prestigious Pritzker Prize in 2009 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 2013.

He is a master of craftsmanship and an expert in the use of materials. The practice was founded in 1979 and is based in Haldenstein, near the city of Chur in Switzerland. Peter works with a dedicated team of around 30 employees.

Probably his most renowned buildings are the thermal baths at Vals in Switzerland, the Bruder Klaus Chapel outside Cologne in Germany and the Kolumba Museum in Cologne itself. He is currently working on designs for museums in Basel and Los Angeles, alongside many private commissions.

Background

Secular Retreat is located on a site formerly known as Middledown – where a local landowner built a house for his family in the early 1940’s. The house remained, but in a much-diminished state, until we purchased the site in 2008.

Although that building was removed, some of the Monterey pine trees and hexagonal walled garden structure remain. In each bedroom you will find a framed set of photographs lent to us by the daughter of the original owner. We have created new benches for the garden based upon the original one in the photographs.

Peter Zumthor first visited the site in the spring of 2008. Immediately inspired by the location, he created his first concept of a large house for up to ten people, a place where guests can come together and engage in workshops, activities, or take a holiday with a view.

Set on this undulating landscape, he produced a ‘villa’ for the 21^st Century. Influenced by the rocky outcrops (Tors) found across the Devon Moors and the verticality of the existing Monterey pines, he designed a communal living space within hand-rammed concrete columns, which act as support to the massive cantilevered concrete roof. Two bedroom wings protrude from the living area, creating intimate bedrooms and bathrooms within, each with expansive views on to the garden and surrounding landscape.

The house is the result of five years of toiling, on an often brutally exposed site, by a local main contractor and a number of sub-contractors. It has truly been a ‘labour of love’ by all involved, from design to completion.

Facts

• Completed 2019
• Footprint 375sqm
• Plot – approximately 5 acres
• Rammed concrete walls with poured concrete roof
• Internal timbers – American Cherry, Pearwood, Maple, Applewood,
• Blue Lias stone floor

Contents of the house

The interiors have been created in conjunction with the architect, with the majority of the furniture and lighting designed specifically for the house.

Sitting room

Armchair and side tables – originally designed for the ‘Dear to Me’ exhibition in 2017, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the opening of Bregenz Kunsthaus, for which Peter Zumthor curated an exhibition throughout the whole building. Produced by Markus Landolt of Lucas Schnaidt Möbelmanufaktur GmbH www.lucasschnaidt.de

Sofas – created specifically for Secular Retreat and based on the original armchair design. Produced by Markus Landolt of Lucas Schnaidt Möbelmanufaktur GmbH www.lucasschnaidt.de

Cushions – made by Aellson www.aellson.co.uk

Lighting – designed by Peter Zumthor for Viabizzuno www.viabizzuno.com

Bathrooms

Bathroom taps and shower set – by Dornbracht www.dornbracht.com

Pedestal basin – designed by Peter Zumthor and produced by Artisans of Devizes www.artisansofdevizes.com

Bespoke curtain rails – designed by Peter Zumthor and produced by Millimetre

www.millimetre.uk.net.

Curtains – fabric by Kvadrat, produced by Le Interiors www.le-interiors.co.uk

Rugs – by The Rug Company www.therugcompany.com

Kitchen/dining

Dining table – designed by Peter Zumthor and produced by Horgenglarus www.horgenglarus.ch/en

Chairs – designed by Max Ernst Haefeli, 1926 and produced by Horgenglarus www.horgenglarus.ch/en/collection/chairs/haefeli-790

Fixed joinery and kitchen units – designed by Peter Zumthor and produced by Tischlerei Rüscher www.tischlerei-ruescher.com

Kitchen worktops – manufactured in zinc and produced by Tischlerei Rüscher and Marco Zaccheo www.zaccheo.ch

Bedrooms

Upholstered leather stools and leather curtains – designed by Peter Zumthor and produced by Mohr Polster www.mohrpolster.at

Curtains – fabric by Kvadrat, produced by Le Interiors www.le-interiors.co.uk

Throws/Blankets – produced by Shepherds Delight www.shepherds-delight.co.uk 

A short essay on the making of Secular Retreat – by Steve Rose

The Secular Retreat was one of the first Living Architecture projects to begin and the last to finish — over a decade in the making. This could be viewed as a saga of obstacles and delays, but it also raises questions about how long a quality piece of architecture ‘should’ take to build. Or to put it another way, what could architecture achieve if the usual commercial constraints of scheduling were relaxed? The Secular Retreat's ten-year time frame was not deliberate, and the project did not exactly proceed according to plan, but the result is in many ways the culmination of Living Architecture's mission to make first-rate contemporary architecture accessible to the British public. Nobody wanted the wait, but few would disagree that the end result was worth it.

There is one defining factor in both the Secular Retreat's protracted evolution and its successful outcome, and that is its architect: Peter Zumthor. Winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2009, the RIBA Gold Medal in 2013, and other accolades besides, Zumthor is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest living architects. He is not a flamboyant designer like Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid, nor is he a structural adventurer or a prolific global operator, like, say Norman Foster or Renzo Piano. Zumthor does few media interviews and until relatively recently, he had built little outside of his native Switzerland and nothing in the UK. The son of a cabinet-maker, his approach combines a devotion to craft with a deep understanding of how architecture's essential qualities -- space, material, light -- can affect the experiences of a building's users and inhabitants. These could be said to be the basics of good architecture, but few have practised them as expertly, as intensely or as unassumingly as Zumthor. There is a spiritual aspect to his work, and his buildings are often said to have a "soul". He is an architect other architects look up to, and one of few who could be considered an artist in his own right.

Zumthor once likened his approach to that of the composer John Cage, who did not so much hear music in his head and attempt to write it down, but instead devised concepts and structures then had them performed to find out how they sounded. Discussing his celebrated Therme Vals hotel and spa complex in eastern Switzerland, the building that established Zumthor's name in 1996, the architect wrote of his team developing the project "not by forming preliminary images of the building in our minds and subsequently adapting them to the assignment, but by endeavouring to answer basic questions arising from the location of the given site, the purpose, and the building materials — mountain, rock, water — which at first had no visual content in terms of existing architecture.

"It was only after we had succeeded in answering, step by step, the questions posed by the site, purpose and material that structures and spaces emerged which surprised us and which I believe possess the potential of a primordial force that reaches deeper than the mere arrangement of stylistically preconceived forms."

These qualities were uppermost in the mind of Living Architecture co-founder Alain de Botton when he was writing his 2006 book The Architecture of Happiness. When the idea of Living Architecture was born, shortly thereafter, Zumthor was the first name on their wish-list of architects, says de Botton: "For me personally, as a Swiss citizen, he seemed both the epitome of great Swiss architecture and somehow also a universal citizen/craftsman too."

De Botton had already visited some of Zumthor's key buildings, including Therme Vals, and the Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, completed in 2007 — an art gallery for the local Catholic diocese that ingeniously incorporates the ruins of a mediaeval church on the site. "I admired what everyone admires in them," says de Botton. "A sense of monumentality, and timelessness; an impression of extraordinary care and craftsmanship. I remember thinking of Vals, this is a building that might have been built in any era, almost. This was an architect who had transcended his own times."

The downside for Living Architecture was that Zumthor puts quality over quantity. He takes on few commissions and turns down most invitations, especially those for private homes. Even establishing contact with him took some effort. Most internationally renowned architects are based in one or more major cities; Zumthor's home and studio are located in Haldenstein, a small village in the Chur region, in eastern Switzerland. He runs a small studio and relies on close communication with his teams. To describe Zumthor as a hermit would be an overstatement. At this time — 2007 — he was teaching (at the Academia di Architettura di Mendrisio, in Ticino, Italy), as well as participating in competition juries and public events all over the world. But unfortunately for Living Architecture, Zumthor was then in the process of scaling back his commitments to better concentrate on his work.

Living Architecture's initial approach to Zumthor, made through an intermediary, was met with an invitation to visit. So Living Architecture's director, Mark Robinson, who oversees the design and construction of its properties, made what seemed like a pilgrimage up the mountain to Haldenstein, via numerous planes, trains and automobiles. "When I arrived, there was nobody there," Robinson recalls. "They'd all just gone out for lunch. I could walk into his house, but I couldn't find anybody for an hour." When Robinson did eventually find someone, they told him Zumthor was out playing tennis. Over the next 10 years, Robinson would come to develop a cordial relationship with Zumthor, but on first impressions, he fit all too easily into the "slightly arrogant master architect" stereotype, says Robinson: "he was testing me from day one."

Zumthor was not particularly enthused by the prospect of designing a holiday home for Living Architecture, he says, looking back. "A vacation home for private people is maybe not the most socially relevant task I should do. I wouldn't do a villa for a rich couple. I'm not against these things, but it's not my cup of tea." Zumthor has designed a few private houses, but found them to be time-consuming and unfulfilling, he says.

By this stage, Living Architecture had acquired its first few sites and was in discussions with architects about them. There were two sites in Suffolk — which would become, respectively, the Balancing Barn, by Dutch architects MVRDV, and the Dune House, by Norway's Jarmund/Vigsnaes Architects. They were also looking at sites in other holiday-friendly areas of England. Robinson showed Zumthor photographs of some of these sites, "just to try and show him we were serious". Zumthor was not impressed: "This didn't convince me too much," he says, laughing.

The pilgrimage to Haldenstein appeared to have been in vain. "I said, 'Okay, it was worth a try,'" Robinson says. "But then I said, 'What would it take?' And Peter said, 'Well, you know, I love the British countryside.' He did actually spend a couple of years in Dorset, very early on, as a student. And he said, 'But I would want something very expansive with no neighbours.' So that sort of left the door open."

Robinson had first visited the Devon site that would become the Secular Retreat in 2007 and immediately recognised it as something exceptional. Situated on a promontory overlooking the Salcombe peninsula, it commands a virtually uninterrupted view over the coastline. It certainly ticked Zumthor's "expansive" box. But Robinson had not shown Zumthor the Devon site on his visit, since Living Architecture were in talks with another architect about it at that time.

Communication with Zumthor was intermittent over the following six months, during which time the Devon site became available again; the original architects were unable to come up with a satisfactory proposal. "Peter hadn't been in touch with us for ages," Robinson recalls. "So I said to Alain, 'Well what about I offer him Devon?' I sent the pictures of Devon to Peter, and he literally came back within 24 hours and said, 'Okay, I'm interested'."

Zumthor was also persuaded by Living Architecture's broader mission of making modern architecture accessible to the public. "I saw the possibility that this could be more than just a vacation home, that it could be for a group of people doing something together," he says. De Botton had had in mind the concept of a "secular retreat" for some time. In his writing, de Botton had discussed how ecclesiastical architecture sought to elevate its users, spiritually and morally, and wondered how secular architecture could achieve the same. Zumthor's work is strongly informed by ecclesiastical tradition. As well Kolumba, he has designed specifically religious structures, including 1988's St Benedict Chapel in Sumvitg, a modest, wooden elliptical structure on a hillside, and the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, completed in 2007 -- an austere concrete tower in the middle of a rural landscape, with an atmospheric, textured interior chamber. "We set it as an intriguing 'essay topic' for Zumthor," says de Botton. "Please design us a secular retreat evocative of the monasteries of the past."

In summer 2008, Zumthor finally came to Britain to see more. Robinson met him and his wife Annalisa in Devon and took them on a tour. There were some frustrating interruptions, Robinson recalls, including the urgent need to procure for Zumthor first a television on which to watch the Swiss football team playing in the World Cup, then a suitable barber as he was in need of a haircut. In terms of the site, at least, Zumthor was immediately sold. "I fell in love with the landscape while I was there and I couldn't resist," he says. "It's a beautiful site because you think you're on a hill but basically you're just on top of a slope. You have the feeling of maybe a 300-degree view. Also you think you're alone, that you're the only house. You have this feeling of solitude."

Immediately afterwards, at a local cafe, Zumthor made his first sketch. "He said it was going to be a house for a string quartet and the composer or conductor," Robinson recalls. "He made this doodle basically of four buildings, with one big central space. And he said, 'What do you think?' And I responded something like "Yeah, why not?" In hindsight I realised that Peter wanted me to respond more fully, but it wasn't for me to say, 'Well, that's a crazy idea.'" It was only later everyone realised it was.

Music is one of Zumthor's passions. He has a music room at home, his son is a professional musician, and as his John Cage analogy attests, he often thinks of architecture in terms of music. He envisaged the Devon house as a place where artists could come to rehearse or create a piece of work: "In this bigger space you could have done rehearsals for theatre or dance, or you could have been a string quartet getting acquainted with a late Beethoven piece or something."

Arguably Zumthor was thinking of an artists' retreat as much as a secular one, but as he worked on the concept, the scheme began to sprawl. The four buildings morphed into separate houses. Plus two communal spaces: one for domestic congregation, the other a studio with a grand piano and seating for 30 people. "It was getting big," says Robinson. "Kitchen, bedrooms, living space, entrance space, all these were pavilions. And it was quite spread out. It took up the whole lower section of the site. It was a beautiful layout, the ideas were fantastic. It had all these oversailing concrete roofs. But it was to become clear later on that we could never have built it."

The scale of Zumthor's initial proposal was one problem, the relationship between Zumthor and his clients was becoming another. "Even early on, he would ask, 'So why am I meeting you Mark?'" Robinson recalls. "'Why am I not meeting Alain? He's the client.' It started to become an issue." Robinson explained that de Botton preferred his role to be more in the background. "I said, 'think of me as the client.'" But he felt that Zumthor saw him more as an intermediary. "I think that was something that he missed with Living Architecture. He wanted to engage with the client — that was very much his way of interacting — and here there was no client."

From Zumthor's perspective, de Botton seemed less interested in producing a great piece of architecture and more concerned with simply having a Zumthor building to Living Architecture's name: "The mentality was a bit, 'let's do some shopping,'" says Zumthor. He began to lose patience with de Botton: "I had to drag him by his hair and say, 'If you are not coming to my place to look at my models, I cannot continue. I like to work for people who understand architecture, and who have a passion for it."

Conversely, Living Architecture were beginning to get a sense of how hierarchical Zumthor's studio set-up really was. In theory, he had delegated the Secular Retreat to one of his project architects, as is the norm. but despite Zumthor's professed belief in teamwork, it became clear to Living Architecture that no decisions could really be taken without the boss's approval. This became frustrating, says Robinson: "I remember writing to Peter on many occasions, and just going, 'You're driving me crazy,' in the politest way. At one point, I wrote to him and just said, 'It's not going to happen, Peter, unless you put somebody on this who has the authority to actually start driving this forward. And that's when he put Rainer on it."

Rainer Weitschies had been Zumthor's business partner for over a decade by that stage, since the Therme Vals project. He had been project architect on several of the practice's buildings, including the Kolumba Art Museum. "Somehow with Peter and Alain, it was kind of a difficult relationship," says Weitschies. "In cases where the project went well, there was always a kind of a friendship between Peter and the clients, and in this case, it was too complicated — there was not the chance to make a connection. Of course, it was never that serious that we had to stop, but this was not such a close relationship."

De Botton agrees: "Peter is routinely described as not an easy man. That's completely fine by me. There are many qualities in people besides agreeableness. His challenges are always exceeded by his gifts."

With Weitschies on board, communication improved, but it still seemed that, among his myriad commissions, Zumthor's personal attention came to focus on the Secular Retreat only occasionally. In addition, the scale of Zumthor's scheme remained a problem. As they would come to learn on many of their projects, Living Architecture's initial overtures to Zumthor to express himself freely and build whatever he wanted were somewhat rash. Reality would have to intervene at some stage. The projected cost of the scheme was spiralling ever higher. By now it was going through a lengthy planning approval process. They were already testing samples of concrete and other materials on site. Combined with the slow progress, Living Architecture were going through cost calculations with some apprehension. "By that point you've invested a lot," says Robinson. "Do you turn around and go, 'Okay, we're just going to write that off' or do you keep going? Then I'd get a bit of work out of him [Zumthor], and it would feel like, 'Okay, we're back on track.' And then he would go silent again. And it became incredibly frustrating. It came to a head, and Alain and I just looked at it and said, 'Well, do we want this house?'" Robinson and de Botton broke the news to Zumthor that, regretfully, they could not afford to build his scheme. "He said, 'Okay, that's the end of it,'" recalls Robinson. "And we went, 'Okay, fine. That's your choice.'"

A couple of days later, though, word came back from Switzerland that Zumthor had not given up on the project and was still thinking about it. Perhaps that Devonshire landscape still beguiled him. Weitschies remembers the time well. It was summer, and Zumthor was about to go on holiday in the mountains with Annalisa. "He took everything," says Weitschies. "And he was there for three weeks. So Annalisa is cooking and taking care of him, and he is working day and night. And when he came back, there was a set of sketches of the new, simplified design." Zumthor later told Robinson he had talked to his wife and she had told him, 'Oh don't be so silly. Just get on with it.'"

"Peter is far more pragmatic than he's been described," says de Botton. "When we told him that the first project far exceeded our budget, he took it on the chin. None of that is down to me; it has everything to do with the remarkable abilities of Mark [Robinson], who at this stage of his career, really knew how to handle architects to get the best out of them. I think that Mark may be the only person on the planet who has sent Peter back to the drawing board and got a better scheme second time around - and a cheaper one too!"

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Zumthor's revised design for the Secular Retreat was driven by the same inspirations that informed its predecessor, primarily derived from the site. "The beauty is already there," says Zumthor. "And maybe the main thing is to not destroy it but to do something which makes this visible."

With any project, Zumthor's favoured starting point is to take a survey of the site and make a large, detailed model. In this case, "a really beautiful model," he says, "not just something in paper, it was really made with rocks and sand, and English colours — English rain colours!"

A building already existed on the site when Living Architecture acquired it: a timber-framed 1940s farmhouse, relatively progressive in its design but in poor condition. The only element that remains of it is the hexagonal concrete garden area, allegedly built by the owner's wife, which Zumthor liked for its hand-crafted feel. He also fought — against the suggestions of Living Architecture — to retain the ring of mature Monterey pines around the property.

Zumthor was thinking from the outset of a monolithic composition of heavy stone-like elements. A place of security, solidity and permanence, protected by the ring of trees. He and his team gathered an assortment of flat stones and blocks and made a variety of study models, arranging them in various combinations to define spaces. "And we looked at this and said, 'Yeah, looks good. That's what we're going to do: vertical things and horizontal things.'" Some have speculated Zumthor was paying homage to Stonehenge and other local neolithic architecture. "I think it doesn't look like Stonehenge," he says. "But I hope it's sort of English, or has something to do with the stones in the ground there. I work little with actual reference materials. I have my own references in my soul or somewhere or in my head." Typically, Zumthor will produce drawings from the models, which will be reviewed and revised, then used to make more detailed models, and so forth — a process that continues throughout the project, even during construction.

This could be said to be the "John Cage" part of Zumthor's process. Rather than referring to history or precedent, Zumthor designs almost from first principles — exploring ideas with form and material and seeing where they lead. "When I do my buildings, I don't resort to standard details. I work more like a sculptor," he says. "Because I have the confidence, I will turn this into a building. I will invent the detail. This is very frightening for my clients sometimes but for me this is not a problem. This is how I work. And I have the confidence that I will find a solution."

As well as form and materials, Zumthor was also considering how the building should be made. The Secular Retreat's monolithic elements were never going to be built of actual stone; Zumthor always envisaged concrete, but what kind of concrete? The prevailing taste for smooth, refined surfaces is almost anathema to Zumthor's philosophy, as would be any form of stone cladding.

"The whole tendency in architecture is to make a substructure nobody ever sees, put all the pipes and things inside, and then at the end, we look at what the architect wanted and we put it on as a veneer, four millimetres thick," he says. "It looks like a jewellery shop, or advertising. I understand this process. It's an easy process. In a way it's like producing cars. But I think we are losing something if all buildings look slick, and are just surface."

The Secular Retreat's walls and the columns supporting the massive roof slab, for example, are constructed from what is known as rammed concrete. Essentially it involves making a moist mix of concrete and other materials such as earth and stones and forcing it by hand (or foot) into a form, one layer at a time. A new layer is added when the previous one has cured, typically the following day, so no two mixes will be exactly the same. As a result, the finished form has a hand-made, almost primitive feel, and a textured, organic appearance — like layers of sedimentary rock. Zumthor had previously experimented with rammed concrete on his Bruder Klaus Field Chapel. The exterior of the chapel is a windowless, 12 metre-high prism made up of visible layers of the material, each about 50cm high, in a warm yellowish concrete. "It's a beautiful way of making a statement against slickness," says Zumthor of the technique. "As an architect, I want to show you these handmade things — stuff people have made."

Rammed concrete is not a new technique — it became popular in the early 20th century, especially in rural areas, since no particular expertise or heavy machinery was required — but it was an obscure technique, and one which took a certain amount of trial and error. This is where the element of time comes in. Zumthor's process of experimentation, testing and refinement is not fast. The process of developing the right concrete mix, and the local skills to apply it, was long and winding. "The number of samples of rammed concrete that we made…" recalls Ian Bramwell of Mole Architects, the site architects for the Secular Retreat. "And all with different aggregates, different sands, different cements, different ratios, different moisture contents, adjacent to different types of stone. We had what looked like huge bus shelters on site that were maquettes for parts of the building."

Like an early 20th century farmer, the local contractor, Simon Cannon, had to work out his own rudimentary techniques for achieving the right concrete consistency day to day. "He tested it by putting the mix in his hand and clenching his fist," Bramwell remembers. "If it held together at the end of it, it was the right kind of mix, and he would know if it was too wet, or too dry." Atmospheric conditions also had to be taken into account. "If it had been raining and the sand had got wet, that created a much wetter mix, so you would put less water in — it was all these things. It doesn't adhere to a standard formula."

Zumthor embraces these irregularities: "They're like a diary in the walls," he says. "I can see what kind of mental state Simon was in when he did this pillar or this part of the wall — whether the wind was blowing or it was icy. I can still picture his big, red hands."

Between Zumthor's exacting methods and the Secular Retreat's remote location, the sequence and process of the construction could only proceed at a certain pace. For instance, each step of the process had to be sent to Zumthor's office in Switzerland and signed off for approval before it could be made — a process Robinson describes as "excruciating": "Simon, the contractor, would build the formwork. He would then have to photograph it, send it back to Zumthor's to check it against the drawings to make sure that it was right. Then that would have to come back, and then they could start pouring the concrete. I know why Zumthor was doing it that way, because you want to avoid mistakes, but it drove everybody crazy because you would waste half a day just on this transfer of information and then checking everything."

There were other time-consuming aspects to the construction. A conventional, pre-mixed concrete was used for the building's substantial foundations. This had to be transported from the nearest cement factory — an hour's drive away down narrow country lanes. "And that was on a good day," says Bramwell. "If you met a tractor or a tanker or something coming down one of those lanes, it was a standoff. And concrete only has a certain shelf life in the back of a mixer. So pouring the foundations was a bit knife-edge at some points."

The giant roof slab presented a different set of challenges. Its sheer weight and thickness, and its oversailing cantilevers — up to five metres in places — required some complex structural engineering and logistical planning. Added to which, although it appears as a single, monolithic slab, to satisfy building regulations, the roof had to be composed of two sections: an upper "cold" section, exposed to the elements, and an internal "warm" roof, with the two separated by a layer of thermal insulation (the line of separation is along the glazing line).

"We couldn't build various parts of the building until other bits had fully cured, '' says Bramwell. "We had to wait for that lower "warm" roof to set and bear the compressive strength before we could put the upper "cold" roof on. Then the engineers calculated that because of the weight of the concrete at the ends of the cantilevers, there would be some sagging, or deflection, to the whole roof structure. We had to wait for that to take place before we could measure for the windows to be installed, and that was a three-month delay. And then there was a further three months before the windows would arrive. So there was a six-month period where not a lot was happening."

Each component of the project brought its own set of conditions and challenges. The glazing was supplied by a German company Zumthor regularly worked with, but there were delays in manufacturing, compounded by problems on site. Once fitted, the glazing leaked, and it took several months to identify and rectify the problem. In the meantime, the floor could not be fully laid. The floor, an irregular jigsaw of paving stones, took over a year to lay. This was on top of a year Robinson had already spent sourcing the Blue Lias stone from an independent quarry in Somerset. Each stone that came out of the quarry Robinson had to measure and draw out a template for, then send it to Zumthor's office where a designer would fit it into the overall layout, piece by piece. Some of the stones would break on the way to site, or crack on site before they could be laid, necessitating an impromptu redesign, or a substitution, which then threw the rest of the design off track.

This is the reality of "hand-crafted" construction — an almost pre-industrial degree of labour intensiveness. Almost every element of the Secular Retreat is bespoke and unique, from the fitted furniture pieces (made by carpenters in Austria) to the upholstered furnishings (almost all Zumthor's own designs). Occasionally Robinson found it exasperating, he admits. "At one point I just said to Rainer, 'Can we not buy one single thing off the shelf?' Like, we couldn't have a shower drain off the shelf? Instead we had to spend hours discussing how you adapt a perfectly well-made shower drain that has been tested and manufactured over years, and somehow, we had to change that, and find a way of making this bit fit with this bit. And that was the story of the whole house. The result is the result. But how you get to that result just took an extraordinary amount of effort and willpower."

Zumthor uses a musical analogy to describe his approach to materials: "From the beginning there's always a harmony. I think it really starts with three major tones, and then you can add all the crazy additions and make secondary statements and so on. So I started with stone — in the rammed concrete and the roof, which is the same mix, which has a lot to do with the local ingredients, and in the floor, which is from a quarry 100 miles away. And then there's the glass and the metal, and then let's do a little bit of wood over there, couldn't do any harm," he chuckles. "That's how it is."

"Each building obviously has its own material atmosphere," he continues. "This is extremely important: that they have this full, saturated atmosphere. You want people to sit down and feel, 'I could stay here for another hour or two.' Then the building is successful. That's the biggest praise a building can attract."

In the throes of construction, it was easy to lose sight of the big picture, but as each issue was patiently resolved and the Secular Retreat neared completion, Zumthor's overall vision began to come into focus. What often felt like burdensome demands and overwrought attention to detail in the making process was ultimately vindicated.

It was a learning experience for Bramwell seeing how Zumthor worked, then seeing the outcome, not just in the minutiae but also in fundamental decisions, like the orientation of the building. "It always felt like the house was completely wrongly orientated," Bramwell explains. "The best view in the whole house is from the corridor that goes to the bedrooms [in the north wing]. I felt like that was the view that you would celebrate and have from the main space, but the main space almost turns its back on it and points itself towards a grass bank. But it made sense when it all came together. With the expanse of glazing in the main space, you need the bank to stop you feeling completely exposed. Then that corridor becomes a surprising element of the building, because you don't see that when you arrive. It's held back from you."

"I think it turned out really well," says Zumthor. "I'm happy that it still has this communal space and you can be together, cooking, dancing, whatever. There are many things which I planned, and other things, which just came about by chance"

"I need a clear idea of what I want to do. I cannot go astray. But you also have to see whether it feels right at all times. This sometimes takes time. Sometimes I have to feel like everything is good, and two weeks, three weeks later I come back and say, 'There's something wrong. I feel it.' So the process has to allow for this time. And this I explained to Mark and to Alain, and, well, I guess they had to take it," he laughs. "Ask them if they're happy now."

Robinson is glad he "stuck it out" with Zumthor. "It's a good place to be and it works as a space, so yes, I'm pleased in that respect," he says. "And I guess that's what his work is about: that authenticity, in materials and atmosphere. I think that's important. When I look at it, there's not much that I would say we should have done differently."

By the end of the process, having spent 10 years engaging with Zumthor, Robinson had revised his opinion somewhat: "I have a lot of time for Peter. And I think that whole kind of 'arrogant man of the mountain' thing; he's not that man at all. He's just a nice guy, really. He likes a glass of wine. He likes to joke. He liked to tell me stories about his life. He watches the football."

For all their differences, de Botton came to a similar conclusion: "I remember some very nice conversations in Peter's atelier. He was playful, generous and knew he could intimidate clients but chose not to: he seemed on our side and deeply sympathetic to our aims. My feeling is that he really believed in Living Architecture, and we really believed in him. The respect was mutual."

"We knew the project would take a very long time," de Botton continues. "The best preparation was therefore to tweak our expectations. We were ready to see the building 'whenever it was done.' It might have taken four, five or 20 years. We were prepared to wait, confident it would be worth it in the end. Zumthor is that sort of architect; he educates his clients in his own rhythm."

"Everybody wants things to move quicker," says Zumthor, "but the house is going to stand there for a hundred years so I'm not impressed by this. I also want to be quick. The older I get, the quicker I should get! But houses have to be good. Nobody puts a plaque on a house that says 'this house has been built in the most efficient, record time.' I've never seen this."