Buildings by nature seek to dominate space. At the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, the experience is wholly different – in this isolated picturesque setting: space dominates building.

At first sight, the architecture appears anonymous, sculptural and silent. Lost along the Californian coast, it is situated a stone’s throw away from San Diego in La Jolla. We can imagine it as an untouched gem in a post war scenario: a living ruin, capable of projecting worlds of its own. The fact that its primary function is a laboratory is rendered irrelevant – the real beauty of the architecture lies in its ability to transcend its programme to become a timeless space. It is not conceptually distant from the plaster edifices of Hollywood and Cinecittà. In this concrete theatre we become puppets in the middle of a brushed brutality: elegant in its hardness and poetic in its staging.