Introduction -
Advances in technology, particularly computerisation, have enhanced the creative possibilities of architectural design, although architects must still consider the basics of function and relationship to site. Other challenges for the twenty-first-century architect are energy saving, building time and economic considerations. Architects work within the global economy. Very successful ones establish their own firms, have offices in various cities around the world and employ large staffs. The best architects balance creativity, innovation and functionality with social considerations to create distinctive and spectacular signature buildings. Because globalisation tends to create a ‘sameness’, there is also an increased need for conspicuous originality.
Deutsche Bank Place 2002–05
126 Phillips Street,
Sydney
Photo: Richard Glover/Photolibrary
© Foster + Partners
Deutsche Bank Place 2002–05
126 Phillips Street,
Sydney
Photo: Richard Glover/Photolibrary
© Foster + Partners
Zaha M. Hadid
(British, b. 1950 in Iraq)
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Hadid's approach to architectural design is highly creative and original. Her structures challenge
past concepts of what a building should be. The fluid energy of her buildings is sculptural in approach.
Conceptual Framework — innovative in approach to a building's function and the flow of people towards and within it.
Lois + Richard Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Centre 2003
View of east elevation with urban carpet 44 East Sixth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Photo: Nick Guttridge/Photolibrary
© Zaha Hadid Architects
The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (see right) was Hadid's first real chance to explore her new approach on a large scale. It was also a chance for her to express her personal ideas on museum practice and new concepts of curating, allowing curators to individually change or customise spaces for each exhibition.
The horizontal oblong tubes function as the main galleries, linked with ribbon-like ramps that zigzag upwards. The entrance is at the busiest intersection in Cincinnati and is designed to draw in the crowds. From the entrance, light bands entice you to the walkways and from one artwork to the next. Viewers are led from the most intimate spaces to the more dramatic and
invited to pause and look out through carefully positioned windows. This building established Hadid's reputation: the New York Times referred to it as the most important new building since the Cold War.
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Hadid's approach to architectural design is highly creative and original. Her structures challenge
past concepts of what a building should be. The fluid energy of her buildings is sculptural in approach.
Conceptual Framework — innovative in approach to a building's function and the flow of people towards and within it.
Lois + Richard Rosenthal Contemporary Arts Centre 2003
View of east elevation with urban carpet 44 East Sixth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, US
Photo: Nick Guttridge/Photolibrary
© Zaha Hadid Architects
The Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (see right) was Hadid's first real chance to explore her new approach on a large scale. It was also a chance for her to express her personal ideas on museum practice and new concepts of curating, allowing curators to individually change or customise spaces for each exhibition.
The horizontal oblong tubes function as the main galleries, linked with ribbon-like ramps that zigzag upwards. The entrance is at the busiest intersection in Cincinnati and is designed to draw in the crowds. From the entrance, light bands entice you to the walkways and from one artwork to the next. Viewers are led from the most intimate spaces to the more dramatic and
invited to pause and look out through carefully positioned windows. This building established Hadid's reputation: the New York Times referred to it as the most important new building since the Cold War.
London Aquatic Centre
(expected completion 2012)
London, UK
Photo by London 2012 via Getty Images
© Zaha Hadid Architects
The futuristic, dynamic design for the London Aquatic Centre (above) has an organic, living quality. Its shape evokes a stingray or a crashing wave, suitable symbols for the intended function of the building. The curvilinear shapes slide gently along the foreshore as if about to slip back into the water. The overhanging curve seems to gather onlookers together protectively below it, drawing them towards the building, stimulating their involvement.
The ladder-like structures inside the glass façade inspire spectators to visually climb to the peak of the building. For those who cast their eyes downwards to the pavement, the repetitive horizontal rungs draw the eye upward, intimating a rise in expectations and ideals. Each curving rib of the roof sets up a forward surging motion in a rising crescendo, symbolising an ongoing energy within the building. The building is streamlined, flowing and highly
individualistic, a fitting design for a prestigious event and for highlighting Britain's creative energy. It also highlights the exciting possibilities for architecture offered by computer-aided design. There is a strength and distinction to the design that reflects Zaha Hadid's own personality.
(expected completion 2012)
London, UK
Photo by London 2012 via Getty Images
© Zaha Hadid Architects
The futuristic, dynamic design for the London Aquatic Centre (above) has an organic, living quality. Its shape evokes a stingray or a crashing wave, suitable symbols for the intended function of the building. The curvilinear shapes slide gently along the foreshore as if about to slip back into the water. The overhanging curve seems to gather onlookers together protectively below it, drawing them towards the building, stimulating their involvement.
The ladder-like structures inside the glass façade inspire spectators to visually climb to the peak of the building. For those who cast their eyes downwards to the pavement, the repetitive horizontal rungs draw the eye upward, intimating a rise in expectations and ideals. Each curving rib of the roof sets up a forward surging motion in a rising crescendo, symbolising an ongoing energy within the building. The building is streamlined, flowing and highly
individualistic, a fitting design for a prestigious event and for highlighting Britain's creative energy. It also highlights the exciting possibilities for architecture offered by computer-aided design. There is a strength and distinction to the design that reflects Zaha Hadid's own personality.
Opus (expected completion 2011)
Dubai Omniyat Properties
Photo courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
© Zaha Hadid Architects
This stunning, individual building should be a stand-out in Business Bay, Dubai, a country already known for its exciting, innovative architectural structures. It is to be a mixed-usage property with shopping outlets on the first three floors, and the top floor offering a ‘tranquillity zone’ complete with pool and a beach.
Despite its rectilinear form it has a strong sculptural feel. We are reminded of the glass walls of ribbon windows of the Modernist International School, and
the way it hovers is similar to Le Corbusier's concept of raising a building on
pilotis, but the monumental split in one side of the building and the ‘carved out’ shape in another are definitely contemporary statements.
Unlike modernist architects who tried to develop a distinctive ‘style’ or approach, adopting guiding principles such as ‘less is more’, ‘form follows function’, ‘a house should be of a hill not on a hill’, contemporary architects such as Zahid, Norman Foster and Amanda Levete seem to revel in creating unique architectural statements with each project. To some extent it is new technology
that is making possible such wildly imaginative designs.
Chanel's travelling art museum (below) exemplifies the contemporary trend towards bridging a range of art disciplines as well as integrating design, fashion and everyday life. This piece of architectural design by Hadid could be thought of as an extension of the rebellion that occurred in art during the 1970s and 1980s, when artists such as Walter De Maria and Christo no longer exhibited solely inside the institutions of art museums.
Dubai Omniyat Properties
Photo courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects
© Zaha Hadid Architects
This stunning, individual building should be a stand-out in Business Bay, Dubai, a country already known for its exciting, innovative architectural structures. It is to be a mixed-usage property with shopping outlets on the first three floors, and the top floor offering a ‘tranquillity zone’ complete with pool and a beach.
Despite its rectilinear form it has a strong sculptural feel. We are reminded of the glass walls of ribbon windows of the Modernist International School, and
the way it hovers is similar to Le Corbusier's concept of raising a building on
pilotis, but the monumental split in one side of the building and the ‘carved out’ shape in another are definitely contemporary statements.
Unlike modernist architects who tried to develop a distinctive ‘style’ or approach, adopting guiding principles such as ‘less is more’, ‘form follows function’, ‘a house should be of a hill not on a hill’, contemporary architects such as Zahid, Norman Foster and Amanda Levete seem to revel in creating unique architectural statements with each project. To some extent it is new technology
that is making possible such wildly imaginative designs.
Chanel's travelling art museum (below) exemplifies the contemporary trend towards bridging a range of art disciplines as well as integrating design, fashion and everyday life. This piece of architectural design by Hadid could be thought of as an extension of the rebellion that occurred in art during the 1970s and 1980s, when artists such as Walter De Maria and Christo no longer exhibited solely inside the institutions of art museums.
Chanel Contemporary Art Container 2008
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, New York
Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for CHANEL
© Zaha Hadid Architects
This mobile piece of architecture, along with the work of 20
avant-garde artists to be housed inside it, was commissioned by Chanel under the leadership of Karl Lagerfeld (see Katrina Israel's review in Critical
practice).
Architectural practice
Zaha Hadid grew up in Iraq as the daughter of a bourgeois intellectual family that played a leading role in the then liberal, secular, western-focused state with a growing economy. Yet even under these circumstances it took a strong-willed, ambitious woman to take up the male-dominated profession of architecture.
Zaha Hadid attended convent schools in Baghdad and Switzerland and achieved a degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut. She was awarded the Diploma Prize in Architecture in 1972 from the Architectural Association, London, graduating in 1977. In 1980 she established Zaha Hadid Architects.
Hadid is notable as the first woman architect to be awarded the distinguished Pritzker Architectural Prize, which she received in 2004 when she had only just
completed her first substantial project, the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, and was named Ego Design's 2006 Personality of the Year.
The Iraqi-born, London-based architect is known internationally for unique, complex and striking designs that often seem to defy gravity. She is respected as an innovator who consistently tests the boundaries of architecture. At first her original drawings, such as those for The Peak, a spa designed for Hong Kong, were considered unbuildable. It was almost as though she had to wait for the technology and the public to catch up with her vision. Her most controversial project, and perhaps a lesson for her in the politics of how to gain acceptance for her radical approach, was her 1994 competition-winning design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House, which was abandoned after conservative politicians rebelled against an innovative British statement in their Welsh city. Now Hadid has major projects in Europe, North America and Asia, all of which are striking for their futuristic appeal and ability to excite.
Zaha Hadid's radical style involves a new approach to architecture, with multiple perspective points, smooth surfaces where walls seem to melt, ceilings appear to compress, bend and expand, and floors curve upwards. Her designs seem to deny the concept of solidity traditionally associated with architecture. Her forms appear to be in a constant state of change, morphing and gliding as if in a science fiction movie, drawing the onlooker into her personal fantasy. Her structures reflect a unique appreciation of architectural form, the emphasis on shadow and ambiguity a reference to her cultural roots, while the fluidity is a reaction against the constrictions, as she perceives them, of modern urban landscapes.
Although architecture requires individual inspiration, it also involves a lot of people. Hadid herself does not like using computers, preferring to draw her
ideas, working out abstract spatial relationships on paper. She is particularly interested in how the relationship of floor to wall and ceiling can be redefined. She employs a staff of around 150 people to implement her ideas.
Hadid's architecture is complex. Earlier work has a Suprematist (a Russian art movement using simple forms such as the circle or square), geometric basis,
with layering and overlaps of crosses and uppercuts giving way to more molten forms suggesting buckled rock formations, cooling lava or musculature, but still with an abstruse geometric basis and sense of drama. She has said that she comes from a tradition in which intuition and logic are closely connected.
Hadid is an influential architect with a groundbreaking approach to design. Many of her buildings are raised so as to leave the space beneath free for urban
living, allowing her structures to remain fluid and busy, stimulating movement and dissolving classic boundaries. Hadid's buildings do not follow a set formula; her objectives are to create buildings that are right for the place and the user, and to promote a sense of optimism.
Architect's statement
‘I am always trying to create a holistic language in my designs, looking at the connections of ground, form and people to create buildings that become a part of the earth …
‘I don't see why buildings, particularly civic spaces, can't be mesmerising … It's important to have stimulating, exciting and thoughtful design available on people's doorstep.’
Quoted in Vogue Living, November/December 2007, p. 7.
Other works and awards
The Peak Project, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 1983. Hadid's winning design for this private club is indicative of why her work has been called ‘Deconstructivist’, after the theories related to the Deconstructivist literary movement and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Her proposal involved transforming the site by excavating the hills and using the excavated rock to build artificial cliffs. She interspersed these with cantilevered beams and other elements to break it up into many parts, as if the whole cliff had been subjected to a destabilising force. The whole complex is an anti-gravity statement.
Critical practice
‘ “I think design and architecture are the real art of today,” said Karl Lagerfeld when introducing the project at the 2007 Venice Art Biennale. “No one
has done this before. Nobody else has made a museum that can travel. Normally people travel to see a museum, here the museum is travelling — it is a very new concept.”
‘The free exhibition began its two-year, seven-city world tour in Hong Kong in February and will travel (packed into 65 shipping containers) to Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, London and Moscow, before retiring in Paris in 2010, having spent five weeks open to the public in each cultural hub. “It's the ultimate luxury to do this,” continues Lagerfeld, “to initiate an approach that would otherwise be impossible, that benefits everyone” …
‘This revolutionary collaboration, which integrates the disciplines of architecture, design and fashion, began with the actual container itself. “It is an architectural language of fluidity and nature, driven by new digital design and manufacturing processes, which have enabled us to create the pavilion's
organic forms,” says Hadid, with whom Mr Lagerfeld had been looking to work for some time. The result is a futuristic, curvilinear labyrinth with a quilted
exterior referencing the 2.55 [Chanel's iconic quilted handbag] made of fibreglass components that will be reassembled at each new destination.’
Katrina Israel, ‘2008: A space odyssey’,
Harper's Bazaar, May 2008, p. 112.
On Chanel's Mobile Art Pavilion (see Chanel Contemporary Art Container 2008)
‘The retrospective exhibition on Zaha Hadid at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2006 makes it abundantly clear that Ms Hadid is the
foremost creator of intriguing architectural compositions in the world, surpassing even Frank O. Gehry in this regard.
‘Gehry, of course, is the pre-eminent architect in the world as measured by his completed projects. In comparison, Ms Hadid has only a handful of projects
that have been brought to fruition as real buildings, although this exhibition suggests that her built portfolio is likely to grow substantially over the next
few years.’
Carter B. Horsley, publicity statement for the 2006 exhibition ‘Zaha Hadid — Queen of energetic, explosive works of varied perspectives', at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, June–October 2006
‘The first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize for Architecture has turned her attentions to furniture, embracing the sinuous, the sexy, the shocking …
‘Zaha launched her crescent-shaped “Moon system” sofa for B&B Italia, slinky, silver acrylic bowls for Italian brand Sawaya & Moroni and the jigsaw-esque “Nekton” stools for Brit label Established & Sons. So what makes her the designer du jour?
‘Like her buildings, Zaha's furniture is the epitome of a new form of Futurism, merging right-angled planes into kinetic, shard-like and sinuous shapes (her early influences include Russian Suprematist art's abstract, geometric motifs). She describes her work as “driven by the latest cutting-edge technologies” and as “the reinvention of space using a design language that emphasises complex curvilinearity and seamlessness”.’
Dominic Lutyens, ‘Tomorrow's World’, Elle Decoration, September 2007, p. 61.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Architect's practice
1. It has been said that while at university Hadid was influenced by the Suprematist Kasimir Malevitch, who wrote in 1928: ‘We can only perceive space
when we break free from the earth, when the point of support disappears’. What evidence of the influence of this statement do you find in the designs of
Hadid?
2. Discuss the similarities in approach between Hadid's architecture and her designed objects. Examples include the Mesa table designed for Vitra, the
Louis Vuitton bag, her Z.Island kitchen for DuPont™ Corian®, and Nekton stools for Established & Sons.
(Answer these in on the virtual classroom discussion board).
http://designmuseum.org/design/zaha-hadid - Interesting website on Zaha Hadid
Rumsey Playfield, Central Park, New York
Photo: Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for CHANEL
© Zaha Hadid Architects
This mobile piece of architecture, along with the work of 20
avant-garde artists to be housed inside it, was commissioned by Chanel under the leadership of Karl Lagerfeld (see Katrina Israel's review in Critical
practice).
Architectural practice
Zaha Hadid grew up in Iraq as the daughter of a bourgeois intellectual family that played a leading role in the then liberal, secular, western-focused state with a growing economy. Yet even under these circumstances it took a strong-willed, ambitious woman to take up the male-dominated profession of architecture.
Zaha Hadid attended convent schools in Baghdad and Switzerland and achieved a degree in mathematics at the American University in Beirut. She was awarded the Diploma Prize in Architecture in 1972 from the Architectural Association, London, graduating in 1977. In 1980 she established Zaha Hadid Architects.
Hadid is notable as the first woman architect to be awarded the distinguished Pritzker Architectural Prize, which she received in 2004 when she had only just
completed her first substantial project, the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, and was named Ego Design's 2006 Personality of the Year.
The Iraqi-born, London-based architect is known internationally for unique, complex and striking designs that often seem to defy gravity. She is respected as an innovator who consistently tests the boundaries of architecture. At first her original drawings, such as those for The Peak, a spa designed for Hong Kong, were considered unbuildable. It was almost as though she had to wait for the technology and the public to catch up with her vision. Her most controversial project, and perhaps a lesson for her in the politics of how to gain acceptance for her radical approach, was her 1994 competition-winning design for the Cardiff Bay Opera House, which was abandoned after conservative politicians rebelled against an innovative British statement in their Welsh city. Now Hadid has major projects in Europe, North America and Asia, all of which are striking for their futuristic appeal and ability to excite.
Zaha Hadid's radical style involves a new approach to architecture, with multiple perspective points, smooth surfaces where walls seem to melt, ceilings appear to compress, bend and expand, and floors curve upwards. Her designs seem to deny the concept of solidity traditionally associated with architecture. Her forms appear to be in a constant state of change, morphing and gliding as if in a science fiction movie, drawing the onlooker into her personal fantasy. Her structures reflect a unique appreciation of architectural form, the emphasis on shadow and ambiguity a reference to her cultural roots, while the fluidity is a reaction against the constrictions, as she perceives them, of modern urban landscapes.
Although architecture requires individual inspiration, it also involves a lot of people. Hadid herself does not like using computers, preferring to draw her
ideas, working out abstract spatial relationships on paper. She is particularly interested in how the relationship of floor to wall and ceiling can be redefined. She employs a staff of around 150 people to implement her ideas.
Hadid's architecture is complex. Earlier work has a Suprematist (a Russian art movement using simple forms such as the circle or square), geometric basis,
with layering and overlaps of crosses and uppercuts giving way to more molten forms suggesting buckled rock formations, cooling lava or musculature, but still with an abstruse geometric basis and sense of drama. She has said that she comes from a tradition in which intuition and logic are closely connected.
Hadid is an influential architect with a groundbreaking approach to design. Many of her buildings are raised so as to leave the space beneath free for urban
living, allowing her structures to remain fluid and busy, stimulating movement and dissolving classic boundaries. Hadid's buildings do not follow a set formula; her objectives are to create buildings that are right for the place and the user, and to promote a sense of optimism.
Architect's statement
‘I am always trying to create a holistic language in my designs, looking at the connections of ground, form and people to create buildings that become a part of the earth …
‘I don't see why buildings, particularly civic spaces, can't be mesmerising … It's important to have stimulating, exciting and thoughtful design available on people's doorstep.’
Quoted in Vogue Living, November/December 2007, p. 7.
Other works and awards
The Peak Project, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 1983. Hadid's winning design for this private club is indicative of why her work has been called ‘Deconstructivist’, after the theories related to the Deconstructivist literary movement and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Her proposal involved transforming the site by excavating the hills and using the excavated rock to build artificial cliffs. She interspersed these with cantilevered beams and other elements to break it up into many parts, as if the whole cliff had been subjected to a destabilising force. The whole complex is an anti-gravity statement.
Critical practice
‘ “I think design and architecture are the real art of today,” said Karl Lagerfeld when introducing the project at the 2007 Venice Art Biennale. “No one
has done this before. Nobody else has made a museum that can travel. Normally people travel to see a museum, here the museum is travelling — it is a very new concept.”
‘The free exhibition began its two-year, seven-city world tour in Hong Kong in February and will travel (packed into 65 shipping containers) to Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, London and Moscow, before retiring in Paris in 2010, having spent five weeks open to the public in each cultural hub. “It's the ultimate luxury to do this,” continues Lagerfeld, “to initiate an approach that would otherwise be impossible, that benefits everyone” …
‘This revolutionary collaboration, which integrates the disciplines of architecture, design and fashion, began with the actual container itself. “It is an architectural language of fluidity and nature, driven by new digital design and manufacturing processes, which have enabled us to create the pavilion's
organic forms,” says Hadid, with whom Mr Lagerfeld had been looking to work for some time. The result is a futuristic, curvilinear labyrinth with a quilted
exterior referencing the 2.55 [Chanel's iconic quilted handbag] made of fibreglass components that will be reassembled at each new destination.’
Katrina Israel, ‘2008: A space odyssey’,
Harper's Bazaar, May 2008, p. 112.
On Chanel's Mobile Art Pavilion (see Chanel Contemporary Art Container 2008)
‘The retrospective exhibition on Zaha Hadid at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2006 makes it abundantly clear that Ms Hadid is the
foremost creator of intriguing architectural compositions in the world, surpassing even Frank O. Gehry in this regard.
‘Gehry, of course, is the pre-eminent architect in the world as measured by his completed projects. In comparison, Ms Hadid has only a handful of projects
that have been brought to fruition as real buildings, although this exhibition suggests that her built portfolio is likely to grow substantially over the next
few years.’
Carter B. Horsley, publicity statement for the 2006 exhibition ‘Zaha Hadid — Queen of energetic, explosive works of varied perspectives', at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, June–October 2006
‘The first woman to win the prestigious Pritzker Prize for Architecture has turned her attentions to furniture, embracing the sinuous, the sexy, the shocking …
‘Zaha launched her crescent-shaped “Moon system” sofa for B&B Italia, slinky, silver acrylic bowls for Italian brand Sawaya & Moroni and the jigsaw-esque “Nekton” stools for Brit label Established & Sons. So what makes her the designer du jour?
‘Like her buildings, Zaha's furniture is the epitome of a new form of Futurism, merging right-angled planes into kinetic, shard-like and sinuous shapes (her early influences include Russian Suprematist art's abstract, geometric motifs). She describes her work as “driven by the latest cutting-edge technologies” and as “the reinvention of space using a design language that emphasises complex curvilinearity and seamlessness”.’
Dominic Lutyens, ‘Tomorrow's World’, Elle Decoration, September 2007, p. 61.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Architect's practice
1. It has been said that while at university Hadid was influenced by the Suprematist Kasimir Malevitch, who wrote in 1928: ‘We can only perceive space
when we break free from the earth, when the point of support disappears’. What evidence of the influence of this statement do you find in the designs of
Hadid?
2. Discuss the similarities in approach between Hadid's architecture and her designed objects. Examples include the Mesa table designed for Vitra, the
Louis Vuitton bag, her Z.Island kitchen for DuPont™ Corian®, and Nekton stools for Established & Sons.
(Answer these in on the virtual classroom discussion board).
http://designmuseum.org/design/zaha-hadid - Interesting website on Zaha Hadid
Sir Norman Foster
(b. 1935, British)
Issues/interests: a swing away from modernist rectilinear forms to elegant, curvaceous, sculptural designs using large areas of glass. His projects are characterised by innovative affordable design, a concern for ecology and for bringing the outside environment inside to be appreciated by the users of the building, and superb engineering.
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Foster challenges traditional building design processes and concerns through his innovative approach and use of high technology. Conceptual Framework — He tries to bring the outside world inside his buildings. He is especially concerned with the social aspects of his buildings.
Deutsche Bank Place 2002–05
126 Phillips Street,
Sydney
Photo: Richard Glover/Photolibrary
© Foster + Partners
The Deutsche Bank's distinctive design is a response to the narrow inner-city Sydney site. The structure is obvious on the outside, the outer grid articulating the facade, its uniqueness among the other city buildings being its emphasis on the vertical rather than the horizontal. The sloping profile of the roofline with its two spires facing north adds to the verticality. It is elegant, streamlined, dynamic in feel and far from boring. The slim rectangles attached at the side are separated from the main structure by a glass membrane. In typical Norman style, the building boasts a column-free light-filled atrium (four storeys high) at ground level. This acts to bring the outside into the city building, forming a type of interior, wind-protected public square.
Foster's other Sydney project is Regent Place, a high-rise apartment block in George Street. The key concept is the provision of light as well as privacy.
Issues/interests: a swing away from modernist rectilinear forms to elegant, curvaceous, sculptural designs using large areas of glass. His projects are characterised by innovative affordable design, a concern for ecology and for bringing the outside environment inside to be appreciated by the users of the building, and superb engineering.
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Foster challenges traditional building design processes and concerns through his innovative approach and use of high technology. Conceptual Framework — He tries to bring the outside world inside his buildings. He is especially concerned with the social aspects of his buildings.
Deutsche Bank Place 2002–05
126 Phillips Street,
Sydney
Photo: Richard Glover/Photolibrary
© Foster + Partners
The Deutsche Bank's distinctive design is a response to the narrow inner-city Sydney site. The structure is obvious on the outside, the outer grid articulating the facade, its uniqueness among the other city buildings being its emphasis on the vertical rather than the horizontal. The sloping profile of the roofline with its two spires facing north adds to the verticality. It is elegant, streamlined, dynamic in feel and far from boring. The slim rectangles attached at the side are separated from the main structure by a glass membrane. In typical Norman style, the building boasts a column-free light-filled atrium (four storeys high) at ground level. This acts to bring the outside into the city building, forming a type of interior, wind-protected public square.
Foster's other Sydney project is Regent Place, a high-rise apartment block in George Street. The key concept is the provision of light as well as privacy.
Commerzbank Ag 2000
Frankfurt, Germany
Photo: Frank Seifert/The Image Bank
© Foster + Partners
Commerzbank's (right) triangular plan encircles a central atrium providing natural ventilation similar to a huge chimney. It is an ecologically conceived high-rise. Every office worker has a ‘garden’ view across the atrium since nine gardens have been lifted up into the building on various levels.
Frankfurt, Germany
Photo: Frank Seifert/The Image Bank
© Foster + Partners
Commerzbank's (right) triangular plan encircles a central atrium providing natural ventilation similar to a huge chimney. It is an ecologically conceived high-rise. Every office worker has a ‘garden’ view across the atrium since nine gardens have been lifted up into the building on various levels.
The Sage 2004
Gateshead, England, UK
Photo: Richard Klune/Corbis
© Foster + Partners
The Sage (above) is a centre for musical education, performance and conferences. A spectacular sculptural building reminiscent of a cocoon or large seed-pod, its panelled reflective surfaces make it distinctive yet also a part of the environment. The supporting structures for the glass and entrance arch are a feature of the design. The tall glassed entrance wall allows light to stream into the entranceway.
Gateshead, England, UK
Photo: Richard Klune/Corbis
© Foster + Partners
The Sage (above) is a centre for musical education, performance and conferences. A spectacular sculptural building reminiscent of a cocoon or large seed-pod, its panelled reflective surfaces make it distinctive yet also a part of the environment. The supporting structures for the glass and entrance arch are a feature of the design. The tall glassed entrance wall allows light to stream into the entranceway.
Swiss Re Building
(‘The Gherkin’) 2001–04
30 St Mary's Axe, London
Photo: Joey Nigh/Corbis
© Foster + Partners
At 40 storeys high, the Swiss Re Building is the first scraper tower built in London since 1979. Its outer shape with the crisscross, diamond-shape pattern has been likened to a gherkin, an Argyle sock or even a fat banker in fishnets, but it has nonetheless become a very recognisable and well-liked landmark.
Because it occupies less than half of the site at ground level, yet optimises the floor space by the gentle swelling as it progresses upward, Foster + Partners were able to optimise the use of public space. The outer cladding has been designed mathematically, its geometry changing at every level. Thirty-six steel columns spiral around the building, forming an independent, self-bracing
structure. The curved form is designed to minimise wind loads, provide spacious pedestrian access and assist internal ventilation.
Architectural practice
Norman Foster heads a large international architecture firm based in London. His work is innovative, generally large scale and involving high technology. Foster has a passion for inventive roofing, often employs the curve, uses innovative ways of introducing light into buildings, brings the outside inside in the form of trees and water features, and incorporates vast interior spaces and, where possible, panoramic views. His buildings have been termed ‘sexy and surreal’.
He has been responsible for 11 architectural projects in central London alone; no wonder he has been referred to as the twenty-first-century face of London, but his work also extends to 40 other cities. He employs nearly 1000 staff in more than 20 offices around the world.
Foster's rise to eminence was an unusual one, indicative of his drive, social conscience and love of architecture. Leaving school at 16, he worked in Manchester Town Hall for two years, then spent two years in the Royal Air Force, one in an architect's office and five at Manchester School of Architecture and Town Planning.
His projects are high tech and economical and prioritise energy-saving features. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1999.
Foster + Partners state their philosophy:
Foster + Partners’ architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality — a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the work place, at home or the public spaces in between. It is not just buildings but urban design that affects our well-being. We are concerned with the physical context of a project, sensitive to the culture and climate of their place. We have applied the same priorities to public infrastructure world-wide — in our airports, railway stations, metros, bridges, communication towers, regional plans and city centres. The quest for quality embraces the physical performance of buildings …
We design by challenge — by asking the right questions … We believe the quality of our surroundings can lift the quality of our lives … Our work ranges from new buildings to interventions within old structures … We work from the scale of the airport down to the detail of a door handle … We are guided by a
sensitivity to the culture and climate of a place … (www.fosterandpartners.com/Practice/1/Architecture and
Planning.aspx; www.fosterandpartners.com/Practice/Default.aspx)
Architect's statement
‘What I like mainly is architecture that is clear, open and bright …
‘I like distance, transparency, I like to let the sun in …
‘I get uneasy when people start acting as if architecture was mainly a question of aesthetics. Aesthetics are important, of course, but they're not an end in themselves, not a value as such. The social dimension has always mattered to me as well. It's a matter of human architecture …
‘Just look at our Russia Tower in Moscow, for example … The tower is actually a small city district containing everything it needs, apartments, hotels, offices, a cinema and shops and gardens. It just happens to be a vertical district. You can't build a tower like that everywhere, that's true. But in many parts of the world, high-rise buildings are the only way …
'Many of our buildings save energy, and they provide a much more pleasant working and living climate. There, too, our architecture has a technical dimension and a social dimension …
‘Perhaps you could say my buildings also allow a distant view, that they invite you to look around …
‘And I hope my architecture is also architecture of optimism. That it radiates something light and uplifting.’
Quoted in Hanno Rauterberg, Talking Architecture: Interviews with Architects, Prestel Press, Munich, Berlin, London, New York, 2008, pp. 45–56.
(‘The Gherkin’) 2001–04
30 St Mary's Axe, London
Photo: Joey Nigh/Corbis
© Foster + Partners
At 40 storeys high, the Swiss Re Building is the first scraper tower built in London since 1979. Its outer shape with the crisscross, diamond-shape pattern has been likened to a gherkin, an Argyle sock or even a fat banker in fishnets, but it has nonetheless become a very recognisable and well-liked landmark.
Because it occupies less than half of the site at ground level, yet optimises the floor space by the gentle swelling as it progresses upward, Foster + Partners were able to optimise the use of public space. The outer cladding has been designed mathematically, its geometry changing at every level. Thirty-six steel columns spiral around the building, forming an independent, self-bracing
structure. The curved form is designed to minimise wind loads, provide spacious pedestrian access and assist internal ventilation.
Architectural practice
Norman Foster heads a large international architecture firm based in London. His work is innovative, generally large scale and involving high technology. Foster has a passion for inventive roofing, often employs the curve, uses innovative ways of introducing light into buildings, brings the outside inside in the form of trees and water features, and incorporates vast interior spaces and, where possible, panoramic views. His buildings have been termed ‘sexy and surreal’.
He has been responsible for 11 architectural projects in central London alone; no wonder he has been referred to as the twenty-first-century face of London, but his work also extends to 40 other cities. He employs nearly 1000 staff in more than 20 offices around the world.
Foster's rise to eminence was an unusual one, indicative of his drive, social conscience and love of architecture. Leaving school at 16, he worked in Manchester Town Hall for two years, then spent two years in the Royal Air Force, one in an architect's office and five at Manchester School of Architecture and Town Planning.
His projects are high tech and economical and prioritise energy-saving features. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1999.
Foster + Partners state their philosophy:
Foster + Partners’ architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality — a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the work place, at home or the public spaces in between. It is not just buildings but urban design that affects our well-being. We are concerned with the physical context of a project, sensitive to the culture and climate of their place. We have applied the same priorities to public infrastructure world-wide — in our airports, railway stations, metros, bridges, communication towers, regional plans and city centres. The quest for quality embraces the physical performance of buildings …
We design by challenge — by asking the right questions … We believe the quality of our surroundings can lift the quality of our lives … Our work ranges from new buildings to interventions within old structures … We work from the scale of the airport down to the detail of a door handle … We are guided by a
sensitivity to the culture and climate of a place … (www.fosterandpartners.com/Practice/1/Architecture and
Planning.aspx; www.fosterandpartners.com/Practice/Default.aspx)
Architect's statement
‘What I like mainly is architecture that is clear, open and bright …
‘I like distance, transparency, I like to let the sun in …
‘I get uneasy when people start acting as if architecture was mainly a question of aesthetics. Aesthetics are important, of course, but they're not an end in themselves, not a value as such. The social dimension has always mattered to me as well. It's a matter of human architecture …
‘Just look at our Russia Tower in Moscow, for example … The tower is actually a small city district containing everything it needs, apartments, hotels, offices, a cinema and shops and gardens. It just happens to be a vertical district. You can't build a tower like that everywhere, that's true. But in many parts of the world, high-rise buildings are the only way …
'Many of our buildings save energy, and they provide a much more pleasant working and living climate. There, too, our architecture has a technical dimension and a social dimension …
‘Perhaps you could say my buildings also allow a distant view, that they invite you to look around …
‘And I hope my architecture is also architecture of optimism. That it radiates something light and uplifting.’
Quoted in Hanno Rauterberg, Talking Architecture: Interviews with Architects, Prestel Press, Munich, Berlin, London, New York, 2008, pp. 45–56.
Critical practice
‘With St Mary Axe, structure, form and fabric have been integrated, and Foster and Partners have produced one of the City's first large-scale office buildings which genuinely has the capacity to be passively ventilated.
‘The building's distinctive pattern is a direct reflection of its internal organization and its environmental strategy, where six orthogonal fingers of flexible office space are punctuated by radial atria: a series of two- and six-storey voids that spiral around the building, increasing perimeter desk space, and bringing light and air deep within the heart of the building's circular envelope.’
Rob Gregory, ‘Windsock: the integration of structure, form and fabric creates London's first environmentally progressive skyscraper’, Architectural Review, November 2003, pp. 69–73.
‘Foster and his public buildings define our time and the feelings between us as human beings. This poor, working-class lad from Manchester, whose fire was
lit by a Dickensian disgust at the city's factories, has done more for social democracy than any British politician. He has knocked down walls in offices,
demolished beyond recognition the “them and us” culture of management and workers, imported sun and light through glass walls and transparent roofs into
the prisons of mediocrity in which office workers toiled after the war.’
Godfrey Barker, ‘Norman's Conquest’, in The Weekend Australian Magazine, 15–16 March 2008, p. 32
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Postmodern Frame
‘Foster and his public buildings define our time and the feelings between us as human beings.’ How does Foster challenge traditions in architecture and
reflect contemporary culture as expressed in this quote?
Write your answer to this question in the online discussion board. You can find this on the virtual classroom.
‘The building's distinctive pattern is a direct reflection of its internal organization and its environmental strategy, where six orthogonal fingers of flexible office space are punctuated by radial atria: a series of two- and six-storey voids that spiral around the building, increasing perimeter desk space, and bringing light and air deep within the heart of the building's circular envelope.’
Rob Gregory, ‘Windsock: the integration of structure, form and fabric creates London's first environmentally progressive skyscraper’, Architectural Review, November 2003, pp. 69–73.
‘Foster and his public buildings define our time and the feelings between us as human beings. This poor, working-class lad from Manchester, whose fire was
lit by a Dickensian disgust at the city's factories, has done more for social democracy than any British politician. He has knocked down walls in offices,
demolished beyond recognition the “them and us” culture of management and workers, imported sun and light through glass walls and transparent roofs into
the prisons of mediocrity in which office workers toiled after the war.’
Godfrey Barker, ‘Norman's Conquest’, in The Weekend Australian Magazine, 15–16 March 2008, p. 32
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Postmodern Frame
‘Foster and his public buildings define our time and the feelings between us as human beings.’ How does Foster challenge traditions in architecture and
reflect contemporary culture as expressed in this quote?
Write your answer to this question in the online discussion board. You can find this on the virtual classroom.
Herzog & de Meuron
(Swiss architectural firm of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, both born 1950, Basel, Switzerland)
Issues/interests: Each building is unique and exciting in its originality, with a concern for precision combined with complete artistic freedom. They are innovative in their use of materials and explore new techniques while being sensitive to the building's purpose.
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Herzog & de Meuron always use materials and technology in innovative and creative ways, challenging traditional architectural approaches to design.
Conceptual framework — Each building is a unique response to the site. Each architectural design is original and daring, pushing the creative possibilities.
Prada store, Aoyama district
2003
Tokyo, Japan
Photo: Stefano Amantini/Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis
© Herzog & de Meuron
The $80 million, six-storey Prada Store in Tokyo is a temple to Postmodernism. With a striking five-sided facade of clear, bubble-like glass in a twisted harlequin pattern, the glass panels both enliven the outside and articulate the inside. More than just a glass box, the building challenges many accepted ideas about floor usage and retailing with its unique design in which the structure, space and façade are unified, being based on the same basic shape.
Contrasting with the low-rise buildings in the neighbourhood, its 32-metre height seems to erupt from its outdoor plaza. The architects also controlled the way the products are displayed within the seemingly continuous flowing inside space, using contrasting hyper-artificial substances such as silicon and resin or natural materials such as leather to make a Postmodern statement about combining the traditional with the contemporary. This building is unique and has
a strong impact on the site and the shopper.
Issues/interests: Each building is unique and exciting in its originality, with a concern for precision combined with complete artistic freedom. They are innovative in their use of materials and explore new techniques while being sensitive to the building's purpose.
Form: architecture
Frame: Postmodern architecture — Herzog & de Meuron always use materials and technology in innovative and creative ways, challenging traditional architectural approaches to design.
Conceptual framework — Each building is a unique response to the site. Each architectural design is original and daring, pushing the creative possibilities.
Prada store, Aoyama district
2003
Tokyo, Japan
Photo: Stefano Amantini/Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis
© Herzog & de Meuron
The $80 million, six-storey Prada Store in Tokyo is a temple to Postmodernism. With a striking five-sided facade of clear, bubble-like glass in a twisted harlequin pattern, the glass panels both enliven the outside and articulate the inside. More than just a glass box, the building challenges many accepted ideas about floor usage and retailing with its unique design in which the structure, space and façade are unified, being based on the same basic shape.
Contrasting with the low-rise buildings in the neighbourhood, its 32-metre height seems to erupt from its outdoor plaza. The architects also controlled the way the products are displayed within the seemingly continuous flowing inside space, using contrasting hyper-artificial substances such as silicon and resin or natural materials such as leather to make a Postmodern statement about combining the traditional with the contemporary. This building is unique and has
a strong impact on the site and the shopper.
Beijing National Stadium
(‘The Bird's Nest’)
2008
Beijing, China
Photo: Marcel Lam/Arcaid/Corbis
© Herzog & de Meuron
Beijing's National Stadium, nicknamed the ‘Bird's Nest’ for its outer skin of twig-like patterns, when nearing completion it was named by Time
magazine as one of the ten architectural masterpieces of 2007. It is the world's largest steel structure. Herzog and de Meuron's design was chosen from 13 final submissions. The design brief had included requirements for post-Olympic uses, a retractable roof (later omitted) and low maintenance costs. Ai Weiwei (Case study 2), as artistic consultant, insisted that the design embody unique Chinese characteristics, the chosen influence being Chinese ceramics. The stadium consists of two independent structures — a red concrete seating bowl and an outer steel frame.
(‘The Bird's Nest’)
2008
Beijing, China
Photo: Marcel Lam/Arcaid/Corbis
© Herzog & de Meuron
Beijing's National Stadium, nicknamed the ‘Bird's Nest’ for its outer skin of twig-like patterns, when nearing completion it was named by Time
magazine as one of the ten architectural masterpieces of 2007. It is the world's largest steel structure. Herzog and de Meuron's design was chosen from 13 final submissions. The design brief had included requirements for post-Olympic uses, a retractable roof (later omitted) and low maintenance costs. Ai Weiwei (Case study 2), as artistic consultant, insisted that the design embody unique Chinese characteristics, the chosen influence being Chinese ceramics. The stadium consists of two independent structures — a red concrete seating bowl and an outer steel frame.
Architectural practice
The headquarters of this architectural firm is in Basel, Switzerland, but they also have offices in various cities and employ some 250 staff. There are
seven other partners who work with this creative duo. Herzog and de Meuron were born in the same year in the same town, went to architectural school together and have worked together as friends since.
Rather than conforming to a recognisable Herzog & de Meuron ‘style’, their buildings amaze in their individuality. The function of each building may not be obvious from the outer form. Aside from functionality, thought is also given to the topography and other restrictions of the site, so the resulting design is a unique response to its location. Their buildings are also distinctive for their innovative use of materials. For the library at the Technical University in Eberswalde, Germany, they created bands of silk-screened images on glass and concrete. They covered the faéade of an apartment block in Basel with a movable curtain of perforated latticework. Their apartment block on Rue des Suisse, Paris, features a rippling cladding of perforated corrugated shutters. The 1994 Signal Box, a railway utility building in Basel, utilised an exterior cladding of copper strips, twisted at intervals to emit daylight. Copper is also used in the faéade of the de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, completed in 2005, in the form of 7200 individually shaped and punctured copper panels, the design originating from pixelated photographs of the park's tree canopy.
Their international reputation was established when they were chosen in 1995 to design the new Tate Gallery extension for contemporary art, the Tate Modern, situated in the Bankside Power Station on the Thames, in London, which opened in May 2000, with further developments in 2005. They retained much of the essential character of the power station, including the chimney, converting the turbine hall into a dramatic entrance area with the boiler-room becoming the galleries. Above the original roofline they added a two-storey glass structure known as the Lightbeam to house a café-restaurant and members rooms. Their highly creative vision for this gigantic industrial building led to their receiving the Pritzker Prize in 2001. They also received the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2003 and the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal in 2007.
Their innovative articulation of interior space through free-flowing curves is evident in the CaixaForum Madrid, Spain, 2008, and the Philharmonic Hall, Hamburg, Germany, 2003–09. The latter's rooftop features a dynamic scalloped effect at skyline level, creating the impression that it is undulating to the
music within. Their imaginative approach to exterior design and innovative use of exterior materials and treatments is also evident in the National Stadium,
Beijing.
The team are presently having an impact on residential living in New York. In 2007 they completed their first New York building, an 11-storey structure at 40
Bond Street where they transformed graffiti into 3D ornament to form a gate, the façade itself evoking the feel of the city's industrial buildings. The ambitious
56 Leonard Street, due for occupancy in 2010, is no boring glass box skyscraper. Designed using rotating slabs and cantilevers, protruding balconies and slab
corners, the irregular arrangement provides a different floor plan for each of the 145 condo units. (From the outside one is reminded of some of the precarious structures children build with Jenga blocks.) The double-height lobby will be articulated with a giant mirror sculpture by Anish Kapoor. Attempts have been made to relate the outside glass and exposed concrete with Travertine-paved balconies, Travertine and Thassos marble being used as a feature in the interiors.
Among other skyscraper projects, ‘Le Project Triangle’, which is due for completion in 2014, is a pyramid so slim that it will cast virtually no shadow
but by its orientation will take advantage of both solar and wind power. It will rise 200 metres from the Port de Versailles in Paris, providing shops and
restaurants at ground level, offices, a conference centre and a 400-room hotel. A 31-year ban on high-rise buildings has recently been lifted, so as one of the
new projects it is especially important that this building ‘fits’ into the Parisian landscape and gains acceptance by the Parisians.
Herzog and de Meuron have explained their design intentions:
"The Triangle is conceived as a piece of the city that could be pivoted and positioned vertically. It is carved by a network of vertical and horizontal traffic flows of variable capacities and speeds. Like the boulevards, streets and more intimate passages of a city, these traffic flows carve the construction into islets of varying shapes and sizes. This evocation of the urban fabric of Paris, at once classic and coherent in its entirety and varied and intriguing in its detail, is encountered in the faéade of the Triangle. Like that of a classical building, this one features two levels of interpretation: an easily recognizable overall form and a fine, crystalline silhouette of its façade which allows it to be perceived variously. (www.inhabit.com/2008/10/06/project-triangl-by-herzog-and-de-meuron)"
Architect's statement
‘Our means to that end have always been much more of a conceptual and intellectual nature than craftwork … [if they] have something random about them,
it's programmed randomness …
‘What's important are the unconscious impressions — everything that's communicated to you via the materials, smells and acoustics of a building. The
aim with our buildings is to tone down the visual side a bit and appeal to all the human senses …
‘Architecture, art, fashion, film and music have all moved much closer than they used to be. We can work well with artists, but also with fashion leaders
such as Miuccia Prada, because our ways of working and thinking have come closer together. As I explained a while back, all firm landmarks and traditions have vanished, leaving a vacuum that architects have to fill with their own strategies and concepts, as long as they're capable of it. In that respect, architects and artists are related these days. But the product that emerges from it is quite different. Architecture is architecture, art is art. Architecture as art is intolerable!’
Herzog quoted in Hanno Rauterberg, Talking Architecture. Interviews with Architects, Prestel Press, Munich, 2008, pp. 83–7.
Critical practice
‘There is a sensitivity to scale defining the new de Young as the off-axis building snugly fits into the park hitting the same height as the tree tops, all
except the tower whose graceful form buoyantly pops its head up out of the trees and looks out and across to the bay …
On the de Young Museum, San Francisco
‘What one enjoys are a variety of topographical nodes filled with different modulating surfaces, open and intimate spaces that are conducive to both
individual and social encounters, luminous areas that invite the outdoors into the building and where one is encouraged to engage with the world as one views art. As Jacques Herzog describes it: “We want to make a sensuous architecture … an architecture that can't be experienced by the intellect alone”. In this way, the design pushes the limits of how we define and experience a museum and civic building, responding to and working with key features of the region, picking up on both the natural and man-made characteristics that define San Francisco and how these are arranged and distributed.’
Adrian Parr, Monument Architecture and Design magazine, April/May 2006, p. 76.
‘They refine the traditions of modernism to elemental simplicity, while transforming materials and surfaces through the exploration of new treatments and techniques.’ (Ada Louise Huxtable)
‘One of the most compelling aspects of work by Herzog and de Meuron is their capacity to astonish.’ (Carlos Jimenez)
‘… all of their work maintains throughout, the stable qualities that have always been associated with the best Swiss architecture: conceptual precision, formal clarity, economy of means and pristine detailing and craftsmanship.’ (Jorge Silvetti)
‘Despite the vast range of scale, type, budget and visual expression, there is a consistency to Herzog and de Meuron's work. Ideas of surface and individual
experience can be tracked through a succession of projects. Such an approach, which is not linked to programme or structure, is as applicable to projects
involving sensitive urban repair as it is to high-profile object buildings.’ (Sarah Jackson, ‘Elevating the everyday’, in The Architectural Review, July 2002, p. 42)
Various architectural critics and members of the jury of the Pritzker Prize
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Conceptual Framework
‘The strength of our buildings is the immediate, visceral impact they have on the visitor.’ (Jacques Herzog) Discuss this comment in relation to two of their
buildings.
Answer this question on the discussion board on the virtual classroom.
seven other partners who work with this creative duo. Herzog and de Meuron were born in the same year in the same town, went to architectural school together and have worked together as friends since.
Rather than conforming to a recognisable Herzog & de Meuron ‘style’, their buildings amaze in their individuality. The function of each building may not be obvious from the outer form. Aside from functionality, thought is also given to the topography and other restrictions of the site, so the resulting design is a unique response to its location. Their buildings are also distinctive for their innovative use of materials. For the library at the Technical University in Eberswalde, Germany, they created bands of silk-screened images on glass and concrete. They covered the faéade of an apartment block in Basel with a movable curtain of perforated latticework. Their apartment block on Rue des Suisse, Paris, features a rippling cladding of perforated corrugated shutters. The 1994 Signal Box, a railway utility building in Basel, utilised an exterior cladding of copper strips, twisted at intervals to emit daylight. Copper is also used in the faéade of the de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, completed in 2005, in the form of 7200 individually shaped and punctured copper panels, the design originating from pixelated photographs of the park's tree canopy.
Their international reputation was established when they were chosen in 1995 to design the new Tate Gallery extension for contemporary art, the Tate Modern, situated in the Bankside Power Station on the Thames, in London, which opened in May 2000, with further developments in 2005. They retained much of the essential character of the power station, including the chimney, converting the turbine hall into a dramatic entrance area with the boiler-room becoming the galleries. Above the original roofline they added a two-storey glass structure known as the Lightbeam to house a café-restaurant and members rooms. Their highly creative vision for this gigantic industrial building led to their receiving the Pritzker Prize in 2001. They also received the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2003 and the Royal Institute of British Architects Gold Medal in 2007.
Their innovative articulation of interior space through free-flowing curves is evident in the CaixaForum Madrid, Spain, 2008, and the Philharmonic Hall, Hamburg, Germany, 2003–09. The latter's rooftop features a dynamic scalloped effect at skyline level, creating the impression that it is undulating to the
music within. Their imaginative approach to exterior design and innovative use of exterior materials and treatments is also evident in the National Stadium,
Beijing.
The team are presently having an impact on residential living in New York. In 2007 they completed their first New York building, an 11-storey structure at 40
Bond Street where they transformed graffiti into 3D ornament to form a gate, the façade itself evoking the feel of the city's industrial buildings. The ambitious
56 Leonard Street, due for occupancy in 2010, is no boring glass box skyscraper. Designed using rotating slabs and cantilevers, protruding balconies and slab
corners, the irregular arrangement provides a different floor plan for each of the 145 condo units. (From the outside one is reminded of some of the precarious structures children build with Jenga blocks.) The double-height lobby will be articulated with a giant mirror sculpture by Anish Kapoor. Attempts have been made to relate the outside glass and exposed concrete with Travertine-paved balconies, Travertine and Thassos marble being used as a feature in the interiors.
Among other skyscraper projects, ‘Le Project Triangle’, which is due for completion in 2014, is a pyramid so slim that it will cast virtually no shadow
but by its orientation will take advantage of both solar and wind power. It will rise 200 metres from the Port de Versailles in Paris, providing shops and
restaurants at ground level, offices, a conference centre and a 400-room hotel. A 31-year ban on high-rise buildings has recently been lifted, so as one of the
new projects it is especially important that this building ‘fits’ into the Parisian landscape and gains acceptance by the Parisians.
Herzog and de Meuron have explained their design intentions:
"The Triangle is conceived as a piece of the city that could be pivoted and positioned vertically. It is carved by a network of vertical and horizontal traffic flows of variable capacities and speeds. Like the boulevards, streets and more intimate passages of a city, these traffic flows carve the construction into islets of varying shapes and sizes. This evocation of the urban fabric of Paris, at once classic and coherent in its entirety and varied and intriguing in its detail, is encountered in the faéade of the Triangle. Like that of a classical building, this one features two levels of interpretation: an easily recognizable overall form and a fine, crystalline silhouette of its façade which allows it to be perceived variously. (www.inhabit.com/2008/10/06/project-triangl-by-herzog-and-de-meuron)"
Architect's statement
‘Our means to that end have always been much more of a conceptual and intellectual nature than craftwork … [if they] have something random about them,
it's programmed randomness …
‘What's important are the unconscious impressions — everything that's communicated to you via the materials, smells and acoustics of a building. The
aim with our buildings is to tone down the visual side a bit and appeal to all the human senses …
‘Architecture, art, fashion, film and music have all moved much closer than they used to be. We can work well with artists, but also with fashion leaders
such as Miuccia Prada, because our ways of working and thinking have come closer together. As I explained a while back, all firm landmarks and traditions have vanished, leaving a vacuum that architects have to fill with their own strategies and concepts, as long as they're capable of it. In that respect, architects and artists are related these days. But the product that emerges from it is quite different. Architecture is architecture, art is art. Architecture as art is intolerable!’
Herzog quoted in Hanno Rauterberg, Talking Architecture. Interviews with Architects, Prestel Press, Munich, 2008, pp. 83–7.
Critical practice
‘There is a sensitivity to scale defining the new de Young as the off-axis building snugly fits into the park hitting the same height as the tree tops, all
except the tower whose graceful form buoyantly pops its head up out of the trees and looks out and across to the bay …
On the de Young Museum, San Francisco
‘What one enjoys are a variety of topographical nodes filled with different modulating surfaces, open and intimate spaces that are conducive to both
individual and social encounters, luminous areas that invite the outdoors into the building and where one is encouraged to engage with the world as one views art. As Jacques Herzog describes it: “We want to make a sensuous architecture … an architecture that can't be experienced by the intellect alone”. In this way, the design pushes the limits of how we define and experience a museum and civic building, responding to and working with key features of the region, picking up on both the natural and man-made characteristics that define San Francisco and how these are arranged and distributed.’
Adrian Parr, Monument Architecture and Design magazine, April/May 2006, p. 76.
‘They refine the traditions of modernism to elemental simplicity, while transforming materials and surfaces through the exploration of new treatments and techniques.’ (Ada Louise Huxtable)
‘One of the most compelling aspects of work by Herzog and de Meuron is their capacity to astonish.’ (Carlos Jimenez)
‘… all of their work maintains throughout, the stable qualities that have always been associated with the best Swiss architecture: conceptual precision, formal clarity, economy of means and pristine detailing and craftsmanship.’ (Jorge Silvetti)
‘Despite the vast range of scale, type, budget and visual expression, there is a consistency to Herzog and de Meuron's work. Ideas of surface and individual
experience can be tracked through a succession of projects. Such an approach, which is not linked to programme or structure, is as applicable to projects
involving sensitive urban repair as it is to high-profile object buildings.’ (Sarah Jackson, ‘Elevating the everyday’, in The Architectural Review, July 2002, p. 42)
Various architectural critics and members of the jury of the Pritzker Prize
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Conceptual Framework
‘The strength of our buildings is the immediate, visceral impact they have on the visitor.’ (Jacques Herzog) Discuss this comment in relation to two of their
buildings.
Answer this question on the discussion board on the virtual classroom.