To see a World in a grain of sand, already beats, in which the being that is

And a Heaven in a wild flower, going to be born, further developed, already

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, appears wholly complete. That is the diagram
And Eternity in an hour. in a work of architecture. In my architecture,
diagrams have played an important role. And
How many times have I repeated this whenever I am asked for documentation to
beautiful poem by William Blake to my publish a project, I include some diagram to
students, trying to inculcate them with how explain my intentions clearly. The diagram
much of the ineffable the best architecture expresses the idea precisely. It is the first
has. ‘To see a World in a grain of sand’ has concretion from thought to reality. When I
quite a bit to do with what a diagram is in draw a diagram, it seems as though I wink
relation to the project that it explains to my eyes in the attitude that Shakespeare
us. While the dictionary says that diagram describes so well at the beginning of his
is a ‘graphic figure that explains a specific beautiful Sonnet 43:
phenomenon’, knowing how complex ‘When most I wink, then do my eyes best see,
constructed architecture is, we are surprised For all the day they view things unrespected.’
by the diagram’s capacity, as a small and ALBERTO CAMPO BAEZA
simple drawing, to express so much. Like the
grain of sand does in regard to the world.
I have written time and time again that
architecture is ‘built idea’. And to build
these ideas, one needs design plans that
can express what and how this reality is.
These drawings are like anatomical cross-
sections of the new architectural body.
They are the development of other, simpler
drawings that defined the project in a more
general manner before. And if we keep
pulling the thread, we reach a key moment:
the beginning. There, the very schematic
drawings appear as the diagrams. The
diagram is the key drawing that contains
within it the seed for the entire project. It
would be like the foetus in which the heart
ALBERTO
CAMPO
BAEZA

Admired: Boutade
The diagrams made by the masters express clear ideas with simple pencil
strokes. Mies’s diagrams, tense, elegant and serene, are the prelude to his
impeccable architecture. Le Corbusier’s diagrams, categorical, strong and
forceful, speak of the universality of his works.
And Alvar Aalto’s diagrams, lyrical, organic and fluid, put forward the
emotion of his spaces. But if I had to choose one diagram, I would choose
the drawing Le Corbusier made of Villa Stein in Garches as a bare box
at the side of which he wrote ‘très difficile (satisfaction de l´esprit)’.
56 | 1 Satisfaction of the spirit, what is that if not architecture? 57 | 1
 My real obsession is landscapes, like Ayers
Rock, the red mountain in Australia, the atolls
in Polynesia, enormous dunes that form and
dissolve in the deserts, icebergs. I have always
been fascinated by the beauty of the absence of
form, the imperfection of beauty. I have always
asked myself how it is possible to create a form
of architecture with no shape and with no
geometrical or complex dimensions. I believe
that artists, even the worst ones, are better
than architects, because artists always start
from a vision; architects never speak about it,
they always speak about a project. I became an
architect because my mother was afraid I would
become an artist and, to her way of thinking,
artists were people who never had any money. My
dream is that everyone can have ideas, passions
and feelings. What is the point in struggling to
earn more and more, to gain more power?
MASSIMILIANO
FUKSAS
48 | 1
Trade fair as landscape
The design of the New Milan Trade Fair
chooses to make the longitudinal connection
axis its main generator; a spine which
gives structure to the entire complex.
This space, the ‘central axis’, is the place
of activities, the centre of information, and
the place of crossing. These concepts are
developed through the positioning of a
series of buildings alongside the main axis,
with connections at ground level, and at
footbridge level, 6.5m above. The buildings
host various functions: restaurants, meeting
rooms, office spaces, and reception areas
that connect with the exhibition halls. The
pathway stretches between two areas,
between the east and west entrances that
provide the main accesses to the Trade
Fair. The buildings along the central axis
are suspended above diversely treated
landscaped areas: water, green areas and
concrete, with the flanking stainless-steel
and glass facades of the exhibition halls,
become the scenography. Above the whole
of this space extends the vast roof – an
undulating lightweight structure like a veil; a
veil, with a surface area exceeding
46 000sqm, and over 1300m in length.
MASSIMILIANO FUKSAS, MASSIMILIANO
FUKSAS ARCHITETTO
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12:51 PM
Page 29
C ONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM , S T L OUIS , M ISSOURI , USA
A RCHITECT
A LLIED W ORKS
PUSHING THE ENVELOPE
1 This new art museum in St Louis is conceived as a flexible
The new museum at night – mass
touched by light. shell for experiment that reaches out to its surroundings.
29 | 1
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Meet me in St Louis, Louis, meet me at the Fair’, sang Judy Garland,

and the city is celebrating the centenary of that high point in its
fortunes, even as it struggles – like so many others in the Midwest –
to regenerate its battered core. Progress has been made since Eero
Saarinen’s Gateway Arch was built on the banks of the Mississippi in
1968, and the Grand Center Arts District at the edge of downtown
has recently acquired two small but potent gems: Tadao Ando’s
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Contemporary Art Museum
by Allied Works Architecture. They occupy neighbouring sites and
conduct a lively dialogue across a shared courtyard dominated by a
Richard Serra torqued steel sculpture.
What’s remarkable is how well these two radically different
buildings complement each other visually as well as in purpose. The
Pulitzer, which opened two years ago, is a signature work by Ando in
the finest in-situ concrete. It has the air of a spiritual retreat: refined,
serene, and inward-looking; a place for solitary contemplation of
twentieth-century masterworks from the Pulitzer collection, which is
open by appointment two days a week. In contrast, Allied Works
principal Brad Cloepfil designed the new museum as a flexible shell
for experimentation in the visual arts, and programmes that reach out
to the depressed neighbourhood and the general public. Concrete
walls are clad in tightly woven stainless-steel mesh, and expansive
location plan windows open up views from street to courtyard. Galleries for
changing exhibitions occupy a quarter of its 2500 sq m; the rest are
given over to a large performance space, an education centre and
café, plus upstairs offices and classrooms. The building cost only $6.5
million, substantially less than its neighbour.
Thanks to the generosity of Emily Pulitzer and other patrons, the
C ONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM , CAM has moved far beyond its modest beginnings in a downtown
S T L OUIS , M ISSOURI , USA storefront, and it selected Allied Works from a shortlist that included
ARCHITECT Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, and Peter Zumthor. It was a
A LLIED W ORKS prescient choice, for Cloepfil has since won acclaim for prestigious 3
4

2
The museum complex in St Louis’
depressed cityscape. Allied Works’
new building (left) joins Ando’s
museum on the right.
3
Concrete walls wrapped in stainless-
steel mesh are beautifully smooth,
impassive surfaces.
4
30 | 1 2 Expansive windows open up views. 31 | 10
ar jan 04 allied works done 2/27/04 12:52 PM Page 32

C ONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ,

S T L OUIS , M ISSOURI , USA
ARCHITECT
A LLIED W ORKS

1 entrance lobby
2 gallery spaces
3 education studio
4 performance space
5 courtyard
6 café
7 loading
8 line of Ando building
9 administrative offices
10 resource centre
11 classroom
5

cross section cross section

6 5 9

7 10
1 4

3
2 11
2

5
The internal courtyard.
6
32 | 1 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1250) first floor plan Detail of mesh-wrapped walls. 6 33 | 10
ar jan 04 allied works done 2/27/04 12:53 PM Page 34
CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM,
ST LOUIS, M ISSOURI , USA
ARCHITECT
ALLIED WORKS
arts projects in New York, Dallas, and Seattle, all of which are
characterized by a cool minimalism and sensitivity to aesthetic needs.
As he explains: ‘In making space for contemporary art, the architecture
must first serve the artist; not by attempting to render a background
for the art, but by providing the artist with a specific spatial presence,
an intentional vacancy that achieves meaning through the art itself.’ He
also spoke of creating ‘a fusion of the city and the arts.’
Cloepfil has pushed the building out to a curved corner that
gives it a distinctive prow, and has restored the original street line –
in contrast to the Pulitzer, which is pulled back. The contents of the
building are revealed though window walls, so that its role as an art
centre is immediately apparent. Concrete walls are sandblasted to
dematerialize the surface and distinguish it from Ando’s small
modules. The mesh is set 100-150mm from the walls, unifying the
facade and shading the office and classroom windows. It’s a concept
that the architect has developed and taken further in the
translucent membrane he proposes to wrap around the former
Huntington Hartford Gallery in New York, a marble-clad Venetian
pastiche by Edward Durrell Stone, to provide a new home for the
Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design.
Double glass doors open onto the lobby from a setback in the
34 | 1
axonometric of building elements
north facade, and steps lead down from this introductory space to
the galleries. Cloepfil has played with space and light as though they
were liquids, containing and releasing them, allowing visitors to feel
they are swimming through galleries that open up to each other and
to outdoor areas that are tightly enclosed by the two buildings. There
are two levels of wall: 4m high sections at ground level, and a 6m high
band that wraps around the upper level in serpentine fashion, tying
the spaces together. The steel mesh is carried inside in places to add
another layer and a contrasting texture to the white painted
sheetrock on the display walls. Ceiling planes float at different levels,
admitting light from clerestories and blocking direct sun. The effect is
one of interlocking boxes cut away to leave only a few defining edges.
Paul Ha, the new director of St Louis CAM, made his reputation at
White Columns, New York’s most adventurous alternative art
space. ‘It changes one’s perception of art to see it in a different
setting,’ he observes, ‘and artists welcome the challenge of
responding to the energy of place.’ For Cloepfil, the task was ‘to
make spaces that serve the arts and artists, while allowing for a
subtle emotional response from the individual. It was imperative to
create a physical environment that visitors would feel comfortable
returning to again and again.’ MICHAEL WEBB
8
9 10
Architect
Allied Works, Portland, USA
Photographs
Hélène Binet
7
Looking through the courtyard.
8
After the compression of the
outdoor areas, galleries are tall, airy,
luminous spaces.
9, 10
The building is conceived as a
7 flexible shell for experimentation. 35 | 10
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place

such skills will eventually be lost for ever. Here, James Morris presents a photographic survey of some astonishing examples of religious and domestic buildings.
Building with mud is one of the oldest architectural traditions and is still practised with remarkable results in parts of West Africa, though there are fears that
GLORIOUS MUD

Above: Friday Mosque, Djenné, Mali – biggest mud building in the world and defining image of West
African architecture. Foundations are more than 500 years old, though building has often been rebuilt.
Right: mosque, Yebe, Mali. Stick-studded mosques of Niger delta region define the unique aesthetic of
Western Sudan. Though wooden posts have practical functions – as scaffold for re-rendering, structural
support, and assisting in expelling moisture from heart of the wall – the most striking impact is visual.
60 | 1 61 | 1
ar jan 04 place done 2/27/04 12:36 PM Page 62

Too often, when people in the West think of

traditional African architecture, they perceive
nothing more than a mud hut; a primitive ver-
nacular half remembered from a Tarzan film.
But why this ignorance of half a continent’s
heritage? Possibly because the great dynastic
civilizations of the region were already in
decline when European colonizers first
exposed these cultures to a wider audience.
Being made of perishable mud, many older
buildings have been lost, unlike the stone or
brick structures of other ancient cultures. Or
possibly this lack of awareness is because the
buildings are just too strange, too foreign to
have been easily appreciated by outsiders.
Often they are more like huge monolithic
sculptures or ceramic pots than architecture
as we might conventionally think of it. But the
surviving buildings are neither historic monu-
ments in the classic sense, nor are they as cul-
turally remote as they may initially appear.
They share many of the qualities now valued
in Western architectural thinking such as sus-
tainability, sculptural form and community
participation in their conception and making.
Though part of long held traditions and
ancient cultures, they are also contemporary
structures, serving a current purpose. If they
lost their relevance and were neglected, they
would collapse. In the West, mud is effec-
tively regarded as dirt, yet in rural Africa (as
in so much of the world) it is the most com-
mon of building materials with which every-
body has direct contact. Maintaining and
resurfacing of buildings is part of the rhythm
of life, and there is an ongoing and active
participation in their continuing existence.
This is not a museum culture.
Superbly formed and highly expressive,
these extraordinary buildings emerge from
the most basic of materials, earth and water,
and in the harshest of conditions. They are
vibrant works of art with their own distinct
and striking aesthetic, skilfully responding to
the qualities of African light and the inher-
ent properties of mud to emphasize shadow,
texture, silhouette, profile and form. During
the course of a year the mud render dries,
the surface is covered in a web of cracks and
then it slowly starts to peel off before being
re-rendered. With each re-rendering, the
shape of a building is subtly altered, so

Top: Nando Mosque, Mali. Supposedly built by a giant

in one night, this highly sculptural mosque is a unique
structure that borders the magical and fantastical.
Middle: women’s quarters, Tangasoko, Burkina Faso.
Among the Kassena people, each married woman has
her own quarters in the family compound. Built by
men and decorated by women, they contain living
room and adjoining kitchen. On her death they are
allowed to disintegrate, the land and crumbled earth
to be reused by a future generation.
Bottom: house of the chief of Djenné, Mali. Moroccan
influenced wooden windows are a recent development.
Right: Hogon House, Sanga, Mali. The most distinct
architectural form of the Dogon people, the Hogon
62 | 1 House is the home of the traditional spiritual leader. 63 | 1
ar jan 04 place done 2/27/04 12:37 PM Page 64

change and movement are ever present. The

material is tactile, warm and vulnerable,
demanding and receiving an engaged rela-
tionship with its users. Often people attempt
to cement render the buildings, but not only
does this destroy them physically, as they rot
from within, but it also destroys their char-
acter. Their uniqueness is their muddiness.
The future of these buildings is hard to
predict. Mud is such a vulnerable material
and there is an enthusiasm for building in
concrete. Given the means, many would tear
down their mud houses and build cement
block and tin roofed replacements, common
practice in those countries that can afford to
do so. So what will happen when rural
Africans are lifted out of their desperate
poverty? Will there be an understandable
rush to rid themselves of the physical mani-
festations of that harrowing past? It can
already be seen in wealthier countries such
as Ghana and Nigeria where there is virtu-
ally nothing left for future generations to
repair and preserve. Not only the buildings
have gone but also the skills to build them.
It is a gradual process of extinction.
Already the extraordinary upturned jelly
mould houses of the Mousgoum people of
Cameroon are gone, soon those of the
Kassena and Gurensi in Ghana will disap-
pear. The Sakho houses of the Boso in Mali
are all abandoned and in ruins. It is quite
possible that when west Africa emerges from
below the poverty line there will be little of
its built heritage remaining to be appreci-
ated. The saving grace is probably Islam,
ever expanding and building more mosques,
but even then only in rural parts. In cities,
the mosques funded by Wahabi Saudi funds
are atrocious concrete imitations of a bas-
tardized Middle Eastern style.
In the sparsely populated Sahal plains of
the Western Sudan, traditional built forms
in mud are the most striking representations
of human creativity and a unique part of our
world culture – they should not be forgotten.
JAMES MORRIS

These photographs are taken from Butabu – adobe architecture of West

Africa, James Morris and Suzanne Preston Blier, New York,
Princeton Architectural Press, 2003.

Top: house, Djenné, Mali. Mud rendered walls have to

be resurfaced regularly. As the mud dries it cracks,
forming a delicate textured surface. The gently
moulded structure behind the wall is a covered
staircase opening onto the flat roof. The shape will
subtly alter each time it is re-rendered.
Bottom: house, Djenné, Mali. The blank facade with
tiny openings for windows is a traditional style for the
Djenné house. Domestic activity is concentrated in
the open courtyard to the rear.
Right: Sanam Mosque, Niger, designed in 1998 by
Abou Moussa who travelled hundreds of miles from
Yaamaa to this inaccessible region in the north of the
country. It was built in 45 days by the whole village
and appears to be the largest and most striking recent
mud building in Niger.
64 | 1 65 | 1
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Royal Academy Forum
Sponsored by
MEANING, MAPPING AND
MAKING OF LANDSCAPE
Landscape has long been a source of inspiration. RA Forum invited art historian Malcolm Andrews, author of
Measuring America Andro Linklater, artists Simon Callery and Hamish Fulton, film-maker Patrick Keiller and
architect Farshid Moussavi to discuss the Meaning, Mapping and Making of Landscape. Edited by Jeremy Melvin.
MALCOLM ANDREWS
Origins of the term ‘landscape’ seem to lie in northern Europe: the
Dutch, Belgian, German terms, Lantschap, Lantskip, Landschaft
respectively. Sometimes it was used to designate land in the immediate
environs of a town or city, not just natural scenery. When eventually
used in terms of art, it designates the area of a religious painting that
forms the setting for the central drama and its protagonists. Thomas
Blount’s Glossographia (1670) gives a definition that might have applied
to the term through much of the early modern period:
‘Landtskip (Belg) Parergon, Paisage, or By-work, which is an
expressing the Land, by Hills, Woods, Castles, valleys, Rivers, Cities
&c as far as may be shewed in our Horizon. All that which in a Picture
is not of the body or argument thereof is Landskip, Parergon, or by-work.
As in the Table of our Saviors passion, the picture of Christ upon the
Rood (which is the proper English word for Cross) the two theeves, the
blessed Virgin Mary, and St John, are the argument: But the City,
Jerusalem, the Country about, the clouds, and the like, are Landskip.’ It is
the outdoor setting for the principal dramatic action, and includes
towns and settlements as well as countryside scenes. However, it was
during the Enlightenment that Landscape became more emphatically
associated with natural, non-urban scenery. Romanticism’s worship of
Nature and of the Sublime in Nature, and its recoil from early
industrialization and rapid urbanization pushed Landscape into
remoter retreat from signs of developed civilization. We have inherited
Joel Meyerowitz, Broadway and West 46th Street, 1976.
the Romantic version of landscape. However, modern understanding
of landscape often emphasizes its conceptual, cultural significance
rather than the topographical or material meaning. Landscape is
explored as a mental construct. ‘Landscape is Nature mediated by
Culture’ is an attractively succinct definition, until one begins to ask
what exactly is ‘Nature’? and question the extent to which ‘Nature’
itself is a cultural construct? Can we oppose Nature and Culture so
easily as this definition suggests? Where do we draw the line between
Nature and Culture to preserve the integrity of ‘Nature’? These
questions suggest that ‘tastes’ in landscape act as a cultural barometer
of civilization’s sense of its relationship with Nature.
Images of landscape often evoke sheer pleasure, a pleasure which
arises from several possible sources. It might be associations, such as
memories of holidays, pastoral idylls, the peacefulness, the slower pace,
or a whole imagined way of life. Equally it could be from the space,
light, freedom, colour found in landscape. It might also be seen as an
antidote, either to an over-controlled domestic environment, or the
complexity and pressure of city living. Contrasting Joel Meyerowitz’s
Broadway and West 46th Street with Claude Monet’s Meadow with Haystacks
shows the latter. Meyerowitz gives an archetypal view of the
contemporary city. All is oppressive foreground with lots of people but
no human interaction against a bewildering array of signs, where
Monet offers depth, readability at a glance and softened forms,
feathery texture and gentle gradation and soft colour against
Claude Monet, Meadow with Haystacks near Giverny, 1885. 81 | 1
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Royal Academy Forum
Meyerowitz’s hard, sharp edges and austere geometry. The metropolis
is the new wilderness, but constituted by almost the opposite
components to those of the old natural wilderness: instead of a place
almost wholly empty of humans and devoid of any artefacts, the city is
a place overused by humans and consisting wholly of artefacts.
As we become more urbanized and mechanized, the greater our
appetite for landscapes without human presence, or signs of human
presence – unless, that is, the human presence is organically
sympathetic to landscape, such as shepherds, cottages, or cornfields.
The relish for the Sublime – for mountain scenery, horror, mystery
and the irrational – arose just at the time when the Enlightenment was
celebrating triumphant discoveries of Nature’s Laws. In Romanticism
the perception of our fragile mutability heightened a sense of Nature’s
stable, unchanging constitution. That mindset is less and less
sustainable now: Nature we know to be a dynamic, changing process,
its renewability limited. So the experience of landscape is attuned to
our desires and expectations, and to our cultural conditioning.
Since the early modern period, landscape has become an
increasingly precious aesthetic amenity. We like to consume it. We
put a value on it. On 4 October 1769, while at Keswick, Thomas
Gray encapsulated this point, ‘[I] saw in my glass a picture, that if I
could transmitt to you, & fix it in all the softness of its living colours,
would fairly sell for a thousand pounds’. Modern day tourists follow
Gray’s line of thought. They see a grand stretch of lakes and
mountains, use the camera to frame a section of the spectacle, and
take the picture, supposedly ‘fixing it in all the softness of its living
colours’. Then they get it developed and printed and offer it for sale,
and these terms, ‘take’, ‘capture’ and ‘fix’ all belong to the language of
appropriation. Landscape is a commodity. It is commodified as an
aesthetic amenity as well as a piece of real estate. In View from Mount
Holyoke, Thomas Cole schematically dramatizes landscape values in a
diagonally divided composition. In the sunlit river valley the new
farms, wrested from the wilderness, and the grid of their fields,
flourish in a benign, fertile, mappable landscape. Old savage America
survives in the unmappable high-country wilderness on the left, as a
Romantically precious landscape of the Sublime.
Both the camera’s and the real-estate surveyor’s appropriation of
landscape is in contrast to some modern artistic sensibilities, for
82 | 1 Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, 1836.
whom the appropriation of territory – metaphorical or otherwise –
is morally and politically incorrect. Richard Long, for instance, has
said, ‘I like the idea of using the land without possessing it’, and he
makes this explicit when referring to his works, they ‘are made of
the place, they are re-arrangements of it and in time will be re-
absorbed by it’.
The artist in the landscape
The history of the artist’s relationship to landscape has been one of
increasing intimacy with and intervention in the motif. This is partly
because we have had too much landscape art. ‘Today our sight is a
little weary, burdened by the memory of a thousand images ... We no
longer see Nature; we see pictures over and over again’, said Cézanne
in 1902. But Turner expressed the trend towards this intimate
connection when he asked, ‘What would they have? I wonder what
they think the sea’s like? I wish they’d been in it’. If the goal is not just
to be out in the landscape but to be swept up into the forces of nature,
the corollary is, as caught in Giuseppe Penone’s, First Breath (1977),
that the presence of the artist becomes fugitive and ephemeral. In
1999 he said, ‘This work is a reminder that every breath we exhale is
an introduction of one body of air into another, and that, in a sense,
our innermost being is identical to and cannot be separated from the
world around us’. We eat, drink, and breathe landscape.
The old dichotomies begin to collapse as artists emphasize their
sense of symbiosis with, rather than detachment from, Nature.
Sensing an interdependence with Nature, they sharpen ecological and
political sensitivities. This profoundly affects the art of landscape in
Trench 10 (2000) from The Segsbury Project: Callery’s plasterwork, which captures the whole length of a Bronze Age ditch at Alfred’s Castle.
our day. Michael Snow said of his landscape film La Région Centrale,
(1969): ‘I recorded the visit of some of our minds and bodies and
machinery to a wild place, but I didn’t colonize it. I hardly even SIMON CALLERY with ideas about how and why we respond to landscape (this includes
borrowed it’. the urban landscape) on a sensual level and not in depicting its visual
Working alongside archaeologists gave Simon Callery an opportunity appearance. With the trappings of representation obliterated, the
Acknowledgements
Joel Meyerowitz, Broadway and West 46th Street, New York (1976). © Joel Meyerowitz,
‘to see how a painter of the urban landscape from London’s East End paintings offer a lean and stripped down physicality defined by
2003/Courtesy of Ariel Meyerowitz Gallery, New York. would respond to a paradigm of the English landscape’. In July 1996 specific proportion, luminosity and surface quality. They are intended
Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs Russell in association with the photographer Andrew Watson, Callery to provide a slowed down, drawn out and extended perceptual
Sage, 1908 (08228). Photograph © 1995 The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
documented a 20m x 40m trench at the chalk excavation at the Iron experience. This experience is dependent solely on a response to the
Giuseppe Penone, ‘Primo Soffio’, 1977. Photograph 60x45cm.
Claude Monet, French 1840-1926, Meadow with Haystacks near Giverny, 1885. Oil on canvas, Age Segsbury Camp in Oxfordshire with 378 black and white images material nature of the work. This way of looking, or better, this way of
74 x 93.5cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Arthur Tracy Cabot, 42.541. taken from a height of 2.5m. Invited back for the excavation of sensing, leads to an experience in which the viewer is no longer the
Alfred’s Castle in 2000, he was ‘eager to make a work that utilized the passive recipient of the visual information contained in an artist’s
actual surface material of the excavation’. This resulted in a production. The dynamic is altered and the viewer is active in an
plasterwork, poured in 1m x 2m sections, across a 20m x 2m Bronze equation that is a reversal of the traditional flow between artwork and
Age trench, that ‘captured the entire chalk surface’ rather than just audience. The expressive end of this encounter is that the viewer,
taking its negative form. He discusses his work with Jeremy Melvin. rather than the artwork or artist, becomes the subject of their
perceptual process.
JM
One aspect of your engagement with landscape seems to be a reverse JM
of the traditional reasons for painting nature. Traditionally landscape Another difference lies in the treatment of architecture. In Poussin or
painting was a way of suggesting depth and distance beyond the Claude, architecture has quite specific and defined roles (though often
individual, of externalizing feelings, and of setting up hierarchies highly complex and allegorical), it is about objects set in a larger
according to distance from the viewer/painter. Your work seems to picture. In your work, architecture helps to define a way of looking:
draw everything to the surface as if it were mirroring these sensations an example would be the way you use entasis on the frames of your
back to the individual, of focusing inwards rather than outwards. paintings to help structure the way of looking.
SC SC
I think the point where I begin a painting is the point where I do not want to depict architecture or expect it to play a role in an
Giuseppe Penone, Primo Soffio, 1977. traditional landscape painting leaves off. I am interested in working unfolding narrative. I want the paintings to be architectural in 83 | 1
ar jan 04 royal academy done 2/27/04 12:26 PM Page 84
Royal Academy Forum
character. For example, in recent large-scale tall paintings I have used
the classical Greek architectural principle of entasis – most clearly
seen in the tapering in the columns of the Parthenon in Athens.
The dimensions of these paintings are slightly narrower at the top
than at the bottom. This is achieved by the introduction of a subtle
curve that begins at 5/8ths up on the vertical height of the stretcher.
The need to distort from the accurate rectangle satisfies a perceptive
sense of rightness that a tall rectangular form appears smaller at the
top. This encourages us to relate to the painting as a physical form
and creates the possibility that an experience of the work is not
exclusive to the eye but also involves the body.
The intention behind applying architectural principle to
contemporary painting is to tap into the highly developed way we use
our senses as we navigate and negotiate the built environment on a
daily basis. I identify one of the defining qualities about the way we
understand architecture through a process of measuring ourselves in
relation to it. This could almost be considered common sense and
should be as active in the art gallery as it is on the street.
JM
In that sense, perhaps, it bears some comparison with archaeology, as
a technique for drawing out perceptions, or for helping to define a
surface.
SC
I want to use architectural references to elicit a response that involves
all our senses and doesn’t prioritize the eye. My approach to making
work from direct experience of excavation has been to concentrate on
the surface material of the site. For example the 20m x 2m sculpture
called ‘Trench 10’ was made by pouring plaster onto the chalk surface
of an excavated Bronze Age ditch. The surface of the work is not
simply the negative form of this ditch as the plaster acted to capture
the chalk loose. Above all this is a work that is animated by our
interaction with surface – in this case a historical surface.
JM
Did working with archaeologists in the landscape offer a different
sense of time to working in the contemporary city?
84 | 1 Trench 10 surface detail: plaster acquires loose chalk – interaction with historical surface.
SC
One of the most striking aspects of working on an excavation was a
heightened awareness of time quite unlike the urban experience.
Time as an element and a constituent of place was tangible on site.
This sensation was not immediate but was generated by a developing
understanding of the particular characteristics of the landscape.
There is also the principle of stratigraphy in excavation that defines
the relationship of objects to one another in time. Objects that are
found on the same horizontal plane can be considered contemporary
to one another, while objects that are found at a greater vertical depth
can be considered older. I began to feel that this axis of two lines was
an expressive way of understanding time and could be fed into the
way I use line in painting.
It follows that we could grade the landscape and the city in terms of
their horizontality and verticality and draw conclusions on the extent
to which an emphasis on the axis influences how we respond.
JM
Does this sense of time seem to demand such an intimate and precise
record (thinking of photography) of what you found there, in a way
that the more familiar urban environment would not?
SC
The desire that a sense of time defines the experience of the finished
work is only really possible if a perceptual route to this end is
established. In the case of a work called The Segsbury Project (378 large-
scale black and white prints that record the surface of a 20m x 40m
site at 2:1 housed in seven plan chests), the detail of the photographic
prints sets up a visual encounter with an archaeological surface. In
this work, detail and intimacy of the prints was necessary to bring
about a questioning of the surface.
Intimacy depends on sensory knowledge and the work must
communicate this, whether it is the familiar urban environment or an
excavation in the rural landscape.
JM
Given that there are differences between cities and landscapes, does
architecture in cities have a compatible role with archaeology in the
landscape?
SC
It is not unreasonable to suggest that the reasons why archaeologists
are drawn to certain sites tells us as much about our current interests
as it does about our distant past. We seem to visit and revisit places for
the reasons the original inhabitants settled there. This reflects the
extent to which the quality of place defines what kind of architecture
is built and the role architecture plays in defining the quality of a
place.
The first excavation I was involved in was an Iron Age hill fort
settlement and the second an Iron Age hill fort with the remains of a
Romano-British villa at its centre. The work I made was a record of
the traces of early forms of architecture and a testing ground for
examining the validity of landscape as a subject for contemporary art.
Photographs of the installation at the Officers’ Mess, Dover Castle: John Riddy. The Segsbury Project is a
collaboration between the Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects, English Heritage and
the Laboratory at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art.
M3 at Twyford Down, near Winchester. Photograph: © British Film Institute. Charborough Park, Dorset. Photograph: © British Film Institute.
PATRICK KEILLER “Middle England” which he sees as a landscape increasingly
characterized by sexual repression, homophobia and the frequent
Towards the end of 1996 I had written an essay (published as ‘Port advocacy of child beating.
Statistics’ in The Unknown City, Kerr and Borden eds, MIT, 2001), ‘At the same time, he is dimly aware that the UK is still the fifth
which began: largest trading economy in the world and that British, even English
‘Robinson in Space, a film (35mm colour 82mins UK 1997), was people, particularly women and the young, are probably neither as
photographed between March and November 1995. It documents the sexually unemancipated, as sadistic or as miserable as he thinks the
explorations of an unseen fictional character called Robinson, who look of the UK suggests. The film’s narrative is based on a series of
was the protagonist of the earlier London, which was a re-imagination journeys in which his prejudices are examined, and some of them are
of its subject suggested by the Surrealist literature of Paris. Robinson in disposed of.’
Space is a similar study of the look of present-day England in 1995, and
was suggested to some extent by Defoe’s Tour through the Whole Island of
Great Britain. Among its subjects are many new spaces, particularly the
sites where manufactured products are produced, imported and
distributed. Robinson has been commissioned by ‘a well-known
international advertising agency’ to undertake a study of the ‘problem’
of England. It is not stated in the film what this problem is, but there
are images of Eton, Oxford and Cambridge, a Rover car plant, the
inward investment sites of Toyota and Samsung, a lot of ports,
supermarkets, a shopping mall and other subjects which evoke the by
now familiar critique of ‘gentlemanly capitalism’, which sees the UK’s
economic weakness as a result of the City of London’s long term
[English] neglect of the [UK’s] industrial economy, particularly its
manufacturing base.
‘Early in the film, its narrator quotes from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture
of Dorian Gray: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by
appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the
invisible ... ” The appearances by which the viewer is invited to judge
are initially the dilapidation of public space, the extent of visible
poverty, the absence of UK branded products in the shops and on the
roads, and England’s cultural conservatism. Robinson’s image of the
UK’s industry is based on his memories of the collapse of the early
Thatcher years. He has assumed that poverty and dilapidation are the
result of economic failure, and that economic failure is a result of the
inability of UK industry to produce desirable consumer products. He
believes, moreover, that this has something to do with the feel of Manchester Ship Canal at Latchford, Warrington. Photograph: © British Film Institute. 85 | 1
ar jan 04 royal academy done 2/27/04 12:26 PM Page 86
Royal Academy Forum
FOREIGN OFFICE ARCHITECTS: FARSHID MOUSSAVI
At the Yokohama Ferry Terminal, Foreign Office Architects
proposed a new synthesis between landscape and architectural
form. Instead of the old distinction between figure and ground,
which often translated into artifice – architecture – and nature, or
the landscape, Farshid Moussavi explained, they see the
relationship as a series of networks combining social, political and
geological influences. Consequently, ‘the vocabulary of landscape is
replaced by a network of systems, connections and interferences’,
and architecture becomes a strategy for ‘trying to negotiate a way
across them’.
What has driven this interaction between landscape and
architecture, between nature and artifice, is Information
Technology. With this new computing power, geometry, once the
unyielding arbiter, can now assume far more complex and
sophisticated forms which increasingly mimic nature. ‘Geometry’,
explained Moussavi, ‘is now more comparable to real nature, and
the distinctions between the organic and the rational are blurred.’
Yokohama introduced a ‘geometry that almost looks organic’ and
brought several other consequences. Creating ‘different conditions
of space, coherence and diversity within the same conception’, the
free-flowing forms replace prescribed circulation routes with an
urban ground, increasing density of circulation and appearing to
reconfigure themselves continually along the terminal’s length.
These complex geometries are ‘close to nature’, but nature
manipulated to provide for human need.
A waterfront park in Barcelona conveys ‘a total concept of urban
landscape’. With a fall of 11m across the shorter dimension of the
site, from the esplanade to the bathing area at the sea’s edge, it is
too steep to negotiate in a straight line, so diagonal ramps became
86 | 1 Foreign Office Architects: Yokohama Terminal. Unbuilt project for Novartis in Basel – physic gardens related to ‘lungs for the body of car parking’.
generators of a new topography, based on the forms of sand dunes.
‘We worked with the dune sizes’, explained Moussavi ‘to define the
ramps and to enclose two auditoria’: (outdoor arenas with flat areas
and banked seating for activities like rock concerts). Other parts are
less prescriptive, where the forms open up to create possibilities for
varied types of habitation and activity. On the lee side, sheltered
from the sea breezes, plants take root, just as in a natural dune
landscape.
Sand dunes, though, are extremely fragile, and this park is
designed for intensive use, so the surface has to be hard. The basic
element, a concrete tile, is rather larger than a grain of sand, but the
shape itself has geometric properties which, when multiplied, help to
generate the overall forms. As Moussavi said, ‘it meets most bound-
aries, but where it does not, it is not cut’, emphasizing the integrity
of its geometry. A dyed concrete resin fills residual spaces. The result-
ing colour stripes help to orientate visitors and to define routes and
zones within the park, using communication as link between topog-
raphy and function.
An unbuilt proposal for a ‘hortus medicus’ [medical garden] for
the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis in Basel also consciously
blurs boundaries between natural and artificial. On an undulating
surface, areas are seeded in different patterns with different parts,
but the undulations are actually openings to a subterranean car
park, or ‘lungs for the body of car parking’, as Moussavi puts it.
Here ‘the figure of the human body’ becomes a way of combining
the ancient motif of physic gardens, perhaps the earliest places for
the work that Novartis now does in laboratories and factories, with
the eminently modern function of car parking. Neither traditional
landscape nor conventional urban form, the landscape uses
complex geometry to form a new synthesis which is both
historically aware and sensitive to contemporary needs.
JUNIPER
A GUIDED AND SHERPA ASSISTED CLIMB TO
THE SUMMIT PLATEAU OF CHO OYU AT 8175M
VIA THE CLASSIC ROUTE WITHOUT
SUPPLEMENTARY OXYGEN TIBET AUTUMN
2000
HAMISH FULTON: BIODIVERSITY, WALKING IN
RELATION TO EVERYTHING …
It would seem there are two possibilities for so-called ‘Landscape’ art:
painting, from the past, and outdoor sculpture in the present.
However, the starting place of my own art is the experience of walking
… and walking is not an art material. In terms of self-imposed rules
this means every piece of art I make is the result of a specific walk.
(From 1970 to the present I have made 238 identifiable walks, walking
from one full day to 64 consecutive days. The longest distance I have
walked is 2838km and the highest altitude I have climbed to is
8175m.) To outline my ideas I would like to present the following
statements. Each small concentration of words implies larger issues.
IRRESPECTIVE OF ITS APPEARANCE – ‘ CONTEMPORARY ART’ IS A
NECESSARY ‘POLITICAL’ FORCE IN SOCIETY.
WALKING CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. (CONVERT ROADS FOR CARS – INTO
PATHS FOR WALKERS AND CYCLISTS?)
TO BE COMMITTED TO WALKING MEANS – TO SLOW DOWN TO
THE PACE OF WALKING …
A WALK CAN EXIST LIKE AN INVISIBLE OBJECT IN A COMPLEX WORLD.
(WALKING – CUTS A LINE THOUGH TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LIFE.)
Q. WHAT KIND OF ART COULD RESULT FROM A WALK?
A. ART INSTALLED ONTO THE FLATNESS OF EXISTING
ARCHITECTURE. (A FILM … A WALK TEXT AS AN URBAN
BILLBOARD. WALK TEXTS ETCHED INTO GLASS FOR WINDOWS.
WALK TEXTS CAST IN IRON AND SUNK INTO PAVEMENTS.
WALKING IS AN ‘EXPERIENCE’. CONSEQUENTLY, THE RESULTING ART
COULD BE PRODUCED IN ANY MEDIUM OR SITUATION.
REPEATABLE ART REQUIRING NO TRANSPORT (MUSICAL
NOTATION ON THE NET) OR, NON-REPEATABLE ART REQUIRING
TRANSPORTATION (CARGO JET POLLUTION) OR, REPEATED
UNTRANSPORTABLE ART? (AUSTRALIAN FIRST NATION CAVE
PAINTINGS.) WALKABOUT…
THE STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF ART IS THAT IT’S ALL ABOUT
OPINIONS.
THE PRICE I PAY FOR NOT MIMICKING ‘NATURE’ IS THAT I
RECORD ALL MY WALKS IN WORDS.
THERE ARE NO WORDS IN ‘NATURE’.
AN ARTWORK CANNOT RE-PRESENT THE EXPERIENCE OF A
WALK.
A GUIDED GROUP WALK
TO THE SUMMIT OF ACONCAGUA AT 6959M
VIA THE RELINCHOS VALLEY AND THE
FALSE POLISH ROUTE, ARGENTINA 15-28
FEBRUARY 2003
EVERY THING IS (MADE OF) SOMETHING – AND ALL ‘CONTEMPORARY
ART’ IS URBAN.
ABSENT. THE LOCATION OF THE WALK IS NOT IN THE GALLERY
AND THE WALK ITSELF IS A PAST EVENT.
AN OBJECT CANNOT COMPETE WITH AN EXPERIENCE.
WALKING IS PRACTICAL NOT THEORETICAL.
A WALK HAS A LIFE OF ITS OWN – A BEGINNING AND AN END.
WALKING INTO THE DISTANCE – BEYOND IMAGINATION.
ONCE A WALK HAS BEEN COMPLETED, IT CANNOT BE DESTROYED.
A WALK, IS AN INVISIBLE MONUMENT TO ‘TIME’ (‘LANDSCAPE’ ART
SHOULD ENCOMPASS MORE THAN JUST THE HISTORY OF ART.)
WHEN WALKING AND CAMPING ALONE, I ATTEMPT TO PRACTISE THE
‘WILDERNESS’ ETHIC OF LEAVE-NO-TRACE.
IN THE COURSE OF PRODUCING MY ARTWORKS I USE ONLY
COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE MATERIALS.
IN 2003: CREATE EMPLOYMENT, BUT DESTROY A ‘WILDERNESS’? THE
HUMAN ENERGY SOURCE FOR SOLVING THIS DILEMMA IS – OUR
SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP WITH ‘NATURE’.
THE RIGHTS OF NATURE? ON MY WALKS I DO NOT REARRANGE
THE ‘LANDSCAPE’ OR ORGANIZE THE REMOVAL, SALE AND NON-
RETURN OF ‘FOUND-NATURAL-OBJECTS’ THEREBY TERMINATING
THEIR NEIGHBOURHOOD LIFE INFLUENCED BY SUNLIGHT, WIND
AND RAIN.
MY ART IS A SYMBOLIC GESTURE OF RESPECT FOR NATURE.
IT’S HARDER TO LEAVE THINGS ALONE THAN TO CHANGE THEM.
CHANGE PERCEPTIONS – NOT THE ‘LANDSCAPE’. THE ‘LANDSCAPE’ AS
LOCATION – NOT RAW MATERIALS.
LIVING AND NON LIVING BEINGS. WHY SELL SEA SHELLS? BIG
TRUCKS MEANS BIG BUCKS.
BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN 25 JUNE 1876. (TWO PEOPLE, THEREFORE
TWO POINTS OF VIEW?)
NAVAJOLAND EUROLAND CLUBLAND HOMELAND DISNEYLAND
TIMBERLAND VOLVOLAND OBERLAND BORDERLAND
SWITZERLAND WONDERLAND – LANDSCAPE SEASCAPE
CLOUDSCAPE DREAMSCAPE E-SCAPE CITYSCAPE CULTURESCAPE
MEDIASCAPE FINANCESCAPE WALKSCAPE
MAKE A WALK – WRITE A TEXT – READ IT TO AN AUDIENCE. BODY AND
VOICE.
THE CHANGING SHAPES OF CLOUDS. THOUGHTS SILENCED BY
BIRDSONG.
EACH WALK MARKS THE FLOW OF TIME BETWEEN BIRTH AND DEATH.
87 | 1
ar jan 04 royal academy done 2/27/04 12:26 PM Page 88
Royal Academy Forum
ANDRO LINKLATER
Measuring America argues that America came to be what it is through
the way it defined its landscape. Anyone who has flown across the US
sees the world’s largest human-made construct, though its significance
is almost invisible unless you know what to look for – straight lines. In
California’s Great Central Valley they show up in the chequerboard
arrangement of orchards; flying over the Sierras they appear in the
rectangular farms deep in valley bottoms; crossing any big city,
Phoenix, Arizona or Salt Lake City, or Chicago itself, they’re revealed
in the graph-paper grid of streets; all across the Midwest they can be
found in the great squared-off pattern of corn and soya fields. Around
this framework, a particular kind of democracy and a particular kind
of capitalism and a particular kind of spirit developed.
These lines all derive from the US Public Land Survey which began
on 30 September 1785 when Thomas Hutchins, first Geographer of
the United States, unrolled a 22 yard Gunter’s chain on the west bank
of the Ohio river. The US needed to raise money, and the only asset
that it possessed was land beyond the Appalachians. A few explorers
had penetrated beyond the mountains and brought back wonderful
reports of this mouth-watering land. Hutchins’ job was to measure it
out and map it on a surveyor’s plat. It was a kind of magic –
unmeasured it was wilderness, measured it became real estate.
But he did it in a very particular way. Congress required him to lay
out lines running due east-west and six miles apart, and these were to
be cut at right angles by other lines running due north-south, and also
six miles apart. This created a grid of squares, known as townships,
each measuring 36 square miles. The townships divided into 36 one-
mile-square sections, which would be sold at auction. This pattern of
squares was Thomas Jefferson’s idea. Squares could be easily
measured, easily subdivided, easily bought and sold. Squares would
put land into the hands of the people. From the start, therefore, the
survey was expected not simply to raise money, but to shape a society.
The surveyors’ equipment was basic: a compass through which the
surveyor took a sighting on a distant mark to find due west on his
compass, and a 22 yard chain to measure the distance. Once the
surveyor had the direction, a team of axemen would be sent to hack
out a path or vista through the trees. Finally, the foreman took the
front end of the chain and marched towards the mark; when the
chain was fully stretched he cried ‘Tally!’, stuck in a tally pin, and
waited for the hindman to join him, gathering up the chain. So they
moved across the country like caterpillars, hunching up and stretching
out, through forests, over swamps, up mountains, and down ravines,
but always travelling in straight lines.
By the end of the nineteenth century, most of the continent had
been squared off into townships, and sections. Each township section
is a square mile or 640 acres, a number easily subdivided into smaller
The great United States
grid: not just a means of
turning wilderness into
real estate, but an
armature for capitalist
society.
88 | 1
squares. It can be halved, quartered, eighthed, and sixteenthed, and
still leave a whole number. And each is easily measured by a chain – a
mile is 80 chains, a half-mile is 40, a quarter is 20, and to a surveyor
nothing could be easier to measure – a 40-acre square was merely 20
chains by 20. Its numerical neatness ensured that 40 acres became the
basic unit on which Jefferson’s great landed democracy was built.
Owning a 40 was the bottom rung on the property ladder.
The 10 acre square is integral to the planning of US cities – 10
chains by 10 – such as the central square of Salt Lake City, or of
Philadelphia, Chicago, and others. It was an extraordinary
transformation. Within a century, the land that had no shape had
become property. Anyone could own it. The government sold it for
$2 an acre, offering credit for those with no cash, and even after the
1862 Homesteading Act you could get 160 acres by squatting.
Winners and losers
It was the survey that underpinned the legends of the frontier. It
guaranteed the pioneers legal possession of their land. But it was not
just an administrative exercise. In the process a society was being
created around the mass distribution of property. To European visi-
tors, accustomed to thinking of land-ownership as the key indicator
of social class, this was revolutionary, and the outlook of these prop-
erty-owners seemed to them astonishing. As early as 1813, the trav-
eller John Melish remarked approvingly: ‘Every industrious citizen
of the United States has the power to become a freeholder … and
the land being purely his own, there is no setting limits to his pros-
perity. No proud tyrant can lord it over him.’
In her book The Domestic Manners of the Americans written 20 years
later, Fanny Trollope took a less admiring view of the egalitarianism
that came from allowing absolutely anyone to acquire land. ‘Any
man’s son may become the equal of any other man’s son, and the
consciousness of this is certainly a spur to exertion’, she observed. ‘On
the other hand, it is also a spur to that coarse familiarity, untempered
by any shadow of respect, which is assumed by the grossest and lowest
in their intercourse with the highest and most refined.’ For the first
time an entire society was being created, peacefully and legally,
around a horizontal model of land distribution. However different
their viewpoints, both John Melish and Fanny Trollope were
testifying to the effectiveness of Jefferson’s social engineering.
The losers in all this distribution of property were the native
Americans. Almost every Indian war fought by the US government
from the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794 to the massacre at
Wounded Knee in 1890 had its origins in the urge to prise ownership
of land from the original occupants, and almost every Indian defeat
was followed by a treaty in which they ceded territory to the US
government. Immediately afterwards, the surveyors would arrive with
their chains and compasses, and in their wake came the settlers.
It required a paradigm shift to accept that land might be a
commodity, have a monetary value, be used as a guarantee against
which cash could be borrowed. Without it, what we recognize to be a
modern way of thinking could not come into being. Nowhere did land
as commodity take hold more strongly than in the US – the squares
made it easy – the result was a fiercely competitive society.
As the first visitors to the US recognized, the experience of owning
property forged a new society that no one had seen before. Around
this structure American democracy and capitalism grew.
 In general, diagrams and sketches explain rather than the design. We won this

Roland Halbe
and highlight a design idea quite well; if competition and realised the project.
done properly, they get well to the point. Finally the collages seek to clarify a
Like caricatures, they will focus on the thought. Almost naïve, they might cause
general idea. There is a verbal equivalent people to rethink the obvious. They work
to this that will, if done properly, describe best if they show the obvious and use
a design concept in just very few words. examples from daily life.
This is comparable to advertising; the best In general, I believe that the better
ones having the fewest words. A great the diagram, the clearer the concept, the
one-liner in our office, a verbal one-liner, stronger the design, and the better it
was ‘glittering by day, illuminated at night’ survives the battles of implementation and
for the Bristol Project. These words we had realisation. STEFAN BEHNISCH of BEHNISCH,
borrowed and bent from one of my father’s BEHNISCH & PARTNER
projects, the Olympic facilities in Munich.
The four diagrams illustrated, were
drawn spontaneously in lectures to explain
designed or realised projects. (I have one of
those nifty laptops where you can scribble
or draw or write on the screen; I use it
extensively.) Fig a, the Genzyme Center in
Cambridge, MA, USA; fig b, Norddeutsche fig c
Landesbank in Hanover; fig c, the Universe
Paradise, a theme park originally for Las
Vegas.
In the diagrams for the IBN institute
competition, fig d, our all-time favourites, we
tried to explain concepts and atmospheres

fig a

fig d

fig b

STEFAN
32 | 1 BEHNISCH 33 | 1

The extension to Higgins Hall at
Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, the
largest independent college of art
and design in the US, is Steven
Holl’s first major institutional
commission in his home territory
of New York City. Higgins Hall,
which houses Pratt’s architecture
programme, formerly consisted of
three separate historic landmark
buildings. However, when the
central building was destroyed by
fire in 1996, the two remaining
were left isolated. Holl was
appointed to stitch them together,
a task that has been tackled by
balancing the need for sensitivity
to the historic buildings with the
desire to create a new identity and
a landmark on the street.
The difference in floor levels
between the two historic buildings,
which increases sequentially from
a mere 12mm at ground level
to 2m on the fourth floor roof,
was the key factor in shaping the
scheme. The new insertion pulls
out existing floor levels from the
north and south wings, and the
fault line where they meet – which
Holl calls the ‘dissonant zone’ – is
ARTFUL ADDITION
This new insertion balances sensitivity to
history with a formal and civic boldness.
ART SCHOOL EXTENSION ,
NEW Y ORK , USA
ARCHITECT
54 | 2 STEVEN HOLL A RCHITECTS
reconciled by a ramp that creates
an extended promenade traversing
between the street front and
garden back of the building. The
ramp is capped by an asymmetrical
gullwing skylight that juxtaposes
different qualities of daylight from
tall north- and low south-facing
glazing. The new link provides
public and social spaces including
an entrance lobby that splits along
the fissure to provide a ground
level reception and gallery and a
lower level lobby serving a new
auditorium and classrooms. This
entrance, together with design
studios on upper floors, ensures
that the new building is occupied
and active around the clock.
In keeping with the character
of the nineteenth-century brick
buildings – which have been
renovated by Rogers Marvel
Architects – the material
vocabulary of the new infill is
robust. This provides the setting
for Holl to pursue his interest
in material experimentation,
including handrails of rusted
steel that are merely sealed
and a handsome gallery door
1
The original Higgins
made of foamed aluminium, a Hall, before fire
product that is widely used for destroyed the middle
section.
impact absorption in automobile 2
Clad in a translucent
bumpers. The building’s structural skin, Holl’s new building
frame, independent of the old re-consolidates the
composition.
loadbearing masonry walls,
comprises six large precast
concrete columns linked by beams.
While the four corner columns
are ‘static,’ the central column on
each facade shifts and mutates to
accommodate the cranked beams
of different floor levels on either
side of the fissure. Precast floor
planks are simply finished with
polished concrete topping, and
voids in the planks are utilised as
wiring conduits.
On upper levels, elegant linear
aluminium uplighters, designed
by the architects, illuminate the
exposed concrete soffit, while in
the auditorium, holes cut in the
precast planks provide recessed
lighting – bare bulbs without the
usual metal housing. In contrast
with this spartan character,
galvanised ducts at the north
and south ends of the new link
are exuberant, dipping below the
concrete beams to terminate in
1
exploded projection of building elements 2 55 | 2
 flamboyant three-throated grills
adjacent to each column.
The serene interior atmosphere
is created largely by the design
of the east and west facades,
where structural glass channels
filled with translucent white
insulation provide diffuse daylight
to the entrance lobby, gallery
and studios. At the fault line, the
thick translucent skin gives way
to a patchwork of clear glazing,
sometimes canted, in red oxide
painted steel framing, which marks
the dissonant zone of the ramp
and allows generous views out.
The clean repetitive character
of the glass channels contrasts
markedly with the historic
buildings, which provide quirky
‘as found’ interior elevations
to the north and south. This
serendipitous character is very
evident in the auditorium, where
cast iron columns and remnants of
field stone foundations combine
with ad hoc openings in brickwork
to create a striking contrast with
the pared down discipline of the
concrete insertion.
ART SCHOOL EXTENSION ,
NEW Y ORK , USA
ARCHITECT
STEVEN HOLL A RCHITECTS
cross section looking north
56 | 2 long section looking east
The newly created H-block has a
3
west-facing forecourt on St James Studios at the
topmost level.
Place. A sculpted ground of steps 4
and ramps, partly formed of bricks A ramp forms
an extended
salvaged from the fire, makes the promenade and
transition from street to entrance, reconciles floor
level differences.
which is marked by a projecting 5
glazed lobby that is an outgrowth Entrance hall with
stairs curving down
of the clear fissure in the to a lower level
translucent facade. To the east, the lecture hall.
basement auditorium roof creates
a raised terrace that, accessible
from the gallery, overlooks the
rear gardens of terraced houses
adjacent to the site.
Investing in the reconstruction
of Higgins Hall is one piece of a
larger initiative developed over
the past 13 years by Thomas
F. Schutte, President of Pratt,
who has worked to improve 3
the campus and use it as an
engine to convincingly stimulate
the regeneration of this area of
Brooklyn. Because the architecture
school is a block away from the
Pratt campus, it must have an
8
academic identity and work as 8
part of the city. The building
clearly fulfils both roles with its
8
8 14 8
5
4
first floor
entrance forecourt providing a
5 13
1 lower lobby modest new public space where
12
2 classroom students meet and linger all hours.
3 lecture hall
4 multimedia This modest infill project
12
5 offices yields rich returns at many levels.
6 copy room
7 storage 11 The concept of the dissonant
8 studio
9 entrance court
10 zone permeates the scheme,
10 lobby orchestrating plan, section and
11 reception 12
12 gallery 9 elevation as well as circulation,
13 sculpture terrace daylight and views. Through its
14 ramp
direct expression of materials
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) and details, the building enables
the architecture school to play a
didactic role for the students it
4 3 8
houses. This quiet, spare insertion
does not ape the old buildings
but has its own distinct identity,
5 2 creating an ensemble that provides
1 welcome public and educational
2
amenities and strengthens Pratt’s
6 presence in the city.
ANNETTE LECUYER
7
Architect
Steven Holl Architects, New York
Photographs
lower ground floor 5 All photographs by Andy Ryan except no 1 57 | 2
ar feb 04 feilden done 3/1/04 11:43 AM Page 68

U NIVERSITY CAMPUS , Walking around the University of

G LOUCESTER , E NGLAND Gloucestershire’s new campus with Peter
ARCHITECT Clegg, it is immediately apparent that
F EILDEN C LEGG B RADLEY architects Feilden Clegg Bradley passionately
A RCHITECTS believe in, and profoundly understand, the
significant contribution that education brings
to our lives – not only in terms of
architecture and regeneration, as a group of
architects who love to build, but far more
holistically. Education is undoubtedly in
FCBA’s blood, and while their extensive 25
year portfolio includes excellent arts,
housing, and community projects, the
fulfilment of the practice’s priorities is
perhaps most explicit in their work for
education. FCBA design as users, and when
designing places where people seek
education, they repeatedly draw on
collective personal experiences as students,
parents, and teachers. So, a practice
internationally known for its pioneering
innovations in environmental sustainability
and energy efficiency, gives more by
reflecting on an equally significant
commitment to the broader issues of
economic and social sustainability.
For more than 12 years, the UK’s higher
education sector has offered FCBA scope
and opportunity to innovate, becoming a
staple and producing significant buildings for
Sunderland and Aston Universities, the Open
University and London’s Imperial College.
However, despite such individual successes,
richer results seem to have come when the
practice has been engaged in long-standing
client relationships, such as those with King
Alfred’s College in Winchester, and here in
Gloucestershire; both of which have been
nurtured since the early 1990s. By relying on
a culture of learning and innovation,
universities and colleges have historically
acted as laboratories for architectural
experimentation, and while commercial
realities exist, academic institutions tend to
prioritize long-term investment over quick-
fix, fast-buck incentives – as has been FCBA’s
experience in Gloucestershire.
Under the ambitious stewardship of the
University’s Vice Chancellor Dame Janet
Trotter, the University of Gloucestershire
has become one of the West Country’s more
committed architectural patrons,
commissioning FCBA’s award-winning
intervention within the gothic revival quad of
Francis Close Hall Campus in 1994, Edward
Cullinan’s Art Media and Design facilities at
Pitville campus (AR April 1994), and most
1

WORK REST AND PLAY 1

With its lofty atrium and generous
glazed link, Feilden Clegg Bradley’s
After years of absence, a new university campus brings new facilities building gives
Gloucester’s new campus stature
68 | 2 access to higher education back to the city of Gloucester. and presence. 69 | 2
ar feb 04 feilden done 3/1/04 11:43 AM
recently with its new Sport and Exercise
Sciences campus in the heart of Gloucester.
On college land formerly occupied by a
1950s training college, the new campus was
built to redress the uneven distribution of the
county’s higher education facilities, which
since 1992 had been solely within Cheltenham.
In 1996, FCBA were appointed to review the
potential of the site, and to co-ordinate a long-
term campus strategy.
As the first stage, building stock was
evaluated to see if any of structures from the
previous five decades of development could
be re-used. But, after considering flexibility
of use, options for upgrading (particularly in
terms of energy conservation),
organizational efficiency, site distribution,
and architectural quality, FCBA somewhat
reluctantly concluded that demolition was
the most feasible option. A decision that may
have been regrettable in terms of embodied
energy, but which increased opportunities to
develop a high density, centralized strategy.
This, while offering scope for expansion,
would create sufficient critical mass within a
modest first phase to give the fledgling
U NIVERSITY CAMPUS ,
G LOUCESTER , E NGLAND
ARCHITECT
F EILDEN C LEGG B RADLEY
A RCHITECTS
E E E 2
A
70 | 2 site plan (scale approx 1:2000)
Page 70
campus its own identity and sense of place.
So phase one, which was completed for the
student intake of October 2002, included a
new learning resources and teaching centre,
sports science facility, and refectory, which
collectively form a north-south armature
that acts as the campus’ heart and spine.
Parallel to this sits another north-south
terrace of 180 study rooms, all with private
bathrooms, which terminates in a student
common room and bar. It forms a communal
cluster that, when linked to the facilities
building by an east-west landscaped body
of water, creates an entrance threshold
for the site.
Organizing buildings on this axis was
central to the campus’ environmental
strategy, avoiding bleak north-facing study
bedrooms, enabling both the learning
resource centre and the sport sciences masterplan concept
building to exploit diffuse north light
(reducing dependency on artificial lighting),
and optimizing the performance of the EU
and DTI funded photovoltaic array recently
installed onto the sport sciences building’s
2 3
distinctive tick-section roof. (An installation
1 reception
2 learning resources centre
3 lecture theatre
4 refectory
5 sports hall
6 staff offices
7 teaching rooms
5
A learning centre
B sport sciences building
C common room and bar
D student housing
E landscaped pool
D 4
C
1
2
From the south-west approach, this modest
collection of buildings creates an impressive
flagship campus for the University of
3 Gloucestershire.
6
3
Louvres on the southerly facade eliminate direct
sunlight from the principal teaching rooms.
4
With the first of five student accommodation
blocks behind, the student bar and common room
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) help create a defined campus gateway. 4 71 | 2
ar feb 04 feilden done 3/1/04 11:43 AM
5
estimated to meet 50 per cent of the sport
sciences building’s demand, equivalent to 30
per cent of the precinct’s combined load.)
With this in place, attention focused on the
most complex environmental problem: the
internal conditioning of the learning
resources centre.
With the dramatic increase in IT provision
in education, there are now many
environmental variables to consider when
seeking to create stable comfort levels.
Learning from experience gained on the
Martial Rose Library in Winchester, FCBA
again adopted a hollow core displacement
ventilation strategy: a system that responds
well to the most onerous conditions during
winter months, when maximum occupancy
levels demand high air change targets
without throwing away the free heat benefit
that computers and people provide.
Using standardized building components,
the TermoDeck system converts a humble
hollow-core precast concrete floor slab into
a fully integrated circuit of thermal batteries:
a modular structural system that contributes
to the visual order of the spaces and which
U NIVERSITY CAMPUS ,
G LOUCESTER , E NGLAND
ARCHITECT
F EILDEN C LEGG B RADLEY
A RCHITECTS
5 7
The campus’s distinctive razorback
northlights support the college’s
490m 2 photovoltaic array.
6
Even during the winter months, the
café’s sheltered terrace provides a
welcome place of rest ...
7
... from the physical exertion of
serious play ...
8
... and the mental stimulation of sport
sciences work.
72 | 2
Page 72
operates in a number of modes to provide
seasonal environmental stability. In summer,
night purging charges the ventilation circuit
with coolth to temper incoming air, while
exposed soffits are chilled to absorb surplus
heat gains. In winter, trickle charge heating of
the thermal mass warms a steady supply of
fresh air, which gently heats the soffits and
provides displacement ventilation through
the floor. Heat recovery systems are also
employed with a thermal wheel preheating
incoming air, and exhaust air is discharged
into the foyer to reduce uncomfortable
down-draughts in the otherwise un-tempered
glazed link.
While budget limitations denied lavish
materials, a degree of finesse has been
achieved through the careful placing of finer
quality materials, such as timber acoustic
panelling in the atrium, and a Siza-esque
limestone plinth in the foyer. The main
disappointment, however, has been how
security measures have denied users the
permeability between the learning and
teaching spaces as originally designed,
resulting in the central atrium and core being
isolated rather than a dynamic place of
interaction. Still, this operational decision is
clearly reversible.
On the whole, the University is delightful
to visit, and as more students move in, and
when vegetation matures to soften the
impact of the somewhat disappointing hard
landscaping, it will undoubtedly host a
thriving student community. FCBA’s most
significant achievement has been an ability to
create a place with just three basic moves,
producing a solution credited by the RIBA
for being ‘gimmick free’ and offering ‘a
serious welcoming handshake for a new age
HQ’. On choosing to invest in the higher
education sector, FCBA have responded well
to the strategic changes that have been
7 2
3 2
section through lecture theatre, seminar rooms, atrium and learning resources (scale approx 1:250), see key p70
implemented over the last 15 years. So, if
Richard Feilden’s prediction of an equivalent
shift in secondary education over the next 15
years is correct, we look forward to seeing
how FCBA re-apply their expertise to the
UK’s new generation of City Academy
schools. ‘We love designing schools,’ says
Feilden, with a smile that exhibits a slightly
mischievous pleasure. A pleasure and
optimism that seems to imply that regardless
of what decisions central government may
take, FCBA will be there to get under the
skin of legislation, funding and targets to help
produce the best schools that money can
buy. After all, designing the building is only
part of the battle, and FCBA fully understand
this. Regardless of the practice’s technical
and theoretical competence, they have never
adopted a highbrow architectural position.
Instead, with sustained integrity, their
investment in clients and long-term
aspirations has brought them increasing
popularity: a deserved reward for choosing
not to engage in the architectural pageantry
that tempts so many other practices away
from the essence of longevity that all
architects should pursue. ROB GREGORY
Architects
Feilden Clegg Bradley Architects, Bath
Project team
Peter Clegg, Bill Gething, David Stansfield, Matt Somerville,
Toby Lewis, Elena Marco Brugete
Project manager
Burnley Wilson Fish, John Burnley
Structural engineer
Whitby Bird & Partners
M&E engineer
WSP
Photovoltaic consultant
ESD
Facade consultant
Montresor Partnership
Landscape consultant
Mitchell Harris Partnership
Photographs
Mandy Reynolds 6
7 8
2
73 | 2
ar feb 04 Mulvin done 3/1/04 11:58 AM
Founded in the mid-nineteenth
century as the Catholic University
of Ireland, University College
Dublin (UCD) was first
established in the heart of Dublin
overlooking St Stephen’s Green.
Famous alumni include Gerard
Manley Hopkins and James
Joyce. During the 1960s, the
university decamped to a
suburban greenfield site at
Belfield, to the south of the city
centre. Over time the campus has
evolved and expanded, adding
new faculty buildings, student
residences and recreational
facilities. With 10 faculties, 80
departments and a student body
of 22 000, UCD is now the largest
university in Ireland.
1 like, proportions.
ACADEMIC DEBATE
This extension to UCD’s microbiology department is a
rational cube that reworks the campus object building.
L ABORATORY , D UBLIN , I RELAND
ARCHITECT
M C C ULLOUGH M ULVIN
52 | 2 A RCHITECTS
Page 52
One of the most recent campus
additions is McCullough Mulvin’s
extension to the Virus Reference
Laboratory (VRL). Affiliated with
the university’s Department of
Medical Microbiology, the VRL
provides a national diagnostic
virology service for Ireland, as well
as undertaking research and issuing
regular publications. The new
building slots into a tight site
between the main VRL laboratory
and Ardmore House on the upper
part of the campus. Though small in
scale, the project plays a significant
role in consolidating the
relationship between the central
buildings and the surrounding
landscape, and, in particular, the
lake directly below it.
Conceived both as a place of work
and social interaction, the project
is one of a series of new pavilions
designed to support and challenge
the notion of architecture in the
landscape that informed UCD’s
orginal development in the 1960s.
More specifically, it is clearly an
object building in the greenfield
campus tradition, but is also
concerned with connecting with
its surroundings and creating a
sense of place. The main public
frontage is defined by a triangular,
rock-studded parvis while the
inner edge encloses a small garden
landscaped in an artfully minimal
Japanese style, creating a peaceful
haven for contemplation.
With its lightweight skin and
simple geometry, the new building
forms an expressive contrast with
its more leaden brick and stone-
clad campus counterparts.
Facades are wrapped in a taut skin
of interlocking and overlapping
panels of glass and Western red
cedar which project and recede
from the main surface plane.
The cedar will weather to a
delicate silvery grey, but the light
has a slightly different effect on
the vertical and horizontal boards,
so that the skin will eventually 1, 2
The new extension is an object
resemble a piece of worn building in the landscape, starkly
fabric with subtly contrasting different from its neighbours,
but it also strives to connect with
textures. Extended parapets its surroundings and create a
sense of place.
give the building muscular, cube- 3
Detail of Western red cedar skin.
2 3 53 | 2
ar feb 04 Mulvin done 3/1/04
The plan is elegantly economical,
with offices on the upper floor
and a laboratory, canteen and
meeting room at ground level,
with access to the courtyard
garden. In abstract, the plan
resembles a simple unicellular
organism, with a coloured
circulation core as its nucleus.
The free-standing, sky-blue core
can be glimpsed as you move
through the building and a canted
link corridor connects the new
extension with the main
laboratory. The linking arm also
functions as an entrance hall.
first floor plan
1 main department
2 link
3 entrance
4 circulation core
5 laboratory
6 canteen
7 offices
3
54 | 2 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:250)
11:58 AM Page 54
UCD’S evolving campus can,
perhaps, be compared to a 40
year conversation, with new
members joining in and adding to
the growing dialogue. McCullough
Mulvin’s modest yet intelligently
judged contribution adds to the
richness of this academic debate.
CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architect
McCullough Mulvin Architects, Dublin
Structural engineer
Thomas Garland & Partners
Services engineer
UCD Buildings Services Department
Photographs
Christian Richters site plan
7 7
long section
5 6
4
cross section
5 6
2
cross section
4
The crisp cube. Horizontal and
vertical cedar strips will weather in
slightly different ways.
5
Internal Japanese-style garden and
link to the main department (left).
6
The coloured circulation core. 55 | 2
The recasting of a former
1
seventeenth-century monastery A statue of
in the Andalucian city of Jerez Saint Augustine
presides over
as municipal offices represents the remodelled
former Cloister
the latest phase in the building’s of the Novices.
protracted and colourful history. 2
The new wing
An evolving succession of uses, adjoins the
first as a hospital, then monastery nineteenth-
century Casa
then barracks (occupied by French del Capitán.
troops during the Peninsular
War) also speaks of a remarkable
physical durability and adaptability
that makes resonant connections
with the city’s history. This is
no mimsily fragile relic, fretted
over by conservation bodies,
but a doughty survivor of the
cumulative effects of time, war
and social change.
Overseen by the Seville-based
partnership of Antonio Martínez
García & Juan Luis Trillo de Leyva,
the building’s latest incarnation
as offices, archive and exhibition
space is another pragmatic
adaptation to new demands
(mercifully less exacting than
Napoleon’s). The Seville duo’s
scheme preserves what is worth
preserving, notably the Cloister
of the Novices, and also adds
major new parts, executed in
an understated, yet recognisably
contemporary language. The
outcome is a powerful dialogue
between the historical strata and
the new insertions.
The original plan of the
monastery was based around a
large central courtyard attached to

MUNICIPAL OFFICES ,
JEREZ , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
ANTONIO MARTÍNEZ
GARCÍA & JUAN LUIS
TRILLO DE LEYVA
1

RELIGIOUS
CONVERSION
The latest phase in the evolution of this
historic monastery in Jerez transforms it
into an archive and civic offices. 65 | 2
 3 4 5 6

8
a smaller Cloister of the Novices. In their imperviousness and largely toplit and from here a pair 3
Patio between the new wing
The new work is focused around plainness, the white rendered of big picture windows frame (right) and the refurbished
A Casa del Capitán this smaller cloister, which is now walls of the new wing are modern vistas out to the mountains south Casa del Capitán.
B Cloister of the Novices 7 4
C main cloister enclosed and incorporated into reinterpretations of Iberian of Jerez and its alcázar. Materials Patio in the remodelled
D former stables a new wing as a soaring, double- vernacular, as are the patio spaces (dark timber, concrete, white cloister brings in light.
C 5
E Church of St Augustine
height exhibition space. Though that infiltrate the complex, subtly marble) and detailing display an New parts wrap around and
over the cloister.
E 4 no longer open to the elements, filtering light, setting up intriguing appropriately monastic rigour. 6
A the courtyard void still admits through views. A narrow patio Though sensitive to the nuances Library and archive spaces,
spread over two floors.
light, through a series of deep separates the new volume from of history, the scheme has a
B
1 entrance to complex slots strategically cut into the roof the nineteenth-century Casa del boldness in both conception and
2 patio
3 office entrance and walls of the floors above. Two Capitán (the former barracks execution that lets architecture of
9
D 4 vertical circulation spine new office storeys wrap over and commander’s house), now all eras speak for itself. C. S.
5 Casa del Capitán
6 cloister/exhibition space around the cloister, and a salvaged refurbished to accommodate
7 offices Architect
8 library and archive
statue of Saint Augustine, to various ancillary functions. Offices
first floor roof plan Antonio Martínez García & Juan Luis Trillo
9 post room whose order the monastery was are flexible, open-plan spaces, de Leyva, Seville
10 audio-visual suite
originally devoted, presides over linked by a new spine of vertical Photographs
8
the remodelled ensemble. circulation. The upper floor is Duccio Malagamba

6
10
site plan
7
4

2
1

5
MUNICIPAL OFFICES , J EREZ , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
ANTONIO MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA &
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) second floor cross section through cloister and offices looking east cross section through circulation spine looking east
66 | 2 JUAN LUIS T RILLO DE LEYVA 67 | 2
 view
VOTE FOR ARCHITECTURE

To understand recent changes to Britain’s

Parliamentary arrangements, it is important
to remember the backgrounds of the leading
Labour politicians of the last 30 years. For
example, the Labour Party (which ruled for
the first three and last 10) has had as its leaders
James Callaghan (Welsh); Michael Foot (Welsh);
Neil Kinnock (Welsh); John Smith (Scottish); and
Tony Blair (English but Scottish-educated). His
heir-apparent is Gordon Brown (Scottish).
Given this parade of the non-English
succeeding in national politics via Westminster,
why should they have supported devolution and
parliamentary buildings in Scotland and Wales?
The answer was partly to do with counteracting
Scottish and Welsh nationalism; it appears that
the creation of a Scottish Parliament, with
its extraordinary building designed by Enric
Miralles (AR November 2004), and now the
Richard Rogers Partnership National Assembly
for Wales, have put those genies back in the
bottle, at least for the time being.
Instead, Gordon Brown recently made an
extraordinary speech in which he called on the
British to start flying the national flag, the Union
Jack, in the American way, and start behaving
more ‘patriotically’. This hypocritical drivel
was greeted with the loud raspberry it surely
deserved; the British only wave flags on very
special occasions – for example a visit by the
Queen. She will be going to Cardiff on St David’s
Day (1 March) to open the RRP building.
Happily, the architects and their client have
avoided the temptation to turn the Assembly
building into a Disney-esque representation of
all that is Welsh. While many of the materials
used are of Welsh origin, their selection has been
part of an environmental programme aimed at
minimising journey times for materials. (Other
key programme elements included a design life
of 100 years, and accessible and inclusive design
for people of all ages and abilities.)
This is the first pavilion building by the Richard
Rogers Partnership, and a relatively small project
for the practice (Madrid Airport opens shortly,
for example). However, it punches well above its
weight in creating architectural presence in the

1
The dramatic
front elevation and
oversailing roof
address Cardiff Bay.
2
Neighbours include
the Pierhead
building, now a linked
educational facility,
and the Millennium
Centre beyond.
1 2
28 | 2 29 | 2
 view view
context of the Millennium Centre next door,
the adjacent Pierhead building being used as an
educational facility, and of Cardiff Bay itself,
a large expanse of water behind the barrage
designed by Will Alsop.
The extended overhanging roof, with its
undulating red cedar slatted timber soffit, is a
visual complement to the rippling water in the
bay beyond. It gives a real sense of importance
and occasion as you arrive, at plinth level
(magnificently built in Welsh slate, cleaved and
pillared to show off the quality of the material).
You enter an offset security zone and then arrive
in the main ‘living room’ space, a huge volume
where you can sit, attend informal meetings or
presentations, and watch whatever is happening
in the assembly chamber on one of the many
screens available (all the IT in the buildings is
top-grade). Within the volume you can go to the
upper level café and sit round the magnificent
timber-clad ‘bell’ that acts as a light source
and ventilation exit for the assembly chamber
at lower ground level, which includes meeting
rooms and three double-height, glazed-wall
committee chambers. Glass bridges link to an
adjacent existing office building where members
and staff have permanent facilities, but most of
the circulation in the building is open to all.
Natural ventilation is the norm, with the
help of 27 boreholes 100m deep, connected
to heat exchangers to provide a temperature
range control, there is some mechanical and
air-conditioning assistance if required, plus
underfloor heating. It feels very clement.

3
Upper level of the public space; the
café is next to the ‘Bell’ structure
3
which hovers over the debating
chamber below. Furniture, by Arne
Jacobsen, was selected after appraising
the condition of what he used for St
Catherine’s College, Oxford.
4
The plinth level arrival space and
information desk.
exploded axonometric showing the
Chamber and two levels above

30 | 2 long section showing what is believed to be Europe’s biggest wind cowl short section showing the services plenum 4 31 | 2
 view view
Natural ventilation is
available to vir tually all areas
though there is mixed mode
assistance for extreme
conditions. A wood-fuelled
boiler provides renewable
heating while a rainwater
harvesting system supplies
all (except potable) water.
Daylight is maximised. The
overall design achieved an
‘excellent’ BREEAM rating
and exceeds best practice
guidelines. Automatic
controls monitor internal and
external environments and
adjust passive elements (eg,
windows) and active systems
(eg, heating).
Performance monitoring is
carried out through sensors in
the building structure.

ventilation strategy using the cowl

5
Triple-height slots run
either side of the debating
chamber.
6
The public views the
Assembly at work through
unintrusive security glazing.
7
Upward view of the bell/
funnel – allowing in light,
taking out air.
6 7

ground condition heat exchangers and apertures create an integrated environmental approach

Architect This was a project that had its moments of

Richard Rogers
Partnership, London drama; at one stage the architects were sidelined
Structural engineer and had to win a second competition, with
Arup
Environmental/ME Taylor Woodrow, to complete the project they
services engineer had designed after winning a first competition.
BDSP
Acoustic consultant There were some difficult technical requirements
SRL (security, especially after 9/11) and elements (like
Landscape architect
Gillespies
translation rooms) which put pressure on space.
Photographs RRP director Ivan Harbour cites the Richard
Richard Bryant/Arcaid Rogers dictum, about good buildings comprising
simple plans and complex sections, in his
description of the building, and he acknowledges
an unexpected source of inspiration for the
curving roof design – a never-built sculpture for
the RRP Bordeaux Law Courts (AR July 1999)
where Harbour was also project director.
A complex story and programme has resulted
in a building of clarity and calm, which impresses
without becoming bombastic, and gives Cardiff
a first-class building in which Welsh governance
32 | 2 lower ground level with debating chamber and committee/meeting rooms mid level; visitors can observe the Assembly and committees at work roof plan; glazed bridge links connect to the existing administration block will be admirably housed. PAUL FINCH 33 | 2
 delight
Those who thought the Winter Olympics were all about slithering rapidly
across ice or snow wearing a condom or sequins, might be reassured by
the more culturally refined caperings of this year’s Snow Show staged
in the Italian alpine resort of Sestriere, as an adjunct to (and possibly
distraction from) the Games. Curated by New York-based Lance Fung,
the show reprises the successful formula of previous years, staged in the
more refrigerated climes of Finland (AR March 2004), in which teams of
architects and artists collaborate to create temporary structures out of
ice and snow. Within certain practical limits, imagination can take flight
with extraordinary results. This time, the Torino Olympic Committee
provided funding with Regione Piedmont and London’s Albion Gallery.
Though the photographs here convey an appropriate sense of artistic
serenity, actually bringing to life the vision of people such as Daniel Buren,
Yoko Ono, Norman Foster and Arata Isozaki was fraught with difficulties.
Fung’s construction team of students working and local contractors was
confronted with yo-yoing temperatures, varying weather conditions (lack
82 | 3
Photographs: Edmund Sumner/VIEW
of snow, too much snow) and a cast iron deadline. One day’s sun could
melt three feet of snow, wiping out a day’s work.
Ultimately human endeavour overcame nature to make a dramatic
mark on the winter landscape. Lebbeus Woods, working with Kiki Smith,
designed Looking Glass (main picture), a frozen pond with fibre optic
cables which emit swirling trails of light, like the tracks of phantom
skaters. Slide Meeting (bottom left) by Williams & Tsien and Carsten
Holler is a geometric bunker penetrated by chutes for high speed
sledging. Norman Foster’s personal passion for cross-country skiing
inspires Where Are You (middle), a sculpted snow dial with the global
co-ordinates for his London office designed in collaboration with Spanish
artist Jaume Plensa. By contrast,Yoko Ono’s Penal Colony (far right)
produced with fellow Japanese Arata Isozaki is an austere and oppressive
grey labyrinth. From fantasy to nightmare, the Snow Show (www.
thesnowshow.com) celebrates the creative potential of the white stuff and
perks up the winter scene. It runs until 19 March. C. S.
 TREADING LIGHTLY
This holiday house in Big Sur is a highly tactful and inventive
response to stringent local environmental regulations.
Big Sur, a rocky outcrop on the
shore of central California, is a
magical place with two distinct
personalities.Visitors speed along
the winding coast highway, pausing
at overlook points to admire
the spectacle of towering cliffs,
surf-lashed rocks, rolling hills and
meadows. Most residents live
out of public view in canyons
that slash through the hills and
provide access to stony beaches.
Unplanned bohemian communities
flourish amid this wild natural
beauty. A Bay Area family bought
a plot of land and camped there
with their children for decades
before commissioning Fougeron
HOUSE , B IG SUR ,
CALIFORNIA , USA
ARCHITECT
52 | 3 ANNE FOUGERON
Architecture to design a modest,
comfortable house that would
reunite three generations, while
giving each individual their own
personal space.
New construction near Big Sur
is stringently regulated, and the
architect spent nearly four years
dealing with ten different agencies
before being granted a permit.
The look of the house was never
an issue for the county or the
Coastal Commission, but rather
its impact on the environment, and
its avoidance of seismic faults and
the habitat of protected species.
Setbacks and the amount of night-
time illumination were precisely
specified, and the builders had to
drill 500 feet down into bedrock
to secure drinking water.
Fougeron immersed herself
in the spirit of place, noting the
course of the sun, and getting
a feeling for the land, before
sketching her design. ‘I didn’t
want the house to loom too
large or look as though it had
flown in from another galaxy,’ she
explains. ‘It needed to reach for
the sky because the sun drops
below the edge of the canyon in
the early afternoon. At night, it’s
completely dark outside and you
can gaze up to the stars through
the high windows.’
A
B
C
D
redwood grove
road
creek
house
A
site plan
The house is set back from a dirt
road behind a screen of cedar
battens, closed at the centre to
conceal bathrooms and kitchen,
and feathering out to either
side. A thin butterfly roof seems
to float over a deep clerestory
of ribbed channel glass, and is
supported at one end by two
slender bowed steel columns.
The house is raised nearly a
metre off the ground to reduce its
impact on the land and protect it
from flooding if the nearby creek
overflows. The rear facade is much
bolder and open to nature. An
expansive corner window and a
projecting glass bay that serves as
2

1
Screened by a veil of cedar
battens, the house is cradled
in a deep canyon.
2
Volumes are slightly
elevated to protect from
flooding.
3
Roof oversails to enclose
tall, veranda-like spaces.
4
3 Detail of cedar screen. 53 | 3
 a solarium cut through copper-
clad walls.
A grey stuccoed stair tower
containing a steel moment frame
anchors the house, structurally
and visually. A ramp leads to
the entry. Bedrooms at either
end bracket the communal
space, which rises full height
to cable-braced fir joists. The
transparency and the high
ceilings of the living area are
accentuated by a snug inglenook
with benches flanking a fireplace.
Stairs ascend to a slatted
mezzanine gallery that contains
a library, overlooks the double-
height master bedroom, and
leads to a room of bunk beds
for visiting children. On both
levels, spaces are interwoven
and interconnected through
glazed openings or over a glass
balustrade. Mitered corner
windows dissolve the structure
and open it to the canyon. The
steel-framed glass bay opens
onto a deck, from which you
step down into the wilderness
and its abundant wild life, or
walk a mile to the beach.
The house is so well composed
that it neither competes with nor
is overpowered by the canyon.
An earth-toned, radiant-heated
concrete floor, yellow cedar
joinery and anigre panelling
warm the interior. The cast glass
pixellates the foliage and its
channels create a vertical rhythm,
almost concealing the delicate
steel rods that support the roof.
The details are refined without
being precious, and there’s an
intelligent mix of standard and
custom components.
It is easy to see the influence of 5
Upper level spaces are
Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre connected by a walkway.
in Paris and Frank Lloyd Wright’s 6
Sitting lightly in nature
Usonian houses, but Fougeron has – the Big Sur life.
7
brought her own experience and The focal inglenook.
artistry to this elegant retreat. She 8
Detail of upper level library
was born in Paris, but has spent and roof structure.
most of her life in the United
States, and opened her office in
San Francisco in 1986. Best-known
for a much grander urban house in
Palo Alto, she is currently working
on two public libraries, a loft
remodelling, and a house-studio.
MICHAEL WEBB
Architect
Fougeron Architecture, San Francisco
Photographs
Richard Barnes
1 entrance
2 car port
3 bedroom
4 bathroom
5 kitchen
6 living/dining
7 sleeping loft
8 library
9 deck
10 void

10 10
3 8 7

10

cross section first floor

3 6 3
2

long section

4 5 4

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:200)

HOUSE , B IG SUR ,
CALIFORNIA , USA
ARCHITECT
54 | 3 5 ANNE FOUGERON
6

7 8 55 | 3
 process
Constructing a one-off residence is a costly, messy, and time-consuming
process, which is why, for the past ninety years, progressive architects
have dreamed of standardised modern houses built on a production
line like cars and aircraft. Le Corbusier’s 1914 Citrohan house was an
early sketch. Buckminster Fuller dedicated twenty years to refining his
cylindrical aluminium Dymaxion house, only to abandon the project in
1946, just as production in a Kansas aircraft plant was about to begin.
Jean Prouvé manufactured two prototypes of a tropical house that were
air-shipped to French West Africa in 1951 (AR December 2005), but
he, too, was soon out of business.
Prefabrication is commonplace in the building industries of Sweden,
Japan, and the US but the product is usually an ersatz historicism.
Only the humble trailer home has enjoyed commercial success as an
unadorned steel module. However, the goal of making good design
more affordable by rationalising construction has always remained in
view, and there has been a surge of activity in the US over the past
three years. Consumer magazines have hosted design competitions,
promoted prize-winning models, and found firms to produce them.
In San Francisco, Michelle Kaufmann could barely afford to build a
simple house on-site for herself and her husband, but is now producing
two factory-built versions of that one-off structure. In LA, Jennifer
Siegal’s Office of Mobile Design is developing innovative solutions and
the partnership of Linda Taalman and Alan Koch has just completed
Modules for living
The advantages of prefabrication have yet to be translated into decent architecture,
but in California, cradle of the modern house, experimentation goes on to provide elegant,
economical dwellings that have a viability beyond the prototype stage.
1
The prototypical Desert
House, designed for Leo
Marmol and his wife, that
shows prospective buyers
what to expect.
2
Elegantly minimal, but
64 | 3 entirely prefabricated.
its first prefabricated iT house. This sleek aluminium-framed glass
pavilion can be customised with one of several artist-designed vinyl
skins, which provide shade, privacy, and a distinctive signature.
Now, the LA design-build firm of Marmol Radziner, best-known for
its restoration of classic modern houses by Neutra, Schindler and John
Lautner, has joined in the quest. To show potential buyers what they
can expect, Leo Marmol experimented on himself and his wife. Their
recently completed weekend house in Desert Hot Springs was fabricated
by a company that specialises in commercial work, and it doubles as a
prototype for the houses that they will soon be manufacturing themselves
in a factory in Vernon in south-central LA. If you didn’t know it had
been trucked in as a set of 10 modules that were lowered into place with
a mobile crane and bolted together, you’d think it was one of the sleek,
minimalist houses the firm builds on-site.
‘Prefabrication is not an end in itself but a means of creating an
affordable modern living environment,’ insists Marmol. A path leads up
a gentle rise from the detached car port to a flight of shallow steps and
recessed entry. Low-slung silvery boxes and covered decks are mounted
on a recessed concrete foundation and the delicacy of the steel posts
and glazing bars contribute to the illusion that the house is floating
over the desert floor. Expansive windows open the interior up to long
vistas and walkways frame the mountains. A rubber membrane creates
a thermal barrier between the metal cladding and wood-lined interior.
Desert House floor plan (scale approx 1:500)
1

2
 3
Desert
House under
construction.
4
Trucking
in the
prefabricated
modules.
5
The Desert
House
extends
California’s
modern
house lineage.
6
Luxe living,
achieved
through
intelligent
3 economy of
design and
construction.

deluxe model: 8 modules $630 100

advanced model: 6 modules $465 700

An entry hall separates the master bedroom from the kitchen-dining-

living area, which opens onto a covered terrace and pool. A walkway
leads to the guest bedroom and a detached studio, which are set at
an angle to the main house. In its lightness and fusion of indoors and
outdoors, it evokes Neutra’s sixty-year-old Kaufman house, which the
firm restored in the mid 1990s.
In planning their prefab menu of four basic models, ranging in
size from 61 to 242sqm plus extensive deck areas, Marmol Radziner
tried to avoid the mistakes that have bedevilled other attempts at
standardisation. By creating modules rather than a kit of posts and
intermediate model: 3 modules $295 000
panels, they can undertake ninety per cent of the fabrication in their
factory. The recycled steel frames assure rigidity and minimise the
need for solid walls. The size of the modules (17m long and about 4m
square), is the largest volume allowed on California highways without
costly waivers. Wiring, plumbing and cabinetry are built in, and the web
site (www.marmolradzinerprefab.com) allows buyers to upgrade the standard
offerings of equipment, flooring, and colours. They can build their own
foundations, secure permits and pick up the modules at the factory door,
or turn everything over to the architects for a comprehensive service.
Cost for full assembly is around $2700 per sqm, which comes in at the
midpoint between the least expensive prefab offerings and the ground-
up houses this firm builds.
For the customer, this system of prefabrication is like ordering a car, intermediate model: 3 modules $295 000
selecting colours and options, then coming back a few months later
and driving it away. That’s a big saving in time, hassle and cost, and
the final price is set in advance. The best of the prefabricated houses
are environmentally friendly, save on the waste of materials and site
traffic, and minimise the inconvenience of construction to neighbours.
But their impact on the housebuilding market is likely to be minimal
until a major developer decides to embrace this intelligent, economical
alternative to current archaic practices. MICHAEL WEBB
66 | 3 All photographs by David Glomb except 3 & 4 basic model: 2 modules $215 000
5

6
ar march 04 barkow done 5/4/04 12:17 PM
With 6000 employees worldwide,
Trumpf AG is one of the great
German postwar manufacturing
success stories, prospering in the
heavily industrialized heartland of
Swabia around Stuttgart. As such,
Trumpf’s management has pursued
a bold architectural mission that
matches the company’s leading
edge reputation in laser technology
and machine tools. In particular, it
has cultivated a fruitful relationship
with architects Barkow Leibinger,
who have been involved in
spearheading Trumpf’s rapid
international expansion in
Germany, Switzerland, the US, and
latterly in Italy, Slovakia and the
Czech Republic.
The Berlin-based partnership
has been responsible for the
masterplanning and design of an
evolving Trumpf research and
production campus. In 1999, it
designed a manufacturing plant for
laser technology at the company’s
headquarters in Stuttgart-
Ditzingen and a year later, a
Systems Technology plant was
added. The new 9000m2
Distribution and Service Centre is
the third phase of the expansion
plan. The results have given
Trumpf an increasingly
recognizable architectural image,
following the model of other
German corporations – for
instance Vitra, Rimowa
(Grimshaw) or the Ernsting family
(Chipperfield), which have
animated their industrial sites with
notable buildings.
The latest addition to the
Trumpf Campus presented the
architects with their greatest
challenge to date. The site is at an
odd corner and borders directly
on to a busy motorway, not an
D ISTRIBUTION AND SERVICE CENTRE ,
S TUTTGART -D ITZINGEN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
B ARKOW L EIBINGER
STEPPING
STONES
An attempt to make urban architecture
62 | 3 on a very difficult and disjointed site.
Page 62
auspicious location for a building
intended to serve as a place for
welcoming clients and guests. The
conundrum was resolved by astute
massing and subdivision of
volumes. As you walk up the gentle
slope, past the administrative and
research buildings from the ’70s,
the new building’s layered
structure comes into view. The
landscape is marked by generously
spaced steps, with each threshold
highlighted by long strips of laser-
cut metal plates that
chronologically document the
company’s meteoric rise and
expansion. So even before they
cross this entrance platform,
visitors have subconsciously
absorbed some corporate history.
The lines of the steps extend
into the ground floor, demarcating
the three main functions of the
entrance area (lobby, 200 seat
auditorium and exhibition space).
The resulting polygonal shapes are
arranged in a strong, almost
sculptural, relationship to each
other. Barkow Leibinger refer
metaphorically to those three
ground floor volumes as ‘stones’.
Interrupted only by floor to ceiling
window openings, their solid grey
basalt facades exude a monumental
yet precisely aligned verticality.
Inside, a generous longitudinal
corridor connects the stones. A
metal relief, cut using the most
advanced Trumpf machinery, runs
along the entire length of the
ground floor corridor, concealing
the large exhaust air ducts which
service the ground floor. With its
decorative yet functional spirit, this
part of the building is reminiscent
of a cultural institution or
university. Gaps between stones
are filled by a pair of reinforced- 1
2 3
Besprechung Garderobe WC
Foyer
WC WC Teeküche
Foyer Saal
1
Glazed office block seems to float above
more massive, stone-clad volumes.
2
Entrance courtyard.
3
New building addresses busy
motorway, forming beacon for
long section industrial campus beyond. 63 | 3
ar march 04 barkow done 5/4/04
concrete cores which stabilize the
two parallel office wings above.
Though taking up the same basic
footprint (55 x 9m), the wings are
offset against each other by 11m
and vary both in height and in the
number of storeys. There is a
striking contrast between the light,
transparent horizontal structure of
the office floors and the solid
verticality of the stones below.
Glazed, double-skinned facades on
the north and south sides screen
the building as much as enhance its
pervading impression of lightness.
Each of the 500m2 office floors
(four on the north and five on the
south side), are open-plan, column-
cross section with energy use strategy
D ISTRIBUTION AND SERVICE
CENTRE , S TUTTGART -
D ITZINGEN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
B ARKOW L EIBINGER
64 | 3 site plan
12:17 PM Page 64
free spaces with only a couple of
meeting rooms on each floor. Split-
level offices are connected by
gracefully rising staircases. Space
flows fluidly, with daylight flooding
in, and natural cross ventilation
utilizes the open cores as thermal
stacks, with passive cooling during
the summer months and heat
recovery during the winter.
Offices appear as calm,
uncluttered spaces, but are also
thoughtfully detailed and highly
practical. Their economical
organization arose from Barkow
Leibinger’s collaboration with
engineering scientists at the
Fraunhofer Institute and furniture
1 main entrance
2 entrance hall
3 auditorium
4 offices
manufacturer Vitra. Empirical and Architect
Barkow Leibinger Architekten, Berlin
analytical studies were used to
Structural engineers
devise a special type of office Conzett, Bronzoni, Gartmann;
furniture that greatly reduced Boll & Partner
individual filing space but added Mechanical engineers
Transsolar; Henne & Walter, Reutlingen
other features; for instance, a Landscape consultant
writing desk that can be pulled out. Gabi Kiefer
The understated colour scheme of Photographs
Margherita Spiluttini
grey furniture, green fabric screens
and brown felt wall coverings adds
to the elegant, workmanlike 4
Parallel office blocks linked by stairs.
internal atmosphere. 5, 7
This latest building consolidates A metal relief, cut using Trumpf
machinery, animates the entrance
Barkow Leibinger’s relationship hall on ground floor.
with Trumpf; the next phase of 6
Interiors are calm, light and
corporate campus development is workmanlike.
8
eagerly awaited. Offices are a triumph of functional
CHRISTIAN BRENSING economy.
first floor 4 5
6 7
1 3
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) 65 | 10
ar march 04 gehry done 5/4/04 12:10 PM Page 54

C ONCERT HALL ,
L OS A NGELES , USA

GEHRY’S GREAT CONCERTO

Los Angeles making it a place to visit rather than drive through.
The Disney Concert Hall has radically transformed a block of downtown
ARCHITECT
G EHRY P ARTNERS

1
Downtown Los Angeles has never
looked so good. Curved surfaces
reflect light and sky, and lead to
new vistas. 1
ar march 04 gehry done 5/4/04 12:10 PM Page 56
From the first solo notes of The Star-Spangled Banner, sung by jazz
vocalist Dianne Reeves in spotlight at centre stage, to the final
crescendo of the entire LA Philharmonic expressing the energy and
shock of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, the inaugural performance at the
Walt Disney Concert Hall was a calibrated workout for both music
and architecture. This is a hall where music in its various iterations
seems remarkably at home with an audience sometimes gathered
vertiginously in the round.
For a building instantaneously acclaimed as a vanguard masterpiece,
the Walt Disney Concert Hall is surprisingly traditional. True, its
giant external petals of stainless-steel cladding are wonderful amid
the isolated towers of Downtown. From afar, they glisten and reflect
the sky, then taunt – like the cape of some ingenious
sculptor/matador – and swoop away when viewed up-close. Thrilling
to drive past, the Hall’s cladding plays a sophisticated game of
concave and convex surfaces that, unlike the mostly opaque walls of
the Baroque, contain reflections of light and sky and lead the eye out
to newly framed aspects of adjacent buildings. Downtown Los
Angeles has never looked so good.
Being LA, concertgoers inevitably arrive by car, leaving the garage
by a red escalator lobby topped by one of many fractured skylights.
As with Hans Hollein’s concoction, and that of Stirling and Wilford in
the original competition back in 1988, Gehry’s building takes
advantage of its slightly raised site to play with metaphors of Greek
Acropolis and German stadtkrone. (Fourth invitee Gottfried Böhm’s
proposal, also stadtkrone-like, was more akin to a Wagnerian
gasworks.) Surrounded by heavily trafficked streets, the orthogonal
C ONCERT HALL , L OS
A NGELES , USA
A RCHITECT
G EHRY P ARTNERS
long section
56 | 3 cross section
site dips from an easterly corner – the formal and photogenic entry
court – to the west, where a steel ribbon canopy signals entry to
REDCAT, the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater, a
supplementary arts space accommodated within the parking
structure as it rises above street level.
In the 1980s, the acropolis of eclectic elements was characteristic
of such playful urban works as Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie in
Stuttgart (AR December 1984), Hollein’s Abteiberg Museum in
Mönchengladbach (AR December 1982), and Gehry’s own Loyola
University Law School on a flat site just west of Downtown LA.
Nevertheless, Gehry’s virtuosity and experimentation allowed for his
inclusion, alongside a younger generation, in the New York
Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition (also 1988), with its ambitions
to forge a hyper-Modernist avant-garde. Seldom prone to theorizing,
Gehry’s office further developed in the 1990s away from shards and
violent fragmentation to a volumetric architecture of dynamic
surfaces engendered (as with the Bilbao Guggenheim, AR December
1997) by evolving computer technology.
Perhaps because of this long gestation period, the Walt Disney
Concert Hall – in particular the auditorium and the office blocks
exposed on the plinth – retains Gehry’s earlier concern with a
Cubistic assemblage of objects together with an emerging ability to
drape space with complexly shaped membranes. Although a large
public greenhouse has been lost, auditorium massing still shifts from
the axial coordinates of the urban block, setting up a tension that is
partially held in check by orthogonal, stone-clad office
accommodation to south and west. 2
2
Organic forms poised on
orthogonal masonry base that
responds to urban grid.
3, 4
The gardens and paths lifted above
street level offer a whole new public
3
realm of complexity and delight. 57 | 3
ar march 04 gehry done 5/4/04 12:10 PM Page 58

1 future café
2 drop off C ONCERT HALL ,
3 platform pits
4 REDCAT theatre L OS A NGELES , USA
5 plant ARCHITECT
6 future restaurant
7 Philharmonic store G EHRY P ARTNERS
8 concert hall
9 lobby
5
10 choral hall
The great formal entrance at
11 pre-concert
street level is relatively little used
12 founders’ room
because most opera-goers arrive
13 dressing rooms
by car and park underground.
14 offices
15 gardens
16 open-air stage
17 east atrium
18 west atrium

orchestra level +16ft (4.93m)

lobby level 0 (scale approx 1:725)

58 | 3 5
ar march 04 gehry done 5/4/04 12:10 PM Page 60

1 future café C ONCERT HALL ,

2 drop off
3 platform pits L OS A NGELES , USA
4 REDCAT theatre ARCHITECT
5 plant
6 future restaurant G EHRY P ARTNERS
7 Philharmonic store
8 concert hall
9 lobby 6
10 choral hall Each landing or corridor is
11 pre-concert intended to be a viewing terrace,
12 founders’ room like the ones in Scharoun’s
13 dressing rooms Philharmonie.
14 offices
15 gardens
16 open-air stage
17 east atrium
18 west atrium

gallery level +50ft (15.45m)

60 | 3 garden level +34ft (10.51m) 6 61 | 10

ar march 04 gehry done 5/4/04 12:10 PM Page 62
In essence, Gehry sheathes a timber box in stainless steel. Dancing about
this protected auditorium, the steel peels away to create entrances and
windows. It also bubbles upward to shelter two extraordinary satellite
rooms: a bar with curving timber sides (a hip descendant of Aalto’s 1939
New York Pavilion?) and the dramatic Founders’ Room, where gigantic
petals of plaster are sucked upwards into a vortex of glass and steel far
above. In 1988, Gehry had envisaged the auditorium as a stacked stone
ziggurat. Intervening years and budgets entailed the switch to metal, but
the Founders’ Room – part stupa, part air sock – retains a formal
independence through its unique shape and through the selection of a
shinier external steel panel.
The new building spills out and mutates into various intriguing shapes
onto Grand Avenue, within easy strolling distance of Arata Isozaki’s
Museum of Contemporary Art. To the west, the city streets dip down to
expose largely impenetrable walls, save for the REDCAT corner entrance,
to the parking structure (these immediate streets function primarily as
feeder arteries to the LA freeway system). Above, however, Gehry has
created a whimsical public garden, terraces with eccentric planting and
paving and a small, hooded amphitheatre that take advantage (like Rafael
Moneo’s parvis to his cathedral a few blocks to the north, AR March 2003)
of LA’s surprising topological richness.
At intermission or just before a performance, the audience can happily
colonize both these raised gardens and the concatenation of lift shafts,
open staircases, and stacked decks threaded through the residual spaces
located between auditorium and outermost shell. In principle, each landing
or access corridor becomes a viewing terrace, augmenting the excitement
of a special evening out. These entrails reveal Gehry’s empirical ability, or
perhaps his seemingly casual Californian stance, in the resolution of
complex practical and spatial issues. Nevertheless, during inauguration
festivities, some first-time visitors to the Concert Hall had difficulty
orientating themselves through these interstitial zones.
As at Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonie, this flow of circulation
towards the primary performance space is deliberately a performance in
itself: exposed, mobile, and interactive. Gehry’s original intention for many
balconies fanning out from the stage, again kin to Scharoun’s metaphor of
vineyard terraces at the Philharmonie, has been curtailed as acoustic and
other realities have been integrated into his design. The auditorium, as
built, is closer to the rectilinear box of Vienna’s historic Musikverein or
Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. Its flanks are essentially twin flat surfaces,
but surfaces with projections and perforated to allow access in many
different locations.
The interior is lined or draped in timber, mostly Douglas fir, evoking
further allusions or similes: ambitions for the auditorium to feel like a
nautical vessel and be like a musical instrument itself. The 2265 seats are
Architect
Gehry Partners, Los Angeles
Principal project team
Frank Gehry, James Glymph, Craig Webb, Terry Bell,
David Pakshong, William Childers, David Hardie,
Kristin Woehl
Structural engineer
John A. Martin & Associates
Electrical engineer
Frederick Russell Brown
Mechanical engineer
Levine/Seegel Associates
Acoustic consultant
Nagata Acoustics
Lighting design
L’observatoire International
Landscape design
Lawrence Reed Moline; Melinda Taylor Landscape Design
Theatre consultants
Theatre Projects
Photographs
John E. Linden/Arcaid except
62 | 3 7 and 8 by Hufton + Crow/VIEW
distributed symmetrically, mostly across a raked orchestra area in front of C ONCERT HALL ,
the stage or on a pincer-shaped balcony above. Yet a significant number L OS A NGELES , USA
occupy bow-fronted stalls to either side of the stage; skinny concave ARCHITECT
balconies projecting from three levels above; or tiered terraces behind the G EHRY P ARTNERS
stage that part to either side of a 6125-pipe organ. With pipes stylized by
Gehry to appear like rods on the verge of fission, this organ may well be a 7, 8
contemporary counterpart to some Baroque monstrance or mural of The great timber box, with its
dramatic views of the sky.
ascending angels.
This Baroque sensibility is not merely emotional or ‘artistic’. The
building lies directly across First Street from the Dorothy Chandler
Pavilion (completed by Welton Becket and Associates in 1964) whose
convex if imperious sides set up a curvilinear momentum in the immediate
context. In Gehry’s foyer areas, visitors seem naturally to navigate about
the timbered hull of the auditorium, and towards natural light as it filters
past sections of ceiling and the swoosh of balustrades – both plastered
white to read as comparatively subsidiary elements. Columns are also
theatrical, timber-clad like the auditorium, but bursting apart into gigantic
stems or branches that house uplights.
The organic theme continues inside where all seats are upholstered in a
vividly patterned and coloured fabric, a floral abstraction that Gehry
designed in tribute to the late Lillian Disney, widow of Walt Disney and
donor of the initial $50 million gift to a then-hypothetical project in 1987.
Surprisingly decorative or Pop, these seats must perform to the same
acoustic standards whether occupied or not. Working with acoustician
Yasuhisa Toyota, the Gehry team constructed tenth-scale models of the
hall to test sound performance. Above audience and performers alike, an
inner ceiling droops downwards in sail-like sleeves that both help disperse
sound and secrete necessary technical apparatus. The timber sheathing of
the interior – stage floor, balustrades, perimeter walls, billowing soffit –
contributes greatly to the remarkable intimacy of the Walt Disney
auditorium. The LA Philharmonic knows it must attract a new and younger
following; and Gehry’s architecture, or the building achieved by Gehry’s
team, deliberately eschews the formal, hierarchical ethos of most previous
buildings of the type.
Behind the musicians, when they assume their orthodox semi-circular
formation, light seeps in to either side of the organ and the ceiling clearly
floats free of rear internal walls. During the splendid inaugural concert, as a
lone trumpeter performed Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question from
the centre of the uppermost terrace farthest away from conductor and
orchestra, a screen or blind ascended behind to allow views out (through
another crystalline window) to the blue night sky, connecting music lovers
in the belly of the auditorium with the cosmos outside. This is Los Angeles,
after all, the city in which dream and reality are most conspicuously mixed.
RAYMUND RYAN
7 8
ar apr 04 behnisch #10 done 24/5/04 12:10 pm Page 59

H EADQUARTERS BUILDING , C AMBRIDGE ,

M ASSACHUSETTS , USA
ARCHITECT
B EHNISCH , B EHNISCH & P ARTNER

LUMINOUS PARADIGM
The Genzyme Center brings transforming imagination to US
office design, adding environmental and human dimensions.

1
Externally, the Genzyme Center
conforms to a rigorous masterplan and
does not seem revolutionary.
2
Glazed curtain walls have tracts of
openable windows and deep cavities
with various blinds and curtains. 59 | 4
ar apr 04 behnisch #10 done 24/5/04 12:11 pm Page 60
Seen in passing, the Genzyme Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts
does not seem particularly revolutionary. It looks very much like
another glass-clad corporate headquarters, even if its profile and
massing are slightly unusual, and its cladding is strangely varied.
On the edge of the city near Longfellow Bridge and Broad Canal, it
forms part of a new development on an abandoned industrial site.
Genzyme is one of the first of seven new buildings being built to a
masterplan by Urban Strategies of Toronto that determined overall
envelope and massing.
Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner of Stuttgart, and of Venice, California
are the architects of the Genzyme Center. Their proposal was
selected in competition, yet the development of the USA’s first large
environmentally aware office block was created in intimate
collaboration with the developer client, Lyme Properties LLC and
tenants, the Genzyme Corporation. Dan Winny of Lyme explains
that, at competition stage, they did not select the Behnisch practice
because the developers wanted to make a green building, but because
they were attracted to ‘the quality and freshness of the European
design work’. During the competition, in which the by then probable
tenants Genzyme were involved on the jury, it became clear that the
Behnisch proposal was what Winny calls ‘a concept for a radically
different type of innovative building based on principles of
responsible energy use … maximizing the environmental quality of
the workplace’. In other words, the Center was to be built to
principles now commonly accepted in the German-speaking lands and
Scandinavia.
But the Behnisch building is far more than a conventional transfer
of European values across the Atlantic. Its central atrium is literally
breathtaking, a joyous paean of luminous space, with which the office
floors engage in terraces, balconies and platforms. The complex
social life of the office is revealed as you look up, with open-plan
offices (American style but involving low cubicles) mingled with
private (though usually transparently walled) individual rooms, open
H EADQUARTERS BUILDING , C AMBRIDGE ,
M ASSACHUSETTS , USA
ARCHITECT
B EHNISCH , B EHNISCH & P ARTNER
3
Foyer with Behnisch trademark grand stair.
Light enters from top and sides and is
reflected by chandeliers and pools.
60 | 4 site plan
stairs linking particular floors to encourage formation of vertical as
well as horizontal forms of local office communities. The architects’
aim is to create vertical urbanity, with public and private spaces,
conference rooms, a cafeteria, and library and internal gardens to
clean and oxygenate the air. It is too early yet to see whether all
these measures will work, and particularly whether they will work
together. But early evidence is promising. In its optimism, the space is
highly reminiscent of Hertzberger’s Centraal Beheer when it first
opened as a brilliant and radical experiment in organizing offices that
respect individuals and small groups as well as the organization.
As far as possible, all workplaces receive daylight, either from the
perimeter or from the atrium. On clear days, the void is filled with
daylight that is transmitted down through the ceiling prism elements.
A system designed by the Austrian firm Bartenbach Lichtlabor involves
seven solar-tracking mirrors on the roof at the north side of the
atrium that reflect light to fixed mirrors on the south side, from where
the sun’s rays are deflected downwards to the pools at entrance level,
whence they shimmer upwards. (The system is not dissimilar to the
one used by Foster in the Hong Kong Bank, AR April 1986). On the
way down, sunlight is intercepted and deflected by the multiple
moving prism plates of roof-hung chandeliers. According to the angle
at which sunlight hits them, the plates reflect or transmit, distributing
sunshine into surrounding office spaces. The devices, with their ever-
changing patterns of sunlight, are one of the reasons why the space is
so breathtaking when you first see it. Its luminosity is further
enhanced by reflective balustrades and a lamellar wall on the south
side of the atrium: the vertical lamellae are moved to change the wall’s
reflectivity according to the angle of the sun and the nature of the sky.
Artificial and natural lighting are related by sensor systems that
slowly dim overhead lights when the atrium’s total luminosity is
appropriate. All workplaces have low-energy task-lights, which both
allow people to control their immediate environments and add to the
feeling that the building is a congregation of individual places.
section through entrance 3 61 | 10
ar apr 04 behnisch #10 done 24/5/04 12:11 pm Page 62

H EADQUARTERS BUILDING , C AMBRIDGE ,

M ASSACHUSETTS , USA
ARCHITECT
B EHNISCH , B EHNISCH & P ARTNER

4
Every effort is taken to increase
daylight penetration of office areas
with prismatic squares of chandeliers,
ceiling reflectors and reflective
balustrades.

principles of day- and sunlight penetration to atrium and offices

first floor 11th floor

62 | 4 ground floor (scale approx 1:900) 4th floor 4 63 | 10

ar apr 04 behnisch #10 done 24/5/04 12:12 pm Page 64
5 spaces particular.
As well as being a great light-chute, the atrium is the central element
in the building’s climate control system. It forms a huge waste-air
chimney. Fresh air reaches occupied areas from ceiling grilles, or
through the openable parts of the perimeter walls. Pressure
differentiation drives used air to the atrium, where it ascends to be
expelled at roof level. Energy for the heating and cooling system is
provided by steam from a small local power station two blocks away
from the site. In summer, the steam drives absorption chillers; in
winter, its heat is exchanged into heating for the building. Buro
Happold, who designed the climate control system, claim that there
are no distribution losses in this energy system, and that its emissions
are reduced by filters at the power plant. Energy-saving
considerations go even as far as rainwater handling: some of it is used
to supplement supplies to the cooling towers (saving city supplies)
and some feeds the landscaped roof.
Curtain walls wrap the perimeter (designed in conjunction with
Happold’s and Bartenbach Lichtlabor). Over all 12 floors, they have
openable windows that are linked to the building management system
H EADQUARTERS BUILDING , C AMBRIDGE ,
M ASSACHUSETTS , USA
ARCHITECT
B EHNISCH , B EHNISCH & P ARTNER
64 | 4 principles of interior climate control
that automatically opens them on cool summer nights to reduce the
temperature of the building. Over 30 per cent of the external
envelope is a ventilated double facade with a 4ft (1.22m) interstitial
space that acts as climate buffer. In winter, the voids capture solar
gains and re-radiate them to the interior. In summer, various shading
devices including adjustable sun protecting blinds and coloured
curtains reduce insolation. As the opening of windows and the
adjustment of the blinds are controlled by individuals, the building’s
appearance constantly changes in detail.
This external indication that users are valued and have some
control over their individual working conditions is echoed in sensitive
detailed handling of interior finishes and choice of furniture. The bits
you can touch are welcoming – cloth or wood, rather than plastic.
Cubicle walls are capable of much flexibility, not just for management
re-arrangements, but so that individuals can make their own work
The Genzyme Center is a truly brave building. Its realization of the
inspiring belief that North American offices can be made more decent
to work in than the usual dreary deep indoor prairies needed great
and unusual trust and vision between developer, tenant, architect and
all consultants. So did the notion that an environmentally friendly
building that costs more initially than its conventional equivalent will
eventually provide handsome paybacks for its developers, tenants and
occupants alike. It is an inspiring shift in the evolution of the office
building type, more inventive and integrated than almost anything yet
built, even in Europe. Every aspect of its performance should be
measured, and luckily there are lots of local academics just up the
road who are capable of doing the job.
The Genzyme Center is almost the complete opposite of normal
US office block produced by core-and-shell development, where
architectural efforts are so often perforce confined to decorating
exteriors. Here, an immense amount of creative energy has been
poured into the interior. Externally, the building is constrained by a
rather dumb masterplan. What could the Behnisch team have done
with it had they been given a freer hand? P. D.
Architect
Behnisch, Behnisch & Partner
Project team
Stefan Behnisch, Christof Jantzen,
Günther Schaller, Martin Werminghausen,
Maik Neumann
Executive architects
House & Robertson, Los Angeles: Douglas
Robertson, Nick Gillock, Patricia Schneider
Next Phase Studios, Boston: Richard Ames,
Scott Payette
Masterplanning
Ken Greenberg
Environmental consultancy, structural
and M/E/P/engineers
Buro Happold
Green building consultant
Natural Logic: Bill Reid
Planting interior gardens
Log ID
Natural and artificial lighting
Bartenbach Lichtlabor
Workspace design
DEGW: Frank Duffy
Photographs
Roland Halbe
5, 6
Trays and terraces of office
accommodation linked by open stairs
are intended to foster feelings of a
community of small groups. 6
ar apr 04 meier in rome done 5/4/04 12:53 PM
1 space of the church nave is contained. In a
Richard Meier’s Rome church is one event
originally planned to mark the celebrations
of the Jubilee of AD 2000. This was initiated
by the Pope in 1994 when he called for a
Special Consistory to prepare for the Great
Jubilee at the starting point of the third
millennium involving the Catholic world as a
whole. Meier’s project is the 50th church to
be inaugurated in the Vatican’s Millennium
Project. Each church has a community centre
and they are built in various parish districts
throughout Rome.
The Jubilee Church commission was the
result of an international competition, and
the Vatican’s shortlist included Meier, Gehry,
Behnisch, Calatrava, Eisenman and Ando.
The award of the project to Meier was
controversial from the outset, in that Meier
as a Jew would be working with the foremost
Catholic client – the Vatican itself. However,
the relationship and the resultant complex
are a triumph of this collaboration, and
INSTRUMENT OF LIGHT
Richard Meier’s long awaited church in Rome is
a beautifully honed giver and receiver of light.
C HURCH , R OME , I TALY
ARCHITECT
48 | 4 R ICHARD M EIER
Page 48
entirely successful in architecture of
outstanding optimism.
The church, named Dio Padre
Misericordioso (God our Merciful Father) by
Pope John Paul II, was consecrated and
inaugurated on 26 October 2003 by Cardinal
Camillo Ruini in a four-hour service of
celebration, music and ritual. This was
attended by a huge congregation both within
the church itself and externally on the
church piazza.
The church is in an ordinary 1970s
10-storey housing quarter at Tor Tre Teste,
a suburb at some distance from the centre of
the city. Taken together, church and
community centre form a spectacular new
focus in an otherwise low-key suburban
environment, and define both a religious
precinct and a heartening sense of place.
Meier has said that ‘… expression of
aspiration, hope and belief, as well as
openness and transparency are all aspects of
the ideas behind the design of this church’. It 1
In a nondescript suburb of Rome, the
is a wonderful gift to the whole community church is a glowing beacon composed
of overlapping, shell-like forms.
of more than 25 000 people. 2
The fan-shaped site is approached directly Main east entrance. The concrete
shells are anchored by a spine wall.
from the east across a travertine paved
entrance piazza (sagrato), which extends as a
base to the church on the south and west of
the precinct. The entrance is marked by
several external features including a silver
cross, and a campanile with exposed bells –
the tower marking out both the church to
the south and the community centre to the
north. The generous entrance hall, defined
by a travertine screen wall, is partly enclosed
within by a raised organ loft. Once in the
nave, the main altar is immediately visible at
the west end. Although unconventional, this
position is a logical result of the frontal
eastern entrance.
Plan-form and section are extremely clear.
Three circles of equal radius create three
concrete shells to the south and together
with a thick spine wall to the north, the main
contrasting, plain L plan around a sunken
courtyard, is the community centre, on four
levels. The centre is separated from the main
church by a linear top-lit atrium.
The plan of the church is essentially
traditional with nave, altar, side chapel and
confessional booths. Introduction of the
three shells transforms the project and
implies the Holy Trinity. Natural light is the
major theme, with skylights between each
shell and over the main space, creating ever
changing patterns within. Meier has referred
to this as ‘… a luminous spatial experience
… the rays of sunlight serve as a mystic
metaphor of the presence of God’.
Curving in both plan and in section, the
three shell wall planes are the real tour de
force in the whole project. They are
sweeping vertical cantilevers formed with
panels of beautiful white concrete with a
finish so fine that it resembles marble.
Meier’s description of the engineering
effort involved in erecting the shells as
site plan 2 49 | 4
ar apr 04 meier in rome done 5/4/04 12:54 PM Page 50

cross section longitudinal section

1 meeting room
2 courtyard
3 community centre
4 main (east) entrance
5 campanile
6 nave
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500) 7 altar second floor
8 side chapel
9 confessionals
10 organ loft
11 priest’s offices
12 pastoral residence
13 kitchen
14 bedrooms

3
The calm, luminous interior. The
limited palette of materials (white
concrete, travertine and timber) and
studied absence of ornamentation
50 | 4 basement first floor enhances the air of serenity. 3 51 | 4
ar apr 04 meier in rome done 5/4/04 12:54 PM
‘Herculean’, underlines the task involved
in the achievement of the cantilevers.
(They are prefabricated post-tensioned
concrete panels.)
The three shells, or arcs, form a massive
instrument of light – the most monumental
gesture of Meier’s whole repertoire – and
embody the sacred space at the heart of the
church. In contemplating the design, Meier
has referred to both Le Corbusier at
Ronchamp and especially to Aalto and the
Church of the Three Crosses in Finland.
Aalto’s church at Riola, near Bologna, came
to mind in visiting the Jubilee Church.
The interior space and materiality of the
main nave and side-chapel are serene and
beautifully crafted. The limited range of
materials – travertine, white concrete and
light wood – predominates and there is
currently an absence of any decoration. The
white concrete shells contrast with the
travertine and slatted wood of the spine wall;
otherwise the nave is occupied only by the
simple ranges of wooden pews. The white
stucco organ loft with its silver clusters of
pipes, and the sculpted white altar, form
counterpoints at the two ends.
The altar plinths and furniture are all
formed in the same travertine as the nave
floor. Each element of the furniture is
exemplary, and some items such as the
casket for communion wafers (a gold box in
the side chapel) are quite exquisite. The only
concession to tradition is a nineteenth-
century cross above the main altar.
At night, the whole church is a giver of
light to the outer world and again the three
shells, and the transparent ends of the
church, give a spectacular signal of a sacred
entity within the community.
The community centre has its main
approach from the eastern church sagrato
C HURCH , R OME , I TALY
ARCHITECT
R ICHARD M EIER
52 | 4 origin of plan geometry
Page 52
through the central linear atrium. Secondary
entrances are provided from two courtyards.
The basement holds the major meeting hall
(Sale di Riunione) adjacent to the sunken
courtyard. Both courts are intended for
staging community events associated with
the church.
Upper levels include the parish priest’s
offices and catechism rooms. The second
floor houses the pastor’s residence and the
kitchen. The residence incorporates a
splendid living room with a raised ceiling and
top light, and includes a brick hearth and
fireplace. It has fine views of the parish:
housing and the community at large.
The western half of the site includes
discreetly placed parking and a landscaped
area, within rising walled ground, planted
with olive trees. The whole of the secular
4
precinct and the community centre is in
white stucco, with the north elevation
enlivened by balconies. The minimal nature
4
of the centre is an appropriate contrast to Detail of organ loft.
the exuberance of the main church. 5
Both literally and metaphorically,
Although this is Meier’s first church, the the church is a giver and receiver
parti of the plan and section are unique of light.
within his work, and the beautiful white
precast concrete walls of the shells a
resounding success in the use of materials
and structure. This church is truly part of the
twenty-first century – a new landmark and
place of pilgrimage for the faithful.
IVOR RICHARDS
Architect
Richard Meier & Partners, New York
Structural engineers
Ove Arup and Partners, Italcementi
Mechanical engineers
Ove Arup and Partners, Luigi Dell’Aquila
Lighting consultants
FMRS, Erco
Photographs
Edmund Sumner/VIEW
axonometric projection 5 53 | 4

COTTBUS
KALEIDOSCOPE
This library enlivens both the campus and civic realm of
a former industrial centre striving to reinvent itself.
Cottbus, a banal industrial
city near the Polish border, is
worth a fast hour’s drive on the
autobahn from Berlin for its
quirky Jugendstil theatre, and as
an incentive to continue on to
Wroclaw (the former Breslau),
a repository of classic modern
buildings. Head south, and you
can stay overnight at Lobau in
Hans Scharoun’s 1933 Haus
Schminke. Herzog & de Meuron’s
new university library deserves
its place in this pantheon, as
an example of how the Swiss
partnership fuse rigorous analysis
with poetic beauty.
64 | 4
2
Located near the main entrance to 1
The sinuous volume of
Brandenburg Technical University, the library is wrapped
an institution founded in 1991 in a double layer of
glass silk screened
to help reinvigorate the decrepit with letters that form
shell of this workers’ paradise, a visual babble.
2
the new library serves as a bridge Like a monumental
between town and gown. It is Aalto vase, the library
commands its campus
also a symbol of transparency site, formerly a
university sports field.
and free expression, in a way that 3
the uniform campus buildings Main entrance and
detail of shimmering,
are not. By day, it shimmers on a alphabetic cladding.
grassy knoll (a former sports field)
just off Karl-Marx Strasse, the
undulating folds of screen-printed
glass reflecting every passing cloud;
at night, it’s a beacon. The organic
form narrows and swells as you
3
LIBRARY AND MEDIA CENTRE ,
COTTBUS , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
HERZOG & DE M EURON 65 | 4
 4 5 6 7

move around it, and the curved
bays flow into the landscape,
creating a strong sense of place.
It also has scale and substance, in
contrast to the same architects’
Allianz Stadium in Munich (AR
June 2005) which resembles a
huge balloon that might deflate if
punctured by some hooligan.
As Herzog & de Meuron
demonstrated in the recent
exhibition of their work at the
Schaulager in Basel and later at the
Tate Modern (AR July 2005), every
project begins with study models,
and a consideration of materials.
The library plan morphed from a
circular disc of acrylic into a series
of amoeba-like shapes that were on top of one another, here the
determined, as the architects insist, floors are cut away to provide
by ‘a purposeful configuration of a diversity of spaces, each with
many different flows of movement a distinct character, and each a
… and their ability to reorganise part of a single interior volume.
and restructure urban space’. Some reading areas are two
The shape generates a sensuous or three stories high and are
presence in a relentlessly bathed in natural light from the
orthogonal frame, while sides and above, while others
maximising the exposure of the have intentionally low ceilings to
interior to natural light and views. provide intimacy and enclosure.
That spirit of joy and A sober palette of white
exuberance is sustained and grey fosters concentration,
throughout the seven-storey but the circulation areas at the
building. In contrast to most centre are an explosion of colour.
libraries, in which reading areas Floors are painted in ultra vibrant
are ranged around a core of stripes that are reflected in the
books and stacked repetitively cross section metal ceilings and shelves. These
coruscating hues are picked up
in the cylindrical lift, and a 6m-
diameter spiral stair that drills
through the building like a giant
corkscrew. When viewed from
below it becomes a pink and green
hallucinogenic vortex, but is also,
more prosaically, a vertical street
on which students and staff can
linger to chat.
Patterned skins are a Herzog &
de Meuron signature, and there’s
a fascinating contrast between
the figurative facades of etched
glass and concrete in their library
at Eberswalde, an hour north
of Berlin, and the abstraction of
Cottbus. Its glazed shell is printed
on both sides with words in 4
Entrance hall and
different tongues and alphabets, main reception. Pink
superimposed to become a predominates.
5
meta language. The two layers Typical double-
height reading area,
of silk-screened dots achieve penetrated by the pink
a moiré effect that softens the and green corkscrew
staircase.
expanses of glass, blocks glare, and 6
screens out distractions. Night- Coruscating hues
animate the interior.
time illumination is provided by 7
corkscrew chandeliers supporting The vortex becomes a
place of interaction.
corkscrew bulbs which transforms
the building into a glowing
organism, enticing the studious
into its depths. MICHAEL WEBB
Architect
Herzog & de Meuron, Basel
Photographs
Monika Nikolic

1 main entrance
2 entrance hall
8 3 café
4 4 reading rooms
4
8 5 book stacks
7 4 6 offices
4 5 7 study carrels
8 void
4

8
5 5
4 8
2 6 4
5

location plan 1

4
4
8
LIBRARY AND MEDIA CENTRE ,
COTTBUS , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
66 | 4 HERZOG & DE MEURON lower ground floor ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1250) first floor second floor 67 | 4
 Since 1901, department store
chain Peek & Cloppenburg has
been a fixture in the lives of
German shoppers, beginning life
as a gentleman’s outfitter in Berlin
and thence expanding into ladies’
wear and city centres across
Germany. Fortunes foundered
following the Second World War,
when not a single P & C store
survived unscathed, but the firm
doggedly rebuilt and reestablished
itself. Now it has over 65 stores in
Germany and nurtures wider pan
European ambitions, with outlets
in Belgium, the Netherlands and
Austria, as well as the emerging
eastern markets of Poland,
Slovakia and Russia.
Acutely aware of the power
of image to help shift goods,
Peek & Cloppenburg’s forays into
imaginative architectural patronage
have included buildings by
Kleihues, Meier, Gottfried Böhm
and most recently, Renzo Piano,
whose new store in Cologne was
finally completed last year. Wedged
CATHEDRAL OF COMMERCE
This new department store is a monumental
shop window with wider urban ambitions.
1
The bulbous
prow of the new
store has quickly
become a new
Cologne landmark.
2
God and Mammon
– the store lies
opposite the late
Gothic church of
DEPARTMENT STORE , St Antoniterkirche.
3
COLOGNE , G ERMANY The great glass
ARCHITECT frontage surges
and swells around a
RENZO PIANO BUILDING more conventional
60 | 4 WORKSHOP 1 orthogonal block.
between a busy shopping district
and a raucous arterial road,
the site, near the city’s famous
cathedral, was not auspiciously
favoured. Neighbours consisted
largely of glum concrete refugees
from the 1970s, their civic
monotony briefly enlivened by the
presence of St Antoniterkirche, a
late Gothic church.
Such circumstances called for
some kind of bold yet generous
gesture that could rise above
its surroundings. Piano exceeds
expectations with a swelling
glazed protuberance, five
storeys high, that slinks around
a more conventional orthogonal
block, enfolding it in a sinuous,
shimmering embrace. Resembling
a monumental orangery, albeit
with its proportions fashionably
warped and morphed, the 130m
long vitreous volume surges fluidly
along Schildergasse, dipping in
deference to St Antoniterkirche,
before gathering and climaxing
in an almost obscenely bulbous
3 61 | 4
outcrop that has quickly become a
new Cologne landmark.
In some ways, it is simply
a glorified, superscale shop
window, but it also has wider
urban ambitions. The sleek,
serpentine flank defines the edge
of a new pedestrianised public
square in front of the church and
provides a modicum of dignity
to the entrance to a motorway
underpass that cuts underneath
the site. Moreover, as a feat of
construction, it embodies Piano’s
characteristic inventiveness,
riffing on technologies of timber
and glass that first found more
2
modest expression with the IBM
Travelling Pavilion (AR November
1984). Here, towering arched
glulam ribs made from lamella of
Siberian larch lock into a gently
curved steel spinal ridge girder.
The timber ribs are tied back to
the building’s concrete frame by
a secondary steel structure and
lateral bracing is provided by a
cat’s cradle of tensile wires.

The undulating form dictated
that nearly all of the facade’s
7000 glazing panels are unique
components, yet such apparently
unrealisable complexity was
made possible by the now
humdrum miracle of CNC
controlled glass cutting. Though
the aim was to wrap the building
in a transparent veil and funnel
daylight into the shopping
floors, a system of integral
blinds provides shading when
required. Heat rises through the
stack effect and is dissipated
by openable louvres. Most of
the great sweep of glazing faces
north-east, so solar gain is not
considered to be a major issue.
Not unexpectedly, Peek &
Cloppenburg professes to be
delighted with its latest flagship,
seeing such a conspicuous new
62 | 4 site plan
4
The sweep of the glass
wall defines a new square
in front of the church.
5
Soaring timber ribs are
anchored by a secondary
steel structure.
6
Inside the bulbous prow.
7
Cologne’s historic
cathedral seen from its
new temple of commerce. 6
civic presence as vindicating DEPARTMENT STORE ,
its policy of bold architectural COLOGNE , G ERMANY
patronage, yet it was not an ARCHITECT
entirely straightforward ride, with RENZO PIANO BUILDING
a standoff between client and WORKSHOP
contractor conspiring to delay
the project by around two years.
Finally, however, Cologne’s glass
whale has beached and the city
can boast a new cathedral, this 5 7
time dedicated to the demanding
deities of commerce. C. S.
Architect
Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa
Structural engineer
Knippers & Helbig
Facade
Büro Mosbacher
Photographs
Michel Denancé
typical floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) cross section through main store cross section through glazed end 63 | 4
 Dwelling From urban housing to rural houses, residential projects are a source of experimentation.

ERICK VAN
EGERAAT
HOUSING , C OPENHAGEN ,
84 | 4 DENMARK
Won in competition in 2003 and due for completion in 2009, Erick van Egeraat’s Krøyers Plads housing is located on a waterfront site in
Copenhagen’s harbour district. Here, close to the sea, the scale changes and horizons widen. The competition design was inspired by the rich,
almost fairytale-like atmosphere of the Danish capital, with its narrow intimate streets, cobbled squares, dark roofs, traditional materials and
intense colours conspiring to suggest that anything (and everything) could happen.
Van Egeraat’s starting point for the 16 000sqm housing complex was the contextual Danish tradition of simple, pitch-roofed buildings. Yet
in his provocative way, he gives tradition a sharp and timely twist. New and exaggeratedly angular forms are created by stretching, morphing
and distorting in three dimensions. To maximise views towards the sea and the harbour, towers are rotated and apartments fully glazed, but
the glazing is wrapped in a protective cladding system of louvres and grilles that provides both sun protection and visual privacy. Materials and
colours allude to the earth: copper red, terracotta and natural slate are set against more lightweight stainless steel and glass. With a random
pattern of open and closed surfaces, the ensemble of blocks creates an intriguing contrast between the infinite expanse of the water and the
more closed, hermetic and intimate volumes of the housing complex.
To give them more prominence when seen from the water, blocks are arranged on a tilted concrete platform. Beneath the undulating
platform are parades of shops, adding an element of civic animation to the surroundings. The small bay to the south-east of the site may also
be incorporated as a marina for the waterfront residents. Though van Egeraat’s whimsical warpings of form are far removed from the more
reticent and sober traditions of Danish architecture, this promises to be an intriguing urban set-piece. C. S. 85 | 4
 site plan

HAWKINS BROWN
HOUSING REFURBISHMENT , S HEFFIELD , UK

The question of what to do with Park Hill, Sheffield’s notorious

monument to the social and architectural ambitions of the 1960s,
has taxed the imagination of politicians, planners and architects for
some decades now. Looming over the city on a windswept outcrop,
its Brutalist deck access blocks have a grim Alphaville appeal, but even
though such architecture has swung back into fashion, to the point
of achieving listing status, the estate suffers the familiar problems of
social and physical decline.
The latest attempt to tackle Park Hill has fallen to Hawkins
Brown working with landscape architects Grant Associates and über
developers Urban Splash. Together they are currently formulating
proposals to regenerate the estate’s 1000 homes and 16 000sqm
of commercial and ancillary accommodation. The aim is to achieve
a sustainable mix of different sorts of housing, both market and
affordable, some of it structured on the apartment-hotel model.
Residential uses will be supported by dedicated social facilities
such as a nursery school, community hub and health centre, backed
up by new local shops, bars and restaurants. The existing swathe
of parkland will be remodelled as a series of landscaped courts
providing spaces for play, recreation and reflection. The playful
graphics suggest an Archigram-style technicolour future, but being
86 | 4 Park Hill, one suspects the reality may be more prosaic. C. S.
 WILL BRUDER
HOUSE , R ENO , N EVADA , USA

Flowing along the topographic contours of the arid rock-strewn

landscape above Reno, Will Bruder’s latest desert residence is a syn-
thesis of fluid form and movement that celebrates personal privacy
and the nuances of perception. Along the soft, serpentine lines of the
house, plan and sectional geometry mediate functional needs with
episodic courtyards and planted spaces inspired by Japanese gardens
and the local landscape. Within the main pavilion, living, dining, and
library functions are unified under the gentle curve of a warped shed
roof. The house’s materiality of weathered steel plate grounds it in
the landscape as a mysterious dark shadow by day and as a luminous
glowing aperture at night. C. S. ground floor plan

0 1 5 10M

NORTH ELEVATION

SEAN
GODSELL
HOUSE , V ICTORIA , A USTRALIA

Sean Godsell’s new weekend

house for a family is a long,
elevated bar in the landscape,
which, though pleasant in
summer, is riven by fierce gales
in winter. Living spaces are
compactly contained in a box
hoisted aloft on columns, with
storage and parking underneath.
The box is wrapped in a rough
skin of perforated oxidised steel
panels which hinge open to form
protective brise-soleil shutters.
Living and sleeping spaces are
accessed from an external
promenade deck, a strategy
requested by the client as an
essential re-humanising reminder
of the nature and power of the
main living and sleeping level plan elements. C. S. 87 | 4
 UN STUDIO
HOUSE , N EW Y ORK STATE ,
USA

This family summer house in the

Catskills occupies a sloping site
with spectacular 360 degree views.
The site is the starting point for
the house’s radical programmatic
and spatial organisation. A single
box-like volume is bifurcated
into two separate entities: one
seamlessly follows the slope, the
other rises above it to create a
covered parking area and set up
a split-level internal organisation.
The volumetric transition is
generated by five parallel walls
that rotate along a horizontal
axis from vertical to horizontal,
so walls become floors and
vice versa. This new house is
clearly informed by UN Studio’s
ongoing formal and conceptual
experiments with Möbius strips
that spawned the eponymous
Möbius House in the Netherlands
(AR September 1999). C. S.

TADAO ANDO
HOUSE , S AN FRANCISCO , USA

In designing a house on this coastal site in San Francisco, Tadao Ando

attempts to introduce a sense of the powerful, rugged landscape
directly into the living space. Ando’s initial image was of overlapping
horizontal planes that echo the surface of the sea. The controlled
geometrical composition allows light, shadows and views of the land-
scape to flicker vividly in the interior. Three horizontal planes on dif-
ferent levels are layered over the natural topography, with cuts made
along diagonals. The carved voids are displaced vertically but overlap,
reaching into the depths of the building to introduce air, light, nature
and views so that the house becomes one with the landscape. C. S.

88 | 4
OFIS
APARTMENT BLOCK , I ZOLA , S LOVENIA

Ofis are a young Slovenian practice who were premiated in last year’s Emerging Architecture Awards for their imaginative addition to
Ljubljana’s City Museum (AR December 2004). Formerly part of Yugoslavia, Slovenia managed to stay out of the toxic disintegration of the
Balkans and is now part of the EU. As exposure to external influences grows, Slovenian architectural culture is becoming increasingly lively
and sophisticated, looking northwards across the Alps to Austria and Germany for sources of inspiration.
Ofis are currently working on a number of housing projects, including this one in Izola, a town on the Slovenian coast. The brief is for a
block of 30 affordable apartments aimed at young couples and families, so budget and space standards are far from generous. Despite these
constraints and a site on the industrial edge of town, Ofis manage to create a lively and eye-catching block, its facades
animated by a series of angular, pod-like loggias. Sun and privacy shading is provided by textile screens which
add to the general gaiety and variety of the composition. Now on site, the project is due to be
completed later this year. C. S.

89 | 4
 1957

1970

1980

1994

1984

PROPOSED 1994
EXTENSION

1970: Leslie Martin and David Owers

1980: Leslie Martin and Robert Weighton
1984: Leslie Martin and Ivor Richards
1994: Bland, Brown & Cole

KETTLE’S YARD
Kettle’s Yard is one of Cambridge’s most popular cultural venues. Established by Jim Ede in 1957, its collection displays
an extensive range of modern art. Likewise its buildings are an eclectic mix of old and new, with Leslie Martin’s
celebrated extensions. This year Jamie Fobert has been appointed as the architect for the next phase. 73 | 5
 Kettle’s Yard was once four tumbledown cottages in Cambridge.
Today it is one of the City’s most treasured cultural venues. In a city
surrounded by the formal grandeur of collegiate and ecclesiastical
architecture, this curious collection of buildings holds its own as
a must see destination. As a place it has become as diverse and
idiosyncratic as the collection it contains; modest, yet sophisticated,
and central to the cultural activities of the local community.
Not simply an art gallery, Kettle’s Yard is many things. Established
by Jim Ede in 1957, it has had a long and varied life. As the one-
time home of the former Tate curator, the converted cottages were
always open to students and casual visitors, who could meet with
Ede in a place that he described as ‘a nursery to the visual arts and
an introduction to the formal art gallery like Tate or Fitzwilliam’.
Keen to share his internationally renowned private collection,
Ede eventually presented it as a gift to the university in 1967,
who very keenly took on his legacy. Since then four subsequent
phases of expansion have seen home become collection, gallery
become theatre, and art space become classroom; a process that
many feared would destroy its charm, but throughout which, Ede’s
sensibilities have been maintained.
sectional perspective of Leslie Martin and David Owers’ 1970 extension
74 | 5 site plan showing 1970 extension
Soon after accepting the stewardship of Kettle’s Yard, a successful
appeal for funds allowed the university to build a new extension
designed by Leslie Martin and David Owers; a significant phase of
expansion (two phases rolled into one through the generous support
of the Arts Council) that provided an additional 390sqm of display
space. As featured in The Architectural Review in February 1971,
the designer’s preoccupation focused on how the space and light
of the new could add to the progression through Ede’s original
home, maintaining the ambience of the original 150sqm house
throughout a new 540sqm venue. Through careful planning and
exploiting interconnected levels, the extension links new with old
at an upper level, continuing the subtle sequence spaces through
a series of descending levels and increasing volumes. Daylighting
also progresses with the domestic windows of the old, leading to the
baffled top light of the long apertures that run the full length of the
extension’s rough plaster ceilings. With this language of incremental
expansion, Martin’s scheme continued to migrate across the gently
falling site with two lower terraced spaces in 1980 and 1984,
completed by Bland, Brown and Cole’s arcaded extension along
Castle Street in 1994.
new links with old with a series of descending levels and increasing volumes
Main image: the 1970
extension looking
away from the
existing house.
Below: the upper
level looking towards
the existing house.
Bottom: the entrance
courtyard following
Bland, Brown
and Cole’s 1994
extension.

1957

1970

1980

1994

1984

PROPOSED 1994
EXTENSION

part plan of Bland, Brown and Cole’s 1994 extension 75 | 5

 The search for an architect for the next phase of development began When discussing the nature and form
of internal spaces, Jamie Fobert returns
in January this year when Michael Harrison, Kettle’s Yard director to Morandi and Hammershoi for his
since 1992, was advised by management committee member Eric inspiration.
Parry to run an RIBA design competition. New education facilities Opposite (clockwise from top left):
were required to provide space for the annual programme of 375 the new extension as roofscape; views
through the new education suite; section
education sessions currently accommodated in a rather cramped through first floor level café; a new stair
education room at the centre of the plan that could only hold half will open-up views to the church (plan
inset).
a class at a time. Having reprocessed the two remaining shop fronts
from tenants, sufficient space was made available to also include
a new environmentally stable archive for its painting collection
(that in the spirit of Ede is still offered on long loans to University
students to take home), a café (to attract new visitors and give
regulars a place to inhabit), and a more formal seminar space (for
life long learning, lectures and so on).
Having invited 16 or so practices to submit examples of their work,
Jamie Fobert was chosen from a high calibre shortlist that included
De Rijke Marsh Morgan, Caruso St John, Stanton Williams, Ushida
Findlay and 5th Studio. (A success that was shortly followed by his
appointment to design the new extension at Tate St Ives.) Having
spent nine years with David Chipperfield before establishing
his own practice nine years ago, Jamie Fobert is emerging as an
architect of distinction. By focusing on the essence of architectural
space and the practicality of process led detailing, he avoids the
superfluous gestures that distract so many others. As demonstrated
in the Anderson House (AR April 2004), and as qualified by his
admiration for the work of Morandi and Hammershoi, Fobert’s work
returns our attention to the potency of simple forms and volumes,
and when shaping interior spaces reminds us of the importance
of making decent rooms. As such, Harrison recalls how Fobert,
without making any detailed proposals, had particularly impressed
the jury with his reading of Kettle’s Yard, its art and the evolution
of its architecture. In displaying and sharing its collection, daylight
is the keynote of Kettle’s Yard – a place of physical and spiritual

76 | 5
77 | 5
 Fobert’s new extension provides four
new levels of accommodation behind
two existing Victorian shop fronts.

1 basement archive
2 accessible lavatory
3 new stair
4 education room
5 store
3 6 café 5
7 multi-purpose seminar room

78 | 5 basement level plan ground floor level plan

 6

first floor level plan second floor level plan 79 | 5

 By extending Bland, Brown and
Cole’s sandstone fenestration,
Fobert’s intervention will
significantly improve the quality of
the Kettle’s Yard street frontage.
illumination – and Fobert’s understanding of this subtlety was key
to his success. It was also important that his intervention was not
an extension that melded anonymously into the existing. Having
chosen Fobert, Harrison wanted to develop a proposal that was
distinct from the previous phases and as ‘of its time’ as the original
extension by Martin. Since being chosen, Fobert has developed a
scheme that achieves these aspirations, working with large-scale
models and free-hand sketches, to resolve a tight cluster of internal
and external forms that will sit quietly behind the retained Castle
Street Victorian facade. A detailed and costed proposal that will
help secure the sustainable future of this wonderful place. For
Fobert this is not a project to design a new building, but rather in
the same way that Morandi and Hammershoi focused on the same
80 | 5 long section from Leslie Martin to Jamie Fobert
objects for many years, he is adjusting and adding to a place that
already exists. His intervention will simply be a new composition
of the same place; a project that has been evolving over a number
of decades.
So, forty years on it is time once again to seek funds for the next
phase. Kettle’s Yard has been well supported over the years by
many friends and organisations such as the Arts Council England,
the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the Henry Moore
Foundation. With Fobert’s new vision for the site, it is hoped that
fundraising will be as successful as it was in the 1960s. Today, £2.2
million is needed to help write the next chapter; a chapter that will
sustain Jim Ede’s original vision that Kettle’s Yard would somehow
represent, a continuing way of life. ROB GREGORY
ar MAY 04 Bucholz REV NEW 2 24/5/04 12:53 pm Page 58

C IVIC OFFICES , With the construction of new local authority

D OORADOYLE , I RELAND buildings all over the country, Ireland is
ARCHITECT undergoing something of a municipal
B UCHOLZ M C E VOY renaissance. Encouragingly, rather than opt for
A RCHITECTS lowest common denominator methods of
commissioning and design, the Irish authorities
have put the majority out to competition, thus
raising architectural standards and presenting a
younger generation of designers with a chance
to tackle sizeable projects. Briefs emphasize
openness, transparency and environmental
responsibility, with reduced energy use in
2
construction and operation. The outcome is a
lively new coterie of civic buildings that
confound and transcend the more familiar
notions of municipal drabness.
Completed at the end of last year, Bucholz
McEvoy’s county hall and offices in Dooradoyle,
County Limerick personifies this new Celtic
wave. An earlier municipal building in Fingal (AR
February 2001) represented an audacious
coming of age for the Dublin-based partnership
of Merrit Bucholz and Karen McEvoy,
manifesting skill and style beyond their years
(both not yet 40). And though this latest project
is, as some critics have noted, the equivalent of 3
that difficult second album, happily there seems
to be no loss of energy or ingenuity in its
conception and execution. Despite being the political centre of the county, impersonal civic context. An earth ramp leads
The site was unpromising: a typical Limerick’s local authority is an eclectic and up to the main entrance, with visitors passing
nondescript, suburban edge condition where evolving organization, with nine different under the long, rectangular box of the
sprawling retail development marks the departments. These were originally housed in secondary block which is propped up on slim
boundary between town and countryside. The the city centre, but had no clear sense of pilotis. The feeling of compression generated by
new building’s nearest neighbour is a huge, community or civic identity. Bucholz McEvoy’s this approach is spectacularly dispelled by the
introverted shopping centre, but the presence new building is a decisive riposte to bureaucratic generous proportions of the building’s set-piece
of a new county library suggests an attempt to anonymity. Glimpsed from the road, the squat space, a soaring, quadruple-height atrium that
establish a decentralized node of civic functions terracotta tiled drum of the council chamber set runs along
that might extend beyond shopping. Rather than against a delicate carapace of timber trusses, like the entire length of the main block. Overlooking
present an object marooned in a sea of parking, the bleached skeleton of a prehistoric beast, this civic forum are stacked floors of open plan
Bucholz McEvoy set their building 70m back powerfully proclaim the presence of something and cellular offices. Light percolates through the
from the road, taking advantage of a 2m drop in modern, different and self-assured. timber exoskeleton that shades the angled glass
level across the site. Long earth berms conceal The cylinder of the council chamber forms membrane on the west side of the atrium,
cars and animate the pancake flatness of the part of a secondary three-storey block that casting a shimmering pattern of striated
suburban topography. Over time, the banks of protrudes at right angles into the bermed car shadows around the tall nave-like space.
vegetation will mature to form a green edge park from the main five-storey body of the Designed in collaboration with engineers RFR,
along the road and connect with the open building. Isolating the chamber in this way the eye-catching brise-soleil ingeniously
spaces to the east of the site. restores a sense of human scale within the more integrates structure and solar control.

1
A huge timber brise-soleil is the dramatic
formal and functional signature of Limerick’s
new civic offices.
2
The council chamber is contained in a
terracotta tiled drum.
3
The building is set back from the road with
parking concealed among a topography of
earth berms, which will eventually mature into
green mounds.

CIVIC DIGNITY
Part of a programme of imaginative municipal
building in Ireland, these new offices inventively address
1 concerns of form, site and environment.
58 | 410 59 | 5
ar MAY 04 Bucholz REV NEW 2 24/5/04 12:53 pm Page 60

second floor cross section

first floor cross section showing night-time cooling 7

1 council chamber
2 meeting room
3 offices 4
4 public gallery
5 main entrance
6 reception 5
7 atrium
8 kitchen
9 servery
10 staff restaurant

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1250) cross section showing daytime heat gain

4
The timber lattice is made up of
trusses suspended between horizontal
transfer beam and steel roof structure.
5
Office spaces overlook the long atrium.
6
Projecting light shelves on the more
hermetic east elevation bring daylight
into the interior.
7
Angled truss members optimize
60 | 5 lower ground floor location plan shading without moving parts. 61 | 5
ar MAY 04 Bucholz REV NEW 2 24/5/04 12:54 pm Page 62
8
Structurally, it acts like a giant ribcage consisting
of 25 vertically spanning timber trusses. Each
15m long truss is made up of glulam Scots pine
members anchored to a vertical steel tube.
Support is provided at the bottom by a
horizontal transfer beam resting on sculpted
concrete columns and at the top by steel
members tied back to the main concrete frame.
Together, the 25 trusses act as a composite
structure 75m long, transferring horizontal
loads from the glass facade. Vertical loads are
carried by the steel roof structure. The angled
members of the individual trusses help to
optimize shading for both south and west sun
angles without the maintenance bother of
moving parts.
This sophisticated pleasure in the way things
are made and put together is also reflected in
9 Structural engineer
the gently contoured underbelly of the office
floors, created using special fibreglass moulds
C IVIC OFFICES , D OORADOYLE , from a boat builder. (Prototypes for these
I RELAND featured in the Irish entry to the last Venice
ARCHITECT Biennale, AR October 2002.) On the more
B UCHOLZ M C E VOY A RCHITECTS hermetic east facade, the concrete slabs project
10
62 | 5
beyond the building line to form light shelves
that reflect illumination back into the heart of
the building. The thermal mass of the exposed
concrete soffits also plays a key part in a strategy
of passive environmental control.
The building is entirely naturally ventilated, with
fabric, structure and skin tuned to control the
internal environment. The atrium is the engine
of ventilation acting as a thermal chimney, taking
air from the offices and exhausting it at the top.
Narrow floor plates (17m wide) are easily cross
ventilated from east to west or from offices to
the atrium. Vertical louvres incorporated into
the east facade allow for ventilation in the damp
local climate.
Taking extensive soundings from the
prospective occupants through questionnaires
and discussion, Bucholz McEvoy evolved a set of
guidelines for the formal and experiential
character of the office interiors. Physical
openness, which was considered essential for
good staff communication and the building’s
environmental strategy, was balanced against
the need for visual and acoustic privacy, and the
need for individuals to have a sense of control
over their immediate surroundings. The
outcome is far removed from the monotony of
generic open-plan prairies, with soft lighting,
large sycamore desks and linen-clad partitions
equipped with individual glare control screens
made from fabric panels on moveable arms.
Against the background of an evolving
workplace that must also act as totem of civic
dignity and efficiency, Bucholz McEvoy’s new
building succeeds in intelligently resolving
concerns of form, site, construction and
environmental control. The partnership’s
difficult second album proved not such a
stumbling block after all. CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architect
Bucholz McEvoy Architects, Dublin
Project team
Merrit Bucholz, Karen McEvoy, Graham Petrie,
Sabine Klingner, Rebecca Egan, Mary Louise Kelly,
Jim Luke, Peter Crowley, Jana Scheibel
Michael Punch & Partners
Services engineer
Buro Happold
Facade engineer
RFR
Photographs
Michael Moran
8
Light, airy interiors are simply but
handsomely detailed.
9
Typical office space.
10
Council chamber is contained in the
semi-detached drum.
11
The soaring nave-like atrium forms the
building’s set-piece space. 11
ar may 04 koolhaas done 24/5/04 12:46 pm Page 44

1
The new Dutch Embassy, the latest
addition to Berlin’s rapidly evolving
skyline, occupies a site on the edge of
the river Spree.
2
After dark, the snaking trajectory
around the building is revealed.

THE CABINET OF
DR KOOLHAAS
Gently subverting Berlin’s urban matrix, the new Dutch Embassy is
an Expressionist labyrinth with a surprisingly informal interior realm.

D UTCH E MBASSY ,
B ERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
44 | 5 OMA site plan 2 45 | 5
ar may 04 koolhaas done 24/5/04 12:46 pm Page 46

D UTCH E MBASSY ,
B ERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
OMA

The new Dutch Embassy in Berlin is a classic Koolhaas building. It

reveals traces of some of his best known works and concepts, such as
the external metaphoric materialism of the Rotterdam Kunsthal and the
internal structural and functional mazes of the Jussieu library in Paris.
Yet compared with other current OMA mega-projects such as Seattle
Library or the headquarters for Central Chinese Television, the Dutch
Embassy is actually a relatively modest building.
Perhaps it was the choice of site in former East Berlin, now officially 3
known as Mitte (literally ‘middle’), that incited such a highly controlled
and introspective urban and architectural solution. Contrary to
expectations, the central location does not exude the hustle and bustle
of nearby Potsdamer Platz. Instead, Klosterstrasse (Monastery Street)
runs quietly off the busy Stralauerstrasse and ends on the quayside of
the river Spree where the water flows slowly and darkly into a lock. Few
tourists find their way here unless on a river cruise. Development of the
prominent corner site, which had been vacant since the war, had to
conform to Berlin building regulations. These were precisely defined by
the city’s former chief planner Hans Stimmann and any new building had
to occupy all four corners of the site.
Being well versed in overcoming the inhibitions of planning laws,
Koolhaas managed to avoid a preconceived standard solution. Instead of
proposing the customary atrium or inner courtyard, he created a free-
standing monolithic 27 x 27m cube enclosed by slim L-shaped wings, so 4
achieving a narrow but totally open courtyard while still fulfilling the
requirement to build on all four corners. Call it Dutch irony, but the
urban solution is both perplexing and intriguing.
In functional terms, the two spatially interlocked volumes are divided
between offices located in the cube and apartments in the one-room
deep L-shaped wings, along with plant rooms (the building is fully
mechanically ventilated). Linked by five vertically stacked bridges, both
volumes stand on a raised platform which serves as the underground car
park for only 28 vehicles, despite staff numbers of 70. Underneath, a
tarmac ramp leads up from the street level into the courtyard where the
main entrance is located. From there a continuous 200m strip, or what

3
Slim wings are linked to the main cube
by stacked bridges.
4
Entrance to the embassy compound.
5
Inside the cantilevered volume of the
conference room.
6
The adjacent wings meet the local
planning requirement to build on all
four corners of the site …
7
… but the main focus of attention is the
cube, an impressively object building,
but modest in scale when compared
46 | 5 6 with other current Koolhaas projects. 7
ar may 04 koolhaas done 24/5/04 12:46 pm Page 48

9
5 9

14

10

first level fourth level seventh level cross section

1 car park
2 offices
3 reception
4 multipurpose hall 8
17
5 maintenance
6 press and culture
7 foreign office
8 transportation
3 4 9 apartment 13
10 agriculture
11 post
12 archive
13 ambassador
14 politics
15 economics
16 fitness suite
17 cafe

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500) third level sixth level ninth level

9
9

11 15

7 16

12

48 | 5 lower ground floor second level fifth level eighth level 49 | 5

ar may 04 koolhaas done 24/5/04 12:46 pm Page 50

D UTCH E MBASSY ,
B ERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
OMA

Koolhaas calls a ‘trajectory’ (in effect, a succession of staircases, ramps and

corridors), snakes its way up through the building. At some points it
emerges on or even through the facade (in the case of the cantilevering glass
corridor above Klosterstrasse), changing direction of ascent and gradient
until it reaches the restaurant and roof terrace. Floors, ceilings and walls of
this architect-styled ‘stairway to heaven’ are clad in aluminium and
sometimes even in plain or coloured glass.
Typical of Koolhaas, there is an honest, almost brutally direct,
confrontation with materials. Surfaces jump out at you, not only because of
their vivid hues, but also because of their harsh and relentless objectivity.
Over time, the trajectory’s cantilevered green glass ramp in will bear visible
marks of wear and tear, just like the sheet aluminium on the floors and
staircases. You slightly fear that the building, otherwise not so immaculately
detailed and designed, might gradually begin to resemble a tatty old Dutch
space station.
Due to the restricted floorplate size (700 sq m), the interior is dominated
by the trajectory. This often generates curious configurations as the
architect and his technical consultants had to squeeze, fold and contort the
available space. As Koolhaas does not deal in conventional floors and
8
storeys, it is difficult to arrive at an accurate number of floors. (Discussing
the notion of a mini high-rise, he once mentioned 20 storeys.) In reality,
there are only 10 levels of varying height in this 26m-high building.
Structurally, the embassy is a tour de force. Each floorplate rotates and
cantilevers over the one below and no single internal column runs through
the entire structure (only four walls project through from top to bottom).
8
With its oblique corridors, passages, ramps, steps, views through coloured The fashionably glum interior is
glass, monstrously thick rotating doors and dead ends, Koolhaas’ ingenious dominated by the presence of
the trajectory.
maze is reminiscent of the set for the iconic German expressionist film 9
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. At times, columns and heavy transfer beams Ramps, stairs and corridors wind
around the building, connecting the
appear in the most baffling positions. One particular example is the very principal spaces.
9

CAFE

PRESS POLITICS

CONFERENCE FITNESS

RECEPTION

INTERNET POST POST

ADMIN
TRAFFIC CONFERENCE

MULTIPURPOSE
HALL ROOF
TERRACE

AMBASSADOR’S
QUARTERS

50 | 5 plan of ‘unravelled’ trajectory (scale approx 1:250) 51 | 5

ar may 04 koolhaas done 24/5/04 12:46 pm Page 52

D UTCH E MBASSY ,
B ERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
OMA

low ceiling in the trajectory on level five, which compels tall visitors,
such as Koolhaas, to instinctively lower their heads.
Because of the deliberate spatial complexity, there is little
coordination between interior and exterior. Here, Koolhaas pays the
price for his structural manoeuvring, as he is obliged to rely on a
loadbearing double facade. Where the internal zigzagging of the
trajectory feigns freedom or even anarchy, the straight steel columns
that run down the full height of the building indicate a necessary and 10
more simplistic rigour. Despite the spectacular feat of one conference
room cantilevering 5m out from the facade and the trajectory’s handful
of timidly projecting features, the external envelope is actually a
dreaded Cartesian cage. Evidently the spectacular cost (35 million
euros) and extraordinary planning and construction time (five years)
could not assuage this fundamental stylistic defect. Did the regimented
marching order of Berlin’s facades finally catch up with the master
of the informal?
Still, Koolhaas’ embassy is undoubtedly a cunning retort to dogmatic
planning laws as well as being another free gift to the city of Berlin. It
even frames the outlandish Alexanderplatz television tower, a symbolic
relic from the era of perceived Communist superiority over the West.
From the core of the embassy cube there is an unobstructed view
(through a gigantic opening in the apartment wing) of the tower’s
Sputnik-like top. It is a powerful (yet also possibly partly ironic) gesture
of reverence from Koolhaas to a city that once upon a time publicly
denounced him and his views on modern architecture.
CHRISTIAN BRENSING

11

Architect
OMA, Rotterdam
12 Structural engineers
Royal Haskoning, Arup Berlin
Services engineers
Huygen Elwako, Arup Berlin
Photographs
Christian Richters

10
The staircase is articulated on the
facade as a diagonal slash of glazing.
11
Green glass panels unexpectedly
dematerialise the floor plane.
12
A typical office on the upper floors.
13
A meeting room adorned with
contemporary art.
14
52 | 5 13 The multipurpose hall on the first floor. 14 53 | 5
 product review

▲ WALTER KNOLL
Circle is an innovative new seating system
by Ben van Berkel of UN Studio for Walter Knoll.
Inspired by the design of the new Mercedes-Benz Museum
in Stuttgart, the basic circular form can be broken down
▲ MAGIS
and reconfigured to create a range of seating options.
Stool One, an angular
Enquiry 500 www.arplus.com/enq.html
bar stool in aluminium by
Konstantin Grcic for Magis.
BELLA MILANO Enquiry 501 www.arplus.
com/enq.html

This year’s Milan Furniture Fair was the last to be held on the familiar Fiera
site before it decamps to a superscale new trade fair complex designed by
Massimiliano Fuksas. Furniture design, like fashion, thrives on a sense of
gratuitous novelty, but among the plethora of stands and showrooms, here
are some of the things that caught Catherine Slessor’s eye.

KARTELL
▲

Mademoiselle chair
by Philippe Starck
for Kartell. The clear
polyurethane frame is
upholstered in fabrics
designed by Rosita
Missoni for the Casa
Missoni collection.
Enquiry 502 www.
arplus.com/enq.html

▲ MOROSO
Supernatural stackable chair, with solid or
perforated back, by Ross Lovegrove for Moroso.
Enquiry 503 www.arplus.com/enq.html

▼ SAWAYA & MORONI

Crystall chair by Zaha Hadid for Sawaya & Moroni, displaying a talent
for futuristic furniture to match her futuristic architecture.
Enquiry 504 www.arplus.com/enq.html

LA PALMA
▲

Sleek, spare and Scandinavian:

Elica folding chair by Gudmundur
Ludvik for La Palma.
Enquiry 505 www.arplus.com/enq.html

90 | 5
 milan
▼ DRIADE STORE
MT3 rocking armchair by Ron Arad in
rotational moulded polyethylene and
a choice of groovy colourways – white
and orange, red and black, blue
and light blue. Enquiry 506 www.
arplus. com/enq.html

▲ MOROSO
Dutch wunderkind
Tord Boontje presents
Oval, a table with an
elaborately patterned
top, inspired by the
cascades and whirls of
vegetation and nature.
Enquiry 507 www.
arplus.com/enq.html

▼ SAWAYA & MORONI

Bella Rifatta stackable chair in opalescent acrylic,
by William Sawaya for Sawaya & Moroni.
▲ CASSINA Enquiry 509 www.arplus.com/enq.html
Aspen seating by Jean Marie Massaud for Cassina.
Enquiry 508 www.arplus.com/enq.html

▼ VITRA
Metal side tables made of
varnished sheet metal by Ronan
& Erwan Bouroullec for Vitra.
Enquiry 510 www.arplus.com/
enq.html

▲ KRISTALIA
Cute CU coffee table by
Monica Graffeo for Kristalia.
Enquiry 511 www.arplus.com/enq.html 91 | 5
 product review

▲ EDRA
The crazy Campana brothers are at it again – Fernando and Humberto present
Jenette, an injection moulded polyurethane seat with a brush-like backrest made
from around 1000 long, thin stalks of flexible PVC. Available in a range of searing
primary colours, Jenette marries the Brazilian brothers’ quirkiness and flair with
modern techniques of mass-production.
Enquiry 513 www.arplus.com/enq.html

▲ LAMMHULTS B & B ITALIA

▲

Imprint chair made from Cellupress, a new pressed wood fibre material specially Shelf X bookcase in white
developed by Danish designers Johannes Foersom and Peter Hiort-Lorenzen. By Corian by Naoto Fukasawa
using waste products and applying sustainable criteria to production and life cycle, for B & B Italia.
the aim is to create a range of ecologically enlightened furniture. Enquiry 514 www.arplus.
Enquiry 512 www.arplus.com/enq.html com/enq.html

▲ VITRA
Vitra have reissued the Standard chair, originally designed in 1934 by Jean
Prouvé. Combining a metal frame with a moulded plywood seat, the Standard
inventively exploited early techniques of prefabrication. An expanded colour
palette brings this robust design classic up to date.
Enquiry 515 www.arplus.com/enq.html ▼ VALDICHIENTI
Trilounge armchair
(with integral pouf) by
American designer Todd
KÄLLEMO Bracher for Valdichienti.
▲

Origami stacking Enquiry 517 www.arplus.

chair by Sigurdur com/enq.html
Gustafsson for
Källemo. A crisply
elegant natural or
lacquered birch
seat is supported
by a thin chromed
steel frame.
Enquiry 516 www.
92 | 5 arplus.com/enq.html
EMBASSY , A DDIS A BABA , E THIOPIA In their recent programme of embassy building in Third World
ARCHITECT countries, the Dutch are acquiring a reputation for promoting
DICK VAN GAMEREN AND architecture that responds imaginatively to local culture, climate and
BJARNE MASTENBROEK sensitivities. Collaboration with local architects is also mandatory. This
new Dutch diplomatic compound in Ethiopia by the Amsterdam-based
partnership of Dick van Gameren and Bjarne Mastenbroek follows
on from Claus en Kaan’s embassy in Maputo (AR November 2004),
the civil war-torn capital of Mozambique now slowly rebuilding. The
Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa is also not immune to political unrest,
with demonstrations taking place last year in protest at the then newly
elected government. Such unpredictable civil unease only serves to
deepen the frisson of security consciousness already in play post 9/11,
and adds to the challenge of trying to create a dignified and genuinely
open diplomatic presence.
New embassies are often an opportunity for bombastic displays of
national identity, but this new building treads discreetly, mining and
refining the richness of local nuance to produce an architecture that
resonates with context.Van Gameren and Mastenbroek are part of the
generation of Dutch architects that includes MVRDV, UN Studio and
Neutelings Riedijk, and while they share the same quixotic approach to
formal and technological enquiry, their projects manifest a quieter, less
demonstrative disposition.
The site for the new diplomatic compound lies on the southern
outskirts of Addis Ababa where a thickly wooded eucalyptus grove slopes
into a valley. In a strategy of consolidation and addition, an existing villa
on the edge of the site was enlarged and four new elements added: the
chancellery and ambassador’s residence; dwellings for staff members;
a small school building and a new entrance gatehouse. Linked by a
circuitous access road, these form a self-contained micro campus among
the luxuriant eucalyptus. From the busy main drag, diplomatic presence
is signposted by the gatehouse decked out in the bright colours of the

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS
A new embassy complex in Addis Ababa is an
imaginative response to local conditions.

1
The long, low bar
of the chancellery
emerges from the
forested landscape.
 Dutch tricolor, a playful Pop Art twist on flagwaving expressions of
national identity. At the western end of the site, the extended villa now
houses the deputy ambassador and his family, with a new school and
trio of staff dwellings placed along the northern perimeter. In scale and
organisation, these subsidiary service elements clearly defer to the main
architectural event of the chancellery, a horizontal volume 140m long
which cuts commandingly across the compound on an east-west axis.
Built out of roughly textured concrete pigmented the same intense red
ochre as the Ethiopian earth, the elongated, monolithic structure of the
chancellery seems to have been carved out of the ground, in the manner 3
of the country’s extraordinary Coptic rock churches (AR June 2003).
Utterly uniform in colour and texture, its geological gravitas confronts
2
you head on, suggesting archaic solidity, stillness and mystery. Like a lost A gatehouse in the
temple or abandoned monument, the building is partially engulfed by colours of the Dutch flag
signposts the embassy
the landscape, a move that reinforces its already powerful topographic complex off a busy main
road on the southern
quality. About a third of the way along its length, the ground rises to allow outskirts of Addis Ababa.
the approach road to pass through the embassy at first floor level. This 3
Ethiopia’s remarkable
also effectively divides the building into two parts, separating the smaller Coptic churches, which
head of the ambassador’s quarters (west end) from the main body of are literally hewn from
rock, were a powerful
chancellery functions (east end). source of inspiration.
Though divided by the road, the two parts are reunited by the span of 4, 5 4 5
The long roof overshoots
an immense flat roof, its surface raked by an organic network of channels to mark the main public
entrance, at the building’s
like a dried-up river bed. From mid June to mid September Ethiopia east end.
experiences its rainy season, so the roof is periodically transformed into 6
The ambassador’s private
a shallow reflecting pool, a reminder of the life-giving cycle of nature. residence is housed in the
The sculptural rivulets also allude to the Dutch knack of managing west end.
water and the Netherlands polder landscape. Steps lead up to the
roof/pool from the chancellery and a series of slightly elevated paths
provide opportunities for rooftop/poolside contemplation. At its eastern
extremity, the roof overshoots to form a beetle-browed canopy marking
the main public point of arrival and entry.

A gatehouse
B approach road
C chancellery
D deputy ambassador’s residence
E staff houses
F school building

EMBASSY , A DDIS A BABA , E THIOPIA

ARCHITECT
DICK VAN GAMEREN AND
56 | 5 BJARNE MASTENBROEK site plan 6 57 | 5
 EMBASSY , A DDIS A BABA , E THIOPIA
ARCHITECT
DICK VAN GAMEREN AND
BJARNE MASTENBROEK

1 main entrance
2 central hall
7 3 spinal corridor
Walls of deep ochre pigmented 4 reception
concrete retain the marks and 5 library
scores of their making. 6 ambassador’s offices
8 7 administration
The roof is carved with shallow 8 patio
channels to catch water. 9 technical/storage
9 10 approach road
The pattern of the channels 11 salon
evokes Dutch wetlands. 12 ambassador’s private quarters

roof plan

first floor

58 | 5 7 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:750) 59 | 5

 Internal organisation is admirably economical, with cellular offices 10
A grandly-scaled
double-banked off a spinal corridor that rises gently through the building staircase leads up to
from the entrance hall, following the gradient of the site. The two-storey the roof.
11
ambassador’s residence has private quarters at lower level with more The spinal corridor
gently rises through the
formal reception spaces above. These connect with a secondary entrance building.
and the approach road that penetrates the building. A trio of concealed 12
The ambassador’s
staircases (for the ambassador, his family and staff) link the two floors. private quarters give on
Cleft-like patios are cut at intervals into the long volume to capture to a terrace.
13
and funnel dramatic shafts of light. The ochre concrete is largely left Dividable salon for
exposed (floors are of the same material but polished), so the general formal entertaining.
14
effect is like being in a system of caves. This could be romantically Patios cut into building
interpreted as a return to primeval arcadia, but the bullet-proof glass in bring light into the
cave-like interior.
some windows is an indicator of more pressing contemporary concerns.
Cast in horizontal formwork using local materials and labour, the
pigmented concrete has an unselfconscious roughness entirely suited to
its context. The striated texture catches the light and vigorously animates
the building surface. Clearly this is all worlds away from the obsessive
perfection of Japan or Wolfsburg (which in any case would be out of
place here and well beyond Ethiopian resources), but as Van Gameren
and Mastenbroek persuasively demonstrate, limited means and skills need
not necessarily result in limited architecture. CATHERINE SLESSOR

long section 11 12

13 14

long section

Architect
Dick van Gameren and Bjarne
Mastenbroek, Amsterdam
Associate architects
Abba Architects, Addis Ababa
Structural engineers
Ove Arup & Partners,
Messele Haile Engineering
Photographs
Christian Richters except nos 3 & 9

EMBASSY , A DDIS A BABA ,

ETHIOPIA
ARCHITECT
DICK VAN GAMEREN AND
60 | 5 BJARNE MASTENBROEK 10 61 | 5
 1

house
Box with
a view. An
elevated
structure
saves on
foundations.

Bijou box PROTOTYPE HOUSE ,

MUNICH , G ERMANY
ARCHITECTS
This prototype for an easily transportable and
HORDEN CHERRY LEE /
economical house shows that small can be beautiful. HAACK + HÖPFNER 79 | 5
 First the tiny, tiddly Smart car (AR
January 1999), now an ultra
compact house which touts an
equally impressive economy of
space and resources. The
challenge, from Munich’s Student
Housing Authority, was to create
an economical, lightweight,
transportable, low-energy
dwelling prototype. The concept
was developed over four years by
British architect Richard Horden,
professor at the Technical
University of Munich, and German
practice Haack + Höpfner. As the
design team observes, ‘We are
used to spending time in compact
spaces – in our cars or when we
travel by air. The micro-compact
home is informed by both of
these in its incorporation of
advanced technology and design.
Living in it means focusing on the
essential – less is more’.
Inspired by the scale and order
of the traditional Japanese tea
house and the technological
sleekness of the aviation and
automotive industries, the
prototypical dwelling is inventively
compacted in a 2.65m (9ft) cube.
Each house can accommodate up
PROTOTYPE HOUSE ,
MUNICH , G ERMANY
ARCHITECTS
HORDEN CHERRY LEE /
HAACK + HÖPFNER
80 | 5
to four people and is divided in
sets of zones that fit together
with the fiendish precision of a
Chinese puzzle box. A central
axis of entrance and circulation
provides access to seating in a
lower dining area. An upper bunk
can be folded out of the way,
while the sunken dining space also
doubles as an additional sleeping
area. A compact zone of wet
services contains the lavatory,
shower and kitchen.
The penchant for Oriental
rigour also extends to the
external treatment. Highly
insulated panels of aluminium and
glass are mounted on a timber
and galvanised aluminium frame.
The structure sits slightly elevated
above the ground to cut out the
time and expense of foundations
and to minimise the impact on its
surroundings. Groups of units can
also be arranged vertically and
horizontally around circulation
cores in order to form larger,
extended communities.
Occupants of the first seven
prototypes will be students from
Munich’s Technical University and
architect Richard Horden. The
university is keen to test new 2
The ultra compact
accommodation solutions as it design is inspired by
currently has 90 000 students and the elegant economy
of aviation and
only 10 000 flats. Previous automobile design.
3
experiments included housing Living/dining
students in redundant shipping quarters, with
sleeping bunk above.
containers, but at half the size of a The sunken area
container, the micro house needs can also be used as
an extra sleeping
much less space. While not space. Large areas of
envisaged as a permanent, long glazing help to dispel
claustrophobia.
term dwelling, it has obvious
potential for the student, business
traveller and holiday home
markets. Or it could simply help
housing authorities respond to
general accommodation
shortages. If successful after a year
of testing, the micro-compact
home will be marketed in Europe
with a guide price of €50 000
(£34 500), around the cost of a
mid range executive saloon.
Ingenious in both concept and
execution, it gives new meaning to
that well-worn estate agent
soubriquet ‘compact but bijou’.
CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architects
Horden Cherry Lee, London;
Haack + Höpfner, Munich
Photographs
Sascha Kletzsch
3
1 deck
2 entrance
3 galley kitchen
4 dining/living area with
sleeping bunk above
5 wc/bathroom
4
3
2 scale approx 1:100 cross section through kitchen and bathroom cross section through kitchen and living space 81 | 5
 COMMUNITY CENTRE , 1 reception
3 2 games room
LOS A NGELES , USA 13 15 17 3 offices
ARCHITECT 4 lounge
5 computer games room
FERNANDO V AZQUEZ 14
3 6 sports library
7 wc
16 8 loading dock
9 kitchen
10 dance studio
11 exercise studio
12 boxing & weightlifting
13 men’s locker room
11 14 women’s locker room
12 15 accounting
10
16 void
17 storage

first floor

5 3 3 3
6

7 7
9

1
3 3

8 2

3 3 3

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500) cross section

1

COLOUR FIELD El Centro del Pueblo in the Echo

A former warehouse is boldly
revitalised to provide a community
and urban focus.
66 | 5
Park district of Los Angeles is the
kind of building block that every
inner-city community needs: a non-
profit institution, run by dedicated
professionals and volunteers,
which weans youths away from
drugs and gangs by infusing
them with a sense of hope and
self-esteem. Thanks to generous
grants from the S. Mark Taper
Foundation and other donors, it
has recently acquired a new home,
a 1000sqm warehouse inventively
remodelled by Fernando Vazquez,
a Uruguayan-born architect who is
constantly bringing high drama to
simple projects in his adopted city.
Drawing on the Latino heritage
of vibrant street architecture,
he created a dynamic shopping
centre behind the facade of The
Citadel (a former 1920s tyre
factory resembling an Assyrian
2 fortress) in the aptly named
City of Industry. More recently,
he designed a Constructivist
bicycle station of tubular metal
in Long Beach. His home in the
oceanfront community of Venice
is a laboratory for games of
perspective and he’s applied those
lessons here.
The Anglo establishment in Los
Angeles tends to be as timid with
colour as it is with coffee, turning
everything into a bland latte,
and rearing like a startled horse
whenever a neighbour defies the
norm. Most Latinos revel in bright
hues and black brews, and they
will soon constitute a majority in
southern California. For Vazquez,
who grew up in the Modernist
white city of Montevideo, and
went to school in Argentina,
colour was something to discover
on trips through Central America
and in the barrios of east Los
Angeles and midtown. He worked
with the environmental graphics
firm of Sussman/Prezja, which
devised the hot, festive palette
for the LA Olympics of 1984 (AR
August 1984), before opening his
own office and taking on projects
in Japan.
A few smart moves transformed
the generic, windowless, white
stucco box. To pull in natural light
while shielding the interior from
the street,Vazquez pushed out
a ground-floor bay with a strip
of glass at the side, and opened
up a big window at the upper
level. Bold accents of magenta
and orange on the facade provide
a sense of place, and create a
new abstract geometry that
plays off the exuberant mural on
the neighbouring property. The
second floor is cut away in front
to form a double-height lobby, and
allow natural light to penetrate
the corridors that extend to the
rear of the building. These are
treated as village streets, with grey
linoleum in place of asphalt, and
angled planes that enclose activity
rooms and offices. These planes
animate the corridors, shifting
perspectives and alternately
concealing and revealing glass
entry doors. To suggest a row of
house fronts, they are painted in
sizzling yellows and oranges below,
and cooler blues and greens
above. The colours draw you into
the building and lift your spirits.
Skylights in the corridors
and studios bring natural light
to every space. Materials were
chosen for their economy and
durability: gypsum-board walls
and ceilings, linoleum floors,
and exposed insulation in the
studios. These are tested to
the full every day. Activities on
offer include boxing and weights,
aerobics, gymnastics, martial arts,
and dance. There’s a computer
lab-library, a classroom, café,
and lounge. Every space is fully
used, and plans are being made
to expand into the adjoining
property. To the south is a garden
with a court for basketball and
volleyball. This is as impeccably
maintained as any neighbourhood
park on the affluent Westside,
and there is no graffiti on the
building – a sure sign that it
has won local respect. Vazquez,
working with Ena Dubnoff of
ONE Company Architecture, has
created a disciplined exterior and 4
a liberating interior: a metaphor
for the youths and mentors who
1
use this rejuvenated community The building’s revitalised
focus. MICHAEL WEBB and searingly colourful
facade proclaims its mission
of social improvement.
2
Architects
The original warehouse.
Fernando Vazquez
3, 4
Ena Dubnoff Skylights and clerestories
Photographs bring daylight into the deep
Benny Chan industrial plan. 67 | 5
ar june 04 Arcitektengruppedone 20/7/04 12:14 pm Page 54

A museum The Rhineland Regional Museum started as long ago as the 1820s, and
B museum square has accumulated a distinguished collection ranging from the 40 000
C workshops
D administration year old skeleton of Neanderthal man to contemporary artworks. The
E sculpture court
original purpose-made museum building was set up in the 1890s on a
site stretching north-south between two streets just south of the main
railway station. An extension was added in 1909.
During the Second World War, the main building was bombed, leaving
the 1909 extension at the north end intact, and a boxy new museum
building in sub-Mies vocabulary was made to replace it in 1967. By the
late 1990s, this had become technically unsatisfactory, submitting its
valuable contents to unacceptable variations in temperature and
humidity, quite apart from the sheer unattractiveness of the uninspired
site plan and ageing fabric. At first, the museum authorities intended to rework
and update the thirty year old structure, but this promised to be an
expensive task, hardly less than renewing the whole. Having just lost the
status of capital, Bonn was being handed generous cultural money, so a
R HINELAND R EGIONAL M USEUM , new building to the highest technical standards was possible. A
B ONN , G ERMANY competition was held and won by Architektengruppe Stuttgart, who
ARCHITECT decided to make a new block to the south, its main entrance fronting a
A RCHITEKTENGRUPPE S TUTTGART shallow square, while preserving and internally converting the 1909

CRYSTAL CASE 1
The layered facade ...
2
The Rhineland Regional Museum in Bonn is a model ... which, on the south side, contains a
café and some exhibits in the transition
of its kind in both urban and cultural terms. space.

54 | 6 2 55 | 6
ar june 04 Arcitektengruppedone 20/7/04 12:14 pm Page 56

R HINELAND R EGIONAL M USEUM , extension to the north. Rather than working directly with the exhibits,
B ONN , G ERMANY the architects were asked to produce a range of exhibition rooms
ARCHITECT flexible in character, allowing for changes of interpretation. The
A RCHITEKTENGRUPPE S TUTTGART exhibition design was placed in other hands as a separate operation.
Most remarkable in the new museum is the layered treatment of the
south facade, which flips between transparent and reflective as your
viewpoint changes. A single-glazed outer screen-wall serving as
rainscreen and climatic buffer stands some 4m forward of the timber
inner facade surmounted by a completely glazed roof. This glass case is
not just an empty symbol for a museum, but also a transition space. It
provides a protected outdoor area for the café enjoying the afternoon
sun, and it also houses a couple of exhibits which belong outside but
require protection from frost and acid rain: a Roman arcade and a
Gothic cross. The naked wooden inner facade behind is presented in
contrast like a series of display cases or open drawers shallowly angled
to project from the facade plane. The twist in its components makes
the facade more three-dimensional, brings down the scale, and
exaggerates the degree of openness. In fact it is largely solid, though
third floor
there are narrow windows between the boxes framing views to south-
east. The timber treatment continues inside, its texture enhanced by
the sidelight, so the visitor easily makes the connection.
The organization of the new museum is commendably clear and 3 4
makes a virtue of the marriage of the buildings, for nowhere does it
seem a strain. The ground floor central entrance introduces the main
axis along which the complex is deployed. It leads on through a glass
wall to a visually open but fully controlled layer housing ticket hall and
café, and near-central stairs in a large well lead down to cloakrooms.
Entrance to the museum involves passage through another glass wall
which brings one to a well with stairs to one side and numerous other
flights and ramps passing overhead. This atrium is the heart of the
building, mediating between the shallower floor heights of the new part
and the more generous old ones in the 1909 part. It is a clear reference
point for reorientation and is spatially the most interesting volume, but
so little daylight is admitted by the clerestories of the rooflight that it
second floor

3, 4
‘Like a display case or open drawers.’
5
The atrium, which is the heart of the
building, relating the disparate floor
heights of old and new elements.

1 entrance
2 lobby
3 restaurant
4 shop
5 atrium
6 school lunch
7 classrooms
8 reading room
first floor 9 library
10 administration
11 void
12 temporary exhibition
13 plant

56 | 6 ground floor (scale approx 1:1225) long section 5

ar june 04 Arcitektengruppedone 20/7/04 12:14 pm Page 58

feels completely internal, dominated by electric illumination. From the

well you can move into exhibition rooms in either direction. The new
building offers a wide central hall, a narrower room on each side, then
a yet narrower one, a linear gallery with daylight only at the ends. But if
you continue instead on axis into the old building, you discover a suite
of taller rooms: a single central hall with six columns and gallery, and
traditional side-lit rooms at each level on each flank. Set under an
updated version of the original glass lantern with an inner translucent
ceiling in barrel-vaulted form, the central hall is bathed in daylight,
bringing the whole museum to an appropriate climax. Somewhat
church-like, this space has appropriately been used to accommodate
religious and monumental objects of stone, such as Roman funerary
inscriptions and Romanesque capitals from lost churches.
In presenting the collection, the curators decided against a
traditional chronological progression, reorganizing the material around
nine themes including Periods, Power, From wilderness to city, From
gods to God, Secrets of discovery, and Rhineland and the World. It is
like the themed arrangement of Tate Modern in London, and has
similarly brought both praise and criticism. It seemed to me to work
well, and has at least the advantage of demonstrating that classification
is neither fixed nor neutral, and it also gives the curators a more visibly
active role. That it may all be reorganized by fresh curators with a new
world-view seems no bad thing, and is a good argument for the kind of
general-purpose loose-fit attitude taken by the architects. The
exhibition designers have added a certain amount of deliberate scene-
setting, but the building takes it quite well. Fortunately, the whole
treatment is more sober than most recent museums, and the signage
relatively restrained. It evokes some atmosphere of reverence and one
can enjoy the objects without the intervention of the shouting 6
gimmicks and interactive gameshows that spoil many recent museums
in the UK. Reconstruction models are generally helpful, and a
computer simulation of the changing local landscape over millennia is encouraged the architects to provide regular views out, but the phobia
really engaging. The decision to commission life-size wooden against daylight has for the most part won the day, for even key viewing
sculptures of local heroes from Agrippina – after whom the Romans windows are toned down by screens, and side-lighting in old rooms is
named their first settlement Cologne, (Colonia Agrippina) – to Max filtered by solid if translucent blinds. Strong light can of course damage
Ernst shaping one of his sculptures, has also paid off. many kinds of materials, and museum objects are meant to last for
Since the initial reason for changing the building was technical, the ever, so the caution of curators is understandable. At the same time,
new one is environmentally well controlled, with a high thermal mass exhibition designers most easily achieve control by applying artificial
due to its concrete construction, temperature control through heat lamps of their own, and have made this their automatic habit. But many
exchange using pipes embedded in floors and walls, and humidity of us prefer to see objects by daylight if at all possible, and its variability
control through air-conditioning kept at a moderate level. It was one of – the very thing that puts curators and exhibition designers off – is also
the architects’ stated aims to avoid showing off the technical apparatus, its virtue. It changes at different times of day and year, and helps locate
and the construction too is rendered rather basic and pure, with us in time. It is possible to calculate an object’s speed of destruction in
deceptively simple detailing that could even be called overprecise. My variable light and put it in darkness when it is not being seen. It is also
greatest disappointment was the general gloom inside the building and possible to filter and control daylight and sunlight so that they are not
the suppression of relations with the outside world. excessive. But this requires close collaboration between architects,
The curators felt that history does not stop but goes on around us, designers and curators rather than the assumption that exhibition
so they actively wanted visitors to be aware of the city beyond. They areas are essentially black boxes. PETER BLUNDELL JONES

R HINELAND R EGIONAL M USEUM , 6, 7

Climax of museum: central hall bathed
B ONN , G ERMANY in daylight from translucent ceiling.
ARCHITECT
A RCHITEKTENGRUPPE S TUTTGART

Architect
Architektengruppe Stuttgart
Knut Lohrer, Uli Pfeil, Dieter Herrmann,
Gerhard Bosch, Dieter K. Keck
Job architects
Cathrin Dietz, Verena Wortelkamp
Assistants
Ulrich Hanselmann, Achim Buhse, Karin
Koschmieder, Monika Krönke, Bernd Remili,
Nicola Sibiller, Walter Ulrich, Jörg Wenzel,
Andrea Wiedmaier
Photographs
58 | 6 All by Roland Halbe except no 6 by author 7
arJune04chipperfield 20/7/04 12:37 pm Page 65

1
Shed or studio? With its rendered
facade, Gormley’s new studio is
robust and maintenance-free.

QUANTUM LEAP
S TUDIO , L ONDON , UK
ARCHITECT David Chipperfield’s studio for
D AVID C HIPPERFIELD sculptor Antony Gormley. 65 | 6
arJune04chipperfield 20/7/04 12:37 pm Page 66

S TUDIO , L ONDON , UK
ARCHITECT
D AVID C HIPPERFIELD

It didn’t take Gormley and
Chipperfield long to establish that a
modified industrial shed would be a
woefully inadequate solution for
the 1994 Turner Prize-winning
sculptor’s new studio. Having
outgrown his gritty Peckham
studio – a former laundry
converted by Eric Parry in 1988 –
Gormley’s need to move was more
than a notch up in scale and
location (building three and a half
times more space within easier
and safety and quality control.
Gormley needed a functional,
maintenance-free, robust building,
with more space to work, and
significantly, more space to think.
Understanding Gormley’s
working methods, Chipperfield’s
team knew that this building would
be tested to destruction. With
forklift trucks, welding gear and
beam cranes, Gormley would work
this structure hard, and unlike
many clients, he impressed the
Gormley has long admired
Chipperfield’s work, discovering it
for himself while diligently
searching through RIBA files for a
suitable architect to convert his
own home in 1989. Noting a
strength that surpasses the ‘up-
yours brutalism’ of the ’60s and
’70s, and an ability to make
established forms of Modernism
more logical, Chipperfield’s
manipulation of materials, light and
form had clearly impressed him. location plan

reach of his north London home).
The need to find a site, commission
an architect and collaborate on the
design of a purpose-built studio
reflected the fact that, like it or
not, for artists like Gormley, art
has increasingly become a
professional practice. Servicing,
deliveries, storage, stocktaking and
databases are now all part of the
66 | 5 2 process, as are dare I say, health
architects with his intuitive
understanding of forces, mass, and
material. ‘What are the engineer’s
safety factors?’ he would ask while
scrutinizing working drawings,
setting stringent performance
specifications for suspension
capacity, impact resistance and
point loads across the entire site
(including the external yard and
cantilevered stair landing).
For Gormley, therefore, whose
work is fundamentally based on the
human figure, aside from setting
finite performance targets, the
spatial demands of scale and
proportion were of equal
significance. As a place in which to
contemplate the form of his work,
the volumes had to be right.
While Gormley stresses that this
is a factory, not a trophy building,
2
Gormley’s principal studio space is
lofty and spacious with bright,
generous rooflights ...
3
... providing space in which to work,
with access to workshop and storage
areas beyond. 67 | 6
arJune04chipperfield 20/7/04 12:37 pm Page 68

the design has to transcend
utilitarianism, and the team were
keen to engage in a philosophical
exploration of a building that
would be part gallery and part
shed. Reconsidering industrial
typologies, they investigated how
to blur conceptual boundaries, and
after six or seven prototype
designs (including a Marfa-esque
barrel-vaulted option), the
repeated-bay pitched-roof scheme
emerged. Mimicking the
proportion of his former studio,
but increasing its dimensions and
replicating it seven times, Gormley
was comfortable with the scale
that he associates with a Georgian
house. Reworking the Victorian
roof typology minimizes distracting
views, while providing excellent
daylighting and flexible hanging
space throughout. The seven bays
are broken down into double- and
single-height volumes centred on
the principal three-bay studio.
Functions are then carefully
disposed, with private studios
intentionally remote, separated
from shared spaces by two
external staircases; graceful,
sculptural objects that slow you
down, enforcing pace, ritual, and
contemplation. While the ground
floor is given over to production –
with photography studio, storage
and delivery spaces, the principal
studio, workshop, studio
manager’s office and changing
rooms – the first floor provides
places for private and shared
reflection, with two private studios
(one each for Gormley and his
wife, the painter Vicken Parsons), a
resources/meeting room, an office
and a generous common room.
The purpose-built studio has
afforded Gormley several ‘very
practical luxuries’, such as staff
changing rooms, and a designated
plaster room where he can create
his own body templates without
contaminating the studio spaces
beyond. The yard is also of critical
importance, fully serviced to allow
outside work, and having capacity
for two articulated lorries.
Pure in form, Chipperfield’s
tectonic control is seen
throughout, with seamless walls
and soffits set against the exposed
roof structure, while in detail,
modest joinery, metal doors and
bespoke ironmongery add mass to
the building, fabricated from thick
plywood and reassuringly weighty
3mm gauge galvanized steel.
Gormley concluded with a
reflective question: would his work
be affected by his new studio?
Work that he has based on
architectural illusions: body-as-
space and space-as-mass. Perhaps,
he speculates, Chipperfield’s
articulation of volume has
influenced his emerging work with
variable block sculptures. But,
certainly on a practical level,
improved daylighting has facilitated 4
more intricate work, and the
luxury of space has allowed him to
5
experiment with mock-ups, such as
that produced for his latest work
‘Clearing’ – a wild metallic
tumbleweed formed by a 10km
length of square section aluminium, 4
currently tracing a sinuous Transfuser suspended beneath
rooflight.
trajectory in London’s White Cube 5
Gallery. ROB GREGORY Gormley’s workshop, with views
through to principal studio beyond.
6
View from office, through principal
Architects studio, to Gormley’s study beyond.
David Chipperfield Architects: Kevin Carmody, 7
David Chipperfield, Paul Crosby, Andy Resources/meeting room.
Groarke, Victoria Jessen-Pike, Kaori Ohsugi 8
Vicken Parson’s studio.
Photographs 9
All photographs by Richard Bryant/Arcaid View from studio office with
apart from 4 and 5 which are by Pete Moss common room beyond.

S TUDIO , L ONDON , UK
ARCHITECT
D AVID C HIPPERFIELD

long section 6 8
7 9

5 14 15
3 4
12 13
1 main studio
6 7 1 2 workshop 8 9
3 studio manager’s office
2 4 plaster room
11 10
5 changing rooms
6 photography studio
7 deliveries/storage
8 private studio 1
9 private studio II
10 common room
11 office
12 resources/meeting
13 dark room
16
14 storage
15 lavatories
16 courtyard

68 | 6 ground floor plan (scale approx. 1:660) first floor plan

arjun04pianodone 20/7/04 11:59 am
TUNED INSTRUMENT
Piano’s arts museum in Dallas rivals Kahn’s in neighbouring
Fort Worth in lucidity and the subtle use of limpid light.
S CULPTURE MUSEUM ,
D ALLAS , T EXAS , USA
ARCHITECT
R ENZO P IANO
B UILDING W ORKSHOP
Page 46
Combining a gallery and walled garden, both displaying works in its
collection, the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas joins Tadao Ando’s
recent Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (AR August 2003) in
further consolidating the neighbouring cities as a major art
destination within the US. The Nasher is also the latest of a family of
museums the Renzo Piano Building Workshop has built so that the
public might enjoy exceptional private collections of modern art. Like
the Menil Collection (AR March 1987) and Beyeler Museum (AR
December 1997), its galleries are lit through an all-glass roof,
although here all sun-control devices are above the glass that is also
the gallery ceilings. Also, while the Menil’s external walls are the same
grey clapboard as the surrounding bungalows, and the Beyeler’s are
clad in a stone resembling the streaky red sandstone of Basle, the
Nasher does not adopt a material found in its immediate locality.
Instead it is clad inside and out in travertine, as is Louis Kahn’s
Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth (AR November 1978). This,
and the top-lit vaulted galleries, suggest a deliberate dialogue with
what many deem the last unarguably great American work of
architecture, a dialogue set up by a new building that, despite evoking
a mythic past, is as light and contemporary in feel as the Kimbell is
heavy and archaic.
Since the 1960s, real-estate developer Raymond Nasher and his late
wife, Patsy, amassed an outstanding collection of modern art,
concentrated mainly on sculpture. Now totalling some 350 works,
these were displayed in their house and garden – and some, so the
public might encounter and enjoy them, in Nasher’s North Park
shopping centre. The sculpture centre now allows the public to view
these works displayed on a rotating basis, which, along with visiting
exhibitions and other events, should encourage regular revisits in a
contemplative verdant oasis on the edge of the city centre. Nasher,
having met Renzo Piano at the Beyeler opening, entrusted design of
the museum to him and the garden to Peter Walker.
The 2.4-acre city-block site is in Dallas’ Arts District, across the
street from the Dallas Museum of Art and a block away from
I. M. Pei’s Meyerson Symphony Center, between the sleek, sky-
striving towers of downtown and a sunken motorway. The design
challenge was to create a modestly scaled building that could belong
to such a site, bereft of history and consistent contextual cues,
overlooked by behemoths and edged by massive metropolitan-scaled
infrastructure. Piano’s initial instinctual response, poetic rather than
rational, was to neither compete with nor conform to this context.
Instead the new gallery is quiet and low, and subtly emphasizes the
1
The whole is ordered by the rhythmic
stone-faced walls, from which the roofs
are suspended. 47 | 6
arjun04pianodone 20/7/04 11:59 am Page 48

S CULPTURE MUSEUM , D ALLAS ,

T EXAS , USA
A RCHITECT
R ENZO P IANO B UILDING W ORKSHOP

relative newness of the surrounding structures, which thus need not be

deferred to, by suggesting his building springs from archaeological
remnants that predate them. These remnants of earlier construction,
between and around which the sculptures have seemingly been
rediscovered, are the parallel tall stone walls dominating the gallery’s
plan, exterior and interior. (There is an irony here: Kahn advocated
architecture that would make great ruins; but the stones of these ‘ruins’
are flimsy claddings that would soon fall away to reveal a complex mass
of steel structure, ductwork and pipes.) Though few would recognize 2

(and none be fooled by) the fantasy that sparked the design, the result is
a building that nestles into place. The walls assert a footprint of the scale
of the surrounding buildings, yet despite these prominent walls the
building has a recessive and delicate grace that contrasts refreshingly
with the muscularly chunky buildings that characterize Dallas.
Beyeler’s design also grew from the generating gesture of parallel
stone walls, although these are capped by an oversailing glass roof and
faced internally in white plasterboard. Ranged parallel to the street,
the main volume of galleries they define is entered from the lobby,
side-on (as at the Kimbell) bringing some cross-axial stability to these
elongated spaces. But the Nasher’s stone-faced walls reach high above
the vaulted roofs, providing anchorage for the tension ties supporting
the midpoint of the roofs’ curved steel beams. The walls are also
perpendicular to the street, offering views from it, through the fully
glazed ends of the bays they define, into the garden; and entrance is 3

directly and end-on into one of these bays. Two of the other bays are
galleries; the last bay at one end contains a shop, directors’ offices and
boardroom; the last bay at the other end a café and security centre. 2, 3
The entrance bay also gives access to the garden and, via a staircase, Peter Walker did the magnificent
garden, which resonates gently and
to the basement. Like the Beyeler, the building is much bigger than it quietly with Piano’s building.
first appears. In the basement are a further gallery (for works 4
Bay ends are all glazed, easier in a
vulnerable to the bright light above), offices, kitchen and an gallery devoted to sculpture than one
auditorium that can extend through a sliding glass wall to stepped that shows mainly paintings.
5, 6
seating outdoors. Ringing this basement, and extending beyond the Beautifully cut Travertine limestone,
edge of the building above, is an extensive service area for mechanical the material from which Classical
Rome was built, adds solidity to the
plant and storage. myth of the mass. 4
5 6

48 | 6 site plan cross section of typical bay showing construction and lighting 49 | 6
arjun04pianodone 20/7/04 11:59 am Page 50

S CULPTURE MUSEUM , D ALLAS ,

T EXAS , USA
A RCHITECT
R ENZO P IANO B UILDING W ORKSHOP

Outside and inside, the pale neutrally coloured natural materials of

the travertine walls and white oak floors predominate, enlivened by
the contrast with the white steel roof structure and sun-shading
panels, which are clearly visible through the super-white glass roof,
and the charcoal grey frames of the fully glazed walls. The travertine
is used unconventionally: instead of showing the usual vertically sliced
faces of horizontal beds of stone separated by holes, it has been sliced 7
horizontally, along rather than across the beds, and pressure hosed
to expose a rough and varied pitted surface. The stone slabs (30mm
outside and 20mm inside, where the pitting has been filled) have then
been so skilfully matched and mitred as to give the impression of
thick solid blocks.
The main street facade is low key; the eye is caught mainly by the
contrast between the tall, substantial stone piers and the graceful
slightness of the slender steel beams that spring and are suspended
between them. (The tension ties justify the height of the walls and
reveal these to be curved beams rather than arches. Yet they are the
one element of the building that will probably look passé with time:
they are too High-Tech and nothing dates as fast as the futuristic.)
The relationship between the street and the galleries inside is not as
intrusively immediate as is suggested by the open-ended,
perpendicular orientation. Planting and porches distance the sidewalk
from the glass walls – and the piers stepping forward further relieve 8

any abruptness, not least by introducing a slot of space parallel to the

pavement. This interruption enhances the separation and makes
more intricate the flow of space. It is easy to imagine Kahn describing 7
these piers as breaking away from the walls to begin their evolution Being the lowest part of its
surroundings, the Nasher …
into properly articulate columns that create distance and dignifying 8
decorum; some sense of this is in fact subliminally suggested. … drinks in light from the sky through
a most carefully gradated and
Even the main entrance lacks emphasis, revealed only by the orientated system of filters.
omission of planting in front of it. Once in and past the ticket desk, a 9
Lightness and transparency are
cross-axial enfilade of openings slicing right through the building, and Piano’s driving intentions.
9

26 26
1 main entrance
2 entrance vestibule
27 26 3 entrance hall
28 4 art gallery
27
26 8 10 26 5 café
7 10
23
6 multipurpose space
5 9 8 6
26 7 secondary entrance
22 24 25 8 security
9 servery
north-west/south-east section 10 goods lift
21 20 19 11 gift shop 4
12 boardroom
13 passenger lift
14 cloakroom
26 18 26 15 offices
16 classroom 4
17 auditorium
18 open-plan offices
19 general store
16 4 20 art store 3 2 1
21 conservation store
22 workshop
13 23 stage area 13 14
29 17 24 kitchen
12 15 11
25 staff break
26 mechanical
27 loading
26 28 truck lift
29 terraced garden

50 | 6 cross sections ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) lower ground floor plan 51 | 6
arjun04pianodone 20/7/04 11:59 am Page 52

the generous stairs downward, suddenly reveal the extent of the

whole building, as if offering itself in a gesture of welcome. The
immediate impression in the entrance hall and galleries is of the twin
touchstones Piano is apt to repeat mantra-like, ‘lightness and
transparency’, here revealed in the weightless roof and the bright
light that floods through it as well as in the pervasive presence of sky
and garden visible through the roof and end walls. All this, together
with the stone walls, recalls a Victorian conservatory or orangery
rather than a conventional museum, and is only possible because
most sculpture, unlike paintings, is not vulnerable to light.
Piano’s preferred solution of lighting the whole gallery evenly,
rather than reflecting light primarily onto the walls where paintings
would stand out when seen from the more softly lit centre of the
room, is particularly apt for showing sculpture that may be placed at
any point between the walls. Direct sun from above is excluded and
diffused by cast aluminium panels that rather resemble egg-crates, 10
with openings shaped and angled to admit only north skylight directly.
Because Dallas’s street grid is angled 45 degrees from north, so too
are the openings in the sunshades which reveal differing amounts of
sky and create differing patterns as you move around. The sunshade
panels span between flanges propped up above the glass from the
slender curved beams, which have spotlight tracks along their lower
edges. The ends of these beams sit in brackets that swoop down
slightly to connect (beneath concealed gutters) with the steel
columns within the walls, and so also seemingly sit on the head of the
stonework.
The character of the spaces is given not only by the lightness and
transparency, as enlivened by the pared and repetitive structural
elements and detail, but also by the sure judgement of proportion and
dimension. The cross-section of the bays is based on a double square,
32ft (9.75m) between the walls and 16ft (4.87m) to the springing of
11
the curved beams, which rise only another foot at mid-span. This
breadth gives a feeling of great generosity and the relatively low
ceiling, with only the shallowest curve, gives a contrasting feeling of
intimacy. The galleries suit sculpture (and the occasional painting)
very well but viewing paintings would be distracted by the views out
and movement of space through the galleries.
Outside, the garden is set down a few broad steps from a plinth
that extends out from the building. Integrating museum and garden
are lines of trees that extend outward from the parallel walls,
between which stand various sculptures. Terminating the garden, a
planted berm acts as an acoustic barrier to the noise of the sunken
motorway, which is further screened by the splashing of a row of
10
fountains that stand out enticingly against the planted backdrop. From inside, it is difficult to
The Nasher is a building of great understatement and restraint, and comprehend ...
11
also of the richness that comes from precision: precision in ... the elaborate egg-crate
judgement of dimensions and proportions; and precision of construction of the north-seeking
aluminium castings on the roof.
engineering, craftsmanship and detail. Designed to show off another 12
‘A building that offers itself in a
art form, it is an architectural instrument so finely tuned as to sing its gesture of welcome.’
own song softly in the background, a song so serene that some find it
spiritual. (An equally apt metaphor, mechanical rather than musical,
that keeps coming to mind is of a purring, highly-tuned machine.)
Although it may also seem a slight building, almost as much like a Architect
garden centre as a museum, it is so well done, its artfulness raised to Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa
the extreme of seeming artlessness, that it enhances and even Project team
R. Piano, E. Baglietto, B.Terpeluk, S. Ishida,
elevates the contemplation of sculpture. PETER BUCHANAN B. Bauer, L. Pelleriti, S. Scarabicchi,
A. Symietz, E. Trezzani, G. Langasco,
Y. Kashiwagi, F. Cappellini, S. Rossi
Associate architects
Beck Architecture, Dallas;
Interloop A/D, Houston
Structural engineer
Ove Arup & Partners
S CULPTURE MUSEUM , D ALLAS ,
Landscape consultant
T EXAS , USA Peter Walker and Partners
A RCHITECT Photographs
52 | 6 R ENZO P IANO B UILDING W ORKSHOP John E. Linden 12
 BMW SALES AND
EVENT CENTRE ,
MUNICH , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
COOP HIMMELB (L)AU

1 2

WORLD SERVICE
BMW’s sales and events centre in Munich reflects an increasing urge for spectacle.

The hyper competitive world
of the European car industry is
forcing manufacturing companies
to devise ever more elaborate
events, spectacles and locations
in order to sell their products.
Next to Formula One racing,
architecture has become a
favourite means of promoting
the right image. Over the last few
years, many of Europe’s leading car
manufacturers have succumbed
to the lure of buildings designed
by superstar architects. The list
includes Norman Foster for
McLaren; Nicholas Grimshaw,
Rolls-Royce; UN Studio for
Mercedes-Benz (p74); Ron Arad,
Maserati, and Zaha Hadid for VW
and BMW (p50).
In Munich, at the site where
the first BMW engines were
assembled in 1917, the famous
Bavarian motor company is
currently building a huge, multi-
functional car sales and event
centre, appropriately entitled
BMW Welt (BMW World).
Cultivating an air of exclusivity,
only cars and motorcycles by
BMW will be shown here; there
will be no vehicles from other
BMW owned companies such as
Mini or even Rolls-Royce.
In autumn 2001, 27 short-
listed architects submitted
their designs for the 73 000sqm
building. Joint first prize winners
were Coop Himmelb(l)au from
Vienna and Sauerbruch Hutton

70 | 6 3
(Berlin), but in the end, the
Viennese duo impressed the jury
the most with their bold design.
Lying opposite the Munich
Olympic Park, the new building
will occupy a site next to the
famous ‘quadruple cylinders’
BMW company headquarters
designed by Karl Schwanzer in
the early 1970s.
According to BMW, the centre
marks a new generation of
communication buildings for the
twenty-first century, and Coop
Himmelb(l)au’s design lives
up to the client’s extravagant
expectations. The six-storey
structure (with three storeys
below ground for car storage)
contains four separate buildings
enveloped by a huge steel roof
that resembles a billowing cloud.
The Double Cone is a flexible
event space; Premiere houses
VIP lounges, administration,
shops and restaurants; Forum
is a 600 seat theatre; and the
Hall functions as a lobby and
shopping mall for visitors and
car owners who will come here
1
The new building in its Munich context
with the existing BMW headquarters
bottom left.
2, 3
Different elements are united by a
great cloud-like glass roof that billows
upwards from a double cone structure.
71 | 6
 BMW SALES AND
EVENT CENTRE ,
MUNICH , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
COOP HIMMELB (L)AU
4 to collect their new vehicles. Each
Interior of model.
5 day a maximum of 250 customers
A new Munich landmark. will have the opportunity to
watch their new car being
delivered into BMW World.
A range of distractions,
from restaurants, shops and
VIP lounges, to driver briefing
and training and special events,
aims to keep prospective car
owners in the building for
between six and eight hours.
Around 850 000 visitors are
expected annually. Yet the visitor
experience is only half the story.
Below ground, in the caverns of
the three-storey ‘underworld’,
cars are lovingly conditioned
for their big appearance. Up to
250 cars can be stored in a fully
automated rack system. Prior to
delivery, they undergo technical
checks and finally are washed
and spruced up for their new
owners waiting upstairs.
BMW World has been on
site since August 2003 and
72 | 6 5 is currently Munich’s biggest
building site now that the new
Allianz Arena by Herzog & de
Meuron for the 2006 World
Cup is finally finished. (BMW
World is scheduled to open
next summer.) To cope with
the complex site conditions
and detailed design, Coop
Himmelb(l)au are working with
Munich-based engineers Schmitt
Stumpf Frühauf & Partner
and local architect Manfred
Rudolf, who are supervising
the building’s progress. As the
building evolves, it is passed by
thousands of motorists every
day, heralding the prospect of
another major addition to the
Munich scene.
CHRISTIAN BRENSING
Architect
Coop Himmelb(l)au, Vienna
Structural engineers
Bollinger & Grohmann,
Schmitt Stumpf Frühauf & Partner with
architect Manfred Rudolf
Photographs
1, 2, 5, ISOCHROM; 3, Gerald Zugmann;
4, Marcel Weber
long section

1 Hall
2 Forum
3 VIP car delivery
4 briefing centre ��������������
5 bistro
6 exhibition space
7 BMW Individual
8 shops
9 Double Cone
(event space) �����
10 Premiere
(car delivery) �����������������
11 children’s area
12 lounge
13 restaurant ���������������������

����������

��������������������������
third floor

������

������������������

���������������������

exploded axonometric

first floor

ground floor plan (scale 1:2000) location plan 73 | 6

 1
J. Pierpont Morgan was a ruthless financial wizard with superb A three-storey pavilion to
the west provides a new
taste, whose monument – the library designed by McKim, Mead & centralised point of entry
White in 1906 – was a surprisingly restrained product of America’s from Madison Avenue ...
2
first gilded age. Still more astonishing in that country’s latest era ... which leads visitors into
of obscene excess, the Morgan has been doubled in size without the heart of the precinct;
a lofty and bright internal
losing its distinctive personality. The Renzo Piano Building Workshop piazza.
has wrought its customary magic in weaving together old and new,
strengthening the sense of place, and opening up the new central
court to views of the street on three sides. Visitors walking into this
serene, light-filled atrium, or looking down from two upper-level
balconies can savour the sensation of floating within a transparent
bubble at the heart of the metropolis.
Nearly all museums have a compulsion to expand, to display
more of their holdings and find room for new acquisitions, but also
to accommodate ever-greater crowds and boost revenue. A happy 1
few, like the Frick, stay small and are cherished for doing so. In
contrast, the Museum of Modern Art abandoned its early role as a
tightly focused shrine of the avant garde, and turned itself into an
overpoweringly vast emporium with all the appeal of a convention
centre. By choosing Piano, who cares as much for the sacred REQUIRED READING
(contemplating art) as the profane (socialising, shopping and eating)
and manages to keep the two kinds of space distinct, the Morgan With extensive new accommodation, above
avoided that fate.
and below ground, Renzo Piano brings unity
The institution badly needed more gallery and storage space for
its 350 000-item collection of rare books, master drawings, and and order to the Morgan Library.
manuscripts that range from priceless medieval miniatures to musical
scores and correspondence from Ernest Hemingway, plus a better
performance space for its renowned concerts. It also wanted to
appear less intimidating (Morgan’s library was a hermetic strong-box,
designed to exclude the hoi polloi and natural light) and to develop its
role as an art museum.
For the architects, the challenge was to find a footprint on which
to build. The library, the 1850s Morgan family brownstone to the
north, and the Classical-style annex that J. P.’s son added in 1928
were all listed properties, and the spaces between were cluttered
with later additions. The Landmarks Commission would have
opposed a tower. The solution was to clear the additions and to go
down, blasting out the Manhattan schist to a depth of 18 metres
to accommodate three levels of storage vaults, and a steeply raked
auditorium. More than 50 per cent of the 13 800sqm complex is
now located below ground. Three new pavilions have been inserted
between the existing buildings: offices on 37th Street to the north,
a 6m cube called the Thaw Gallery to the south, and a three-storey
entry pavilion on Madison Avenue that, in its transparency, offers a
symbolic welcome mat. New and old structures frame the 15m, glass-
roofed courtyard, evoking an Italian piazzetta. Contd on p54

LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ,

NEW Y ORK , USA
ARCHITECT
46 | 6 RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP 2 47 | 6
 3

3
Looking north toward
the new office suite ...
4
... east toward garden
and annex ...
5
... and south toward the
new Thaw Gallery, the
piazza is an excellent
point of lateral
orientation.
6
The 15m high glazed
volume also rationalises
48 | 6 4 vertical circulation. 6 49 | 6
 6 5 5

6 4

1 2 3

14

13 12

11
8 10 9

ground floor entrance level (scale approx 1: 600) 8 9

1 information and tickets

2 lobby LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ,
3 piazza NEW Y ORK , USA
4 dining room
5 shop ARCHITECT
15 6 conference 18 18 RENZO PIANO
7 Thaw Gallery
8 West Gallery BUILDING WORKSHOP
9 East Gallery 18
10 central hall
11 West Room
12 East Room
13 rotunda
14 North Room
15 auditorium
16 archive
17 plant
18 offices
19 reading room
19

16

17
18
7
The Madison Avenue
view, before Piano’s
intervention.
8, 9
In contrast with the
ornate detail of the
existing buildings, the
Thaw Gallery has a
restrained and stripped
back level of articulation,
50 | 6 basement level one inside and out. third floor plan 51 | 6
 LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ,
NEW Y ORK , USA
ARCHITECT
RENZO PIANO BUILDING
WORKSHOP

10
The Thaw Gallery
and atrium from 36th
Street to the south.

east/west section looking north

north/south section looking east

north/south section looking west (staggered through Thaw Gallery and auditorium)
52 | 6 10 53 | 6
 The lucidity of this plan, which grew organically from Piano’s concept Architect
Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa
sketch, is matched by the lightness and precision of the architecture,
Executive architect
and the strength and honesty of the materials. The steel panels and Beyer Blinder Belle
thin mouldings are painted white with an almost imperceptible rose Structural engineer
Robert Silman Associates
tone that picks up on the Tennessee pink marble of the library and
Services engineer
annex. Piano likens the high-transparency, low-iron glass to crystal. As Cosentini Associates
in all his buildings, natural light is filtered by louvres that are oriented Thermal and electrical engineer
to the north, motorised blinds, and white scrim in the Thaw Gallery, Ove Arup & Partners
Landscape architect
whose proportions were inspired by those of a Renaissance studiolo. H. M. White
The hierarchy and interpenetration of spaces, plus the glimpses of Photographs
traffic and greenery (a public park to the south, a bamboo screen to Paul Raftery/VIEW

block an apartment tower to the east) distil the energy and richness
of New York. Each of the new structures is separated by glass
11, 12, 13
from the old buildings, which have been meticulously restored. The The library’s three
generations, with the original
planar roof of the atrium is linked to the cornice of the library by a central hall, the opulent
neoprene seal. As project architect Giorgio Bianchi notes, ‘they kiss galleried annex, and the
calm restraint of Piano’s new
but don’t disturb’. reading room.
A glazed lift and open stairwell pull natural light from above into 14
Seen from within the
the service areas and subterranean theatre lobby. The steeply-raked original library, the new
280-seat auditorium is panelled in cherry, with curved baffles above atrium provides a bright and
airy place for circulation,
and on either side to achieve optimum acoustics for chamber music, orientation, and quiet
though the hall will also host lectures and movies. The old entrance contemplation.

and reading room on 36th Street have been reconfigured to serve

as a suite of three intimate galleries, with drawings and manuscripts
flanking the former lobby, where Middle Eastern cylinder seals up
to 5500 years old are displayed to brilliant effect. There’s a new,
third-level reading room and four new galleries. The café occupies a
side of the courtyard, and a new restaurant and museum store are
comfortably accommodated on the ground floor of the brownstone.
The contrast in style between the period furnishings of the library
and Morgan’s study, with their scarlet brocade, velvet drapes, and
softly glowing Renaissance paintings, and the cool white volumes
beyond, is as bracing as a leap from a sauna into an icy lake. In its
harmony of scale and refinement of detail, the new respects the old
without mimicry. Each strengthens your appreciation of the other – a
lesson that is badly needed in New York, where a former neglect of
heritage has now given way to an obsessive protectionism.
Robert Stern, the Quinlan Terry of American architecture,
predictably found the Morgan plan too radical. Forty blocks up 11
Madison, neighbours of the Whitney Museum successfully fought to
save the skin of an unremarkable brownstone house with nothing
behind it, preferring this Potemkin gesture to the elegant new
entrance proposed by Piano as part of his recent remodelling scheme.
There was a prolonged and anguished appeal to save Edward Durrell
Stone’s dysfunctional and abandoned museum at Columbus Circle,
with its Venetian wallpaper facade, though reason finally triumphed
and the building is now being transformed by Allied Works. Even
as other major architects, including Frank Gehry, Norman Foster,
Kazuyo Sejima, Jean Nouvel and Enrique Norten, are adding to the
city’s legacy after a long drought, the retro spirit is strong. As an
Italian, Piano is a veteran of these wars, and a master at finding an
appropriate balance of history and invention. MICHAEL WEBB 12

LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ,

NEW Y ORK , USA
ARCHITECT
54 | 6 RENZO PIANO BUILDING WORKSHOP 13 14 55 | 6
 This new library is the second
major civic building in Ílhavo by
the filial partnership of José and
Nuno Mateus who founded the
ARX Portugal collective in the
early ’90s. Their first, an intelligent
remodelling and expansion of
the town’s maritime museum
(AR July 2004) celebrated the
particular, while also touching on
more elemental themes. It also
required pragmatism in dealing
with a somewhat undistinguished
existing structure, which, in order
to secure EC funding, had to be
integrated within the new work.
Coincidentally, the library project
also involves an existing element,
but one of rather greater historic
merit; in this case the remains of
the Manor Visconde de Almeida, an
aristocratic mansion house dating
from the seventeenth century.
1
1
The library’s crisp, white
rendered volumes are
contemporary abstractions of
Iberian vernacular.
2
Main entrance signposted by
a shimmering wall of glass.
3
The elemental simplicity and
abstraction recall the work
80 | 6 of Siza.
The site lies on the edge of
Ílhavo, in surroundings typical of
incoherent, dislocated peripheries
READING
everywhere. Both the nature
of the site and the presence of HISTORY
an original structure gave rise
to a more nuanced strategy of This new library in a provincial
restatement and consolidation, as Portuguese town makes resonant
opposed to simply introducing a connections with history.
gestural, object building.
When the Mateus brothers
won a competition for the job
in 2001, not much remained of
the mansion house. Yet since
it constituted a rare example
of enduring heritage in a
coastal town more noted for
its industry than history, the
preservation and integration of
what had survived became the
starting point for the project.
From the original house, only
the main facade running along
LIBRARY , ÍLHAVO ,
PORTUGAL
ARCHITECT
ARX PORTUGAL
2 3 81 | 6
 the south-west edge of the A rigorous palette of white 1 entrance hall
2 multi-purpose room
site and the small family chapel walls and creamy stone floors 3 reception
remained. Both were in ruins, but unifies the interior, with the odd 4 storage
5 wc
are now immaculately restored, calculated touch such as the 6 children’s section
forming anchoring points for designer light fitting that hovers 7 storytelling
8 bar
ARX’s additions and interventions. precipitously over the entrance 9 technical spaces
10 auditorium
Executed with a taste for the hall like a clutch of suspended 11 archive
reductive that clearly owes a debt pick-up-sticks. Though stripped of 12 loading dock
13 staff room
to Siza, the new parts lock into the its decorative elements over time, 14 chapel
4
old, their white rendered volumes the little chapel has been tactfully 15 patio garden
16 meeting room
an abstract, contemporary play restored to its original function, 17 adult reading room
on Iberian vernacular. The main adding another dimension to 18 administration offices

entrance on the north-east side the civic nature of the complex;

is marked by a triangular canopy
which shelters a shimmering
wall of full-height glazing, a
rare interlude of lightness and
permeability in a predominantly
hermetic composition.
The library forms the social
and organisational fulcrum of the
plan, docking into the historic
parts, now functioning as offices
and technical spaces. The main
reading room is suspended over
the entrance foyer and capped by
a modern version of a sawtooth
roof. On the south side, the foyer
and reading room enclose a secret
courtyard garden, a modern
version of the cooling, verdant
Iberian patio.
however in a conspicuously
Catholic country, its presence
does not seem out of place.
Throughout the project there
16
is a fertile reciprocity between
old and new with the new parts
unequivocally of their time
and characterised by a formal
boldness.Yet this is tempered by 18
a subtle sensuality – the handling 16
of materials, the play of light – and
18
an enlightened awareness of place,
17
history and how good architecture
can resonate with and reinvigorate 17
the wider community. C. S.
13 9
Architect
ARX Portugal, Lisbon
Photographs
Fernando Guerra 5
first floor

LIBRARY , ÍLHAVO ,
PORTUGAL
ARCHITECT
ARX PORTUGAL
2

4
6
14

13 7

10 1
7
cross section through chapel and mansion house looking south-west 3

5
9 5
8
11
9

12

4
The former family chapel
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) and the remains of the
cross section through foyer and adult reading room looking south-west
old mansion house are
integrated in the complex.
5
Main adult reading room, lit
by clerestory glazing.
6
Patio adjoining the
entrance hall, overlooked
by a protruding window
treated as an element of
sculpture.
7
Entrance hall with staircase
leading up to the main
82 | 6 cross section through chapel and mansion house looking north-east long section through children’s library and chapel looking south 6 reading room. 83 | 6
 Nestling in a spectacular
mountain site on the edge of the
HOUSE , K ETCHUM , town of Ketchum, this house by
IDAHO , USA Marwan Al-Sayed is a highly
ARCHITECT perceptive engagement with
MARWAN A L-SAYED topography, light and the local
vernacular. Though clearly
contemporary – built for a
sportif couple with a young child
who enjoy running, skiing and
biking – the project attempts to
connect with deeper,
immemorial resonances between
man and nature. Baghdad-born
and Columbia educated, Al-
Sayed, who worked for Tod
Williams and Billie Tsien, is now

Private Idaho
This house in the Idaho wilderness is a sophisticated
modern take on the traditional American log cabin.
house
based in Phoenix. His work taps
into the uninhibited wellspring
of the Southwest school as
channelled by Will Bruder, Rick
Joy and Wendell Burnette, all
modern architectural
frontiersmen tackling nature
head on.
In this case the geography
shifts north to Idaho, but the
concerns of how to set
architecture in stupendous
landscape are similar. Idaho
straddles the Rocky Mountains
and is a popular destination for
skiing and hiking, yet laissez-faire
land use policies encouraging
piecemeal development often
conspire to take the edge off
that wilderness moment.
Commanding ravishing views of
the bleached, high desert
landscape, the steeply sloping
site is cradled and defined by a
pair of mountain peaks.
Al-Sayed’s response to this
challenging topography is to
partially embed the house in the
hillside, so that the upper level
seems to float free from its
earthly, concrete moorings.
Riffing on an updated notion of
the log cabin, this L-shaped
volume is clad in a skin of
extremely thin horizontal strips
of white Atlantic cedar,
perforated by large picture
windows. For nearly half the
year the site is blanketed in
snow, and the silvery wood,

milkily translucent glass and light

grey concrete merge house with
mountainside.

1
Commanding ravishing
views, the house locks into
84 | 6 its steeply sloping site. 85 | 6

site plan
HOUSE , K ETCHUM ,
IDAHO , USA
ARCHITECT
MARWAN A L-SAYED
The lowest level contains the
active, business end of things – a
garage, recreation area, study
and ski waxing room, buttressed
by a muscular retaining wall.
Above are the living, dining and
sleeping areas conceived as
generous promenade decks from
which to survey the
surroundings. Spaces flow fluidly
into one another, divided by
movable screens to provide
privacy or communality where
required. As the house twists
and folds up the slope, the
change in levels and a subtle
shift in alignment creates a large
triangular courtyard, a precious
flat spot for al fresco gatherings
86 | 6 cross section
upper level
2
intermediate level
and activities in an otherwise
precipitous terrain. At the
house’s north end, the master
bedroom is aligned with the
Kinderhorn mountain peak
giving this intimate domestic
space an especially privileged
view of the changing
choreography of the seasons,
from snow and sky in winter, to
mountain wildflowers and
greenery in spring. C. S.
Architect
Marwan Al-Sayed Architects, Phoenix
Photographs
Bill Timmerman
3 5
lower level plan (scale approx 1:500)
2, 4
The patio at the heart of
the house – a rare flat spot
in the hilly terrain.
3
The house in context. An
L-shaped volume containing
living spaces is anchored by
a concrete base.
5
Room with a view.
6, 7
Interiors have a finesse that
belies the rustic locale. 4 6 7 87 | 6
 HOUSE AND STUDIO ,
NR MELBOURNE , A USTRALIA
ARCHITECT
DENTON CORKER MARSHALL
ar house
Double Bass
This coastal retreat on the Bass Strait poetically responds to climate and views.
Architecture’s endless quest for
‘transparent’ buildings can simply
mean excessive use of glass. This
then requires ingenious design
to solve problems created by
the designer. In many parts of
the world, sunlight, far from
being the essential ingredient of
a health and efficiency type of
architecture, is the key problem
which has to be overcome.
Nor do extreme daytime
temperatures imply a clement
night-time environment.
The Bass Strait in Australia,
south of Melbourne, is a case in
point. Climate comfort is more
important than universal views,
and this coastal retreat, a house
and studio pavilion at Cape
Schanck by Denton Corker
Marshall, keeps glazing to an
appropriately low level. That said,
the house (which is located on
a steep site in the middle of a
golf course) is designed so it can
enjoy ocean views, but does so
in the context of a ‘black box’
steel structure clad in cement
sheet, with a concrete ground
slab and suspended floor.
It is not the black box
approach which makes the house
interesting, however; rather, it
is the array of angled elements
deriving from the twisting of
the box tube in section. This
leads to raked cladding, cranked
lower windows, and a chimney
which emerges from the wall
at a faintly alarming angle. The
desired impression was of a
building which has rotated on its
axis as the box lands on the site.
Not just one box, but two:
one sitting atop the other and
peeking out through the native
ti-trees, entered via a glass-
enclosed (but shaded) concrete
stair beneath its belly. The top
deck contains the living area
1
The project comprises a two-level
house, courtyard and pavilion.
 2

with a long narrow window
that frames the view along the
western elevation, and cruciform
columns of hot dipped galvanised
steel set into the box’s volume.
Living, eating and sleeping zones
are located in free-standing
Glass ends in the house provide
vistas to the landscape, and to the
new studio across the north-
facing courtyard separating the
two buildings. The studio entrance
is via glass sliding doors at either
end of the box, with the interior
and/or aesthetic advantage, has
resulted in a piece of architecture
where client delight and climatic
considerations have been
successfully reconciled.
PAUL FINCH
2
The rectangular structures of house
and studio twist in section, producing a
roofline that follows the land to meet
local planning requirements.
3, 4, 5
Interior views of living space, show
internal timber cubes.
6
From studio looking back to house.

maple timber veneer cubes space marked by an aluminium Architects

within the body of the house,
with the master bedroom and
its bathroom separated by a
concealed sliding door.
cube containing storage, Denton Corker Marshall, Melbourne
Structural engineer
kitchenette and bathroom.
Burns Hamilton + Partners
In all, a variety of materials, Photographs
deployed to environmental Shannon McGrath

1 master bedroom
2 ensuite bathroom
3 kitchen
4 dining room
5 living room
6 courtyard
7 studio
8 bedroom
9 laundry
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) lower ground floor

0 1 2 3

0 1 2 3 5M
CAPE SCHANK RESIDENCE
VICTORIA AUSTRALIA
GROUND & LOWER GROUND
PLANS

HOUSE AND STUDIO ,

NR MELBOURNE , A USTRALIA
ARCHITECT
86 | 6 cross section: one house ‘box’ sits on another DENTON C ORKER MARSHALL
3
4 6

5
 1
PARADISE FOUND
This tourist resort in Mozambique aims to minimise its impact on the local ecology.
Tourism is now the world’s
biggest industry and one of
the most rapacious in terms of
development, particularly along
coastlines. For many of the world’s
poorer coastal areas, tourism
represents a crucial impulse
for economic development,
but often at immense cost
to the environment and local
communities. If we really cared
about the planet we wouldn’t go
anywhere, but in our First World
hunger for new experiences, few
places are off limits.
As one of the world’s poorest
countries and still recovering
from a devastating civil war,
Mozambique is not an obvious
tourist destination. But its
TOURIST RESORT , C ABO
DELGADO , M OZAMBIQUE
ARCHITECT
74 | 7 CULLUM AND NIGHTINGALE
paradisiacal landscape and
climate still lure more intrepid
travellers. The trick is to make
tourism a catalyst for sustainable
development and provide models
that can be fruitfully emulated as
the country slowly recovers its
economic and social equilibrium.
In the northern province of Cabo
Delgado, British architects Hugh
Cullum and Richard Nightingale
have just completed a new tourist
resort which attempts to minimise
its impact on the local ecology
and have sustainable, long-term
benefits for the local community.
Cullum and Nightingale have
worked in Africa before, but the
challenges of designing the British
Embassy in Nairobi (AR July 1997)
were somewhat different to this
latest project.
Set on a picture perfect
tropical coastline of palm-fringed
beaches, Guludo eco-resort lies
in the Quirimbas National Park, a
maritime and wildlife conservation
area run as a collaborative project
between the World Wildlife Fund
and the Mozambican government.
The project aims to promote the
area’s sustainable development and
involved extensive consultations
with the community. Development 1, 2
is encouraged in various ways, Timber-framed communal buildings
touch the ground lightly.
initially through employing local 3
labour for the construction of Vernacular archetypes are sensitively
reinterpreted.
the resort buildings and the use 4
Lavatory unit.
of locally sourced materials. Local 5, 6
people will be trained to help run Construction details.
2

3 5

4 6
75 | 7

B
A beach
B guest bandas
C dining area
D diving centre
E reception
F tower
G amenity building
H stores
J entrance courtyard
K staff area
L staff bandas
1 bedroom
2 mosquito net around bed
3 cupboard
4 desk
5 verandah
6 seat
7 courtyard
8 lathe screen
9 compost lavatory
10 shower
location and site plan
the resort and part of its profits
will be reinvested in community
development projects. The resort
has a commitment to buy locally
grown produce and promote
small-scale craft enterprises.
Cullum and Nightingale
reinterpret local vernacular
traditions by developing modest,
low energy, low maintenance
structures that touch the ground
lightly. The resort is conceived as
small-scale buildings strung out
along a path in the manner of
a traditional village. At its heart
is a central hub with facilities
for eating, cooking, lounging and
teaching loosely arranged round
a courtyard. Guests are housed
in 12 independent bandas facing
the beach. Each banda consists of
a double room opening onto a
shaded verandah overlooking the
TOURIST RESORT ,
CABO DELGADO , M OZAMBIQUE
ARCHITECT
76 | 7 CULLUM AND NIGHTINGALE
A
F B
E
D
H G
J
K
8
7
9 3
10
10
sea, with washing facilities in an
enclosed courtyard to the rear.
Staff are housed in a secondary
cluster of bandas set back from
the beachfront.
Drawing extensively on local
materials and construction
techniques, building structures are
generally timber framed with infill
panels of mud, masonry or woven
matting. Roofs are thatched with
grass or makuti, coconut palm
thatching panels. Non-ferrous
jointing methods include simple
timber pegs and cord or rope
bindings. Imported components
are kept to a minimum and
wherever possible are long life
and locally maintainable. Energy
use is carefully considered, with
fossil fuels minimised. The form of
the architecture exploits passive
methods of cooling through
L
6
2
1
5
4
typical banda plan (scale approx 1:200)
shading, thermal mass, stack effect
ventilation and prevailing winds.
Solar energy is used to generate
electricity through photovoltaic
arrays, and to heat water by direct
radiation. Human waste is recycled
in waterless lavatory units to
provide dry compost for fertiliser.
With its array of sheltering
thatched roofs, the little colony
evokes archetypes of the primitive
hut or desert island shelter (albeit
reinterpreted for the modern
tourist), but the buildings have
a scale, dignity and materiality
appropriate to their setting. If only
everything built for tourists could
be so physically and culturally
tactful. CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architect
Cullum and Nightingale Architects, London
Photographs
Richard Nightingale
 The young French partnership of Florence Lipsky and Pascal Rollet has
a reputation for formally sparse but technically and materially inventive
buildings that make the most of limited programmes and budgets. Though
SCIENCE LESSON
the pair favour the aesthetic edginess and functional economy of raw or
Veiled in a polycarbonate skin, this
industrial materials, they generally play it straight with modular Miesian
structures and disciplined spatial arrangements. Their latest building is a science library exploits site, light
science library for the University of Orleans. Founded in 1961 and now and materials in the quiet pursuit of
with some 5000 students, the university occupies a peripheral campus passive environmental control.
sward at some remove from the city centre, linked by a tram line that
runs on a north-south axis across town. The site for the library is next to
the tram line, in front of one of the four stations that serves the campus.
Emerging from a boskily pastoral setting, the building is a strong, almost
graphic presence in the landscape. The taut orthogonality of its form, a
long, three-storey box terminated by a full-height colonnade, suggests
a scientific triumph of the rational over the romantic, but it has a more
quixotic side in its appropriation of materials, handling of light and
approach to energy use and environmental control.
The tall concrete colonnade, like a scaled down version of Foster’s 1
Carré d’Art museum, Nîmes (AR July 1993), is a welcoming gesture that The translucent volume of the new
library emerges from its wooded
celebrates and civilises arrival, while emphasising a route to the lake. A campus setting.
small glass box, which also acts as an informal exhibition space, forms 2
A tall colonnade creates a space for
a decompression zone between the blare of the outside world and the social interaction.

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ,
O RLEANS , F RANCE
ARCHITECT
LIPSKY + ROLLET

64 | 7
2 65 | 7
 site plan

cross section
3
The colonnade marks the entrance.
4
The site lies next to a tram line linking
the campus with Orleans city centre.
5
Windows puncture the translucent
polycarbonate skin; glare control is
provided by vertical brise soleil.

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ,
O RLEANS , F RANCE
ARCHITECT
LIPSKY + ROLLET

long section

1 colonnade
2 entrance hall
3 exhibition space
4 reception
5 reading room
6 book box
first floor 7 study zones roof plan
8 offices
9 group work spaces
10 multimedia workshop
11 computer room
12 kitchen
13 research room

66 | 7 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000) second floor

3
4

5 6 67 | 7
 silent inner sanctum of the reading room. Areas of clear glazing are
punched apparently at random into the translucent polycarbonate skin
frame and define views of the landscape from inside at study table height,
so students can drift off in contemplative reveries.
In operational terms, the modern university library is less concerned
with the inducement of reverie and more with the efficient storage and
retrieval of information, in both paper and digital formats.Yet the process
of information withdrawal, consultation and return continues to underpin
and structure the library as a building type. Lipksy + Rollet articulate this
process through a central ‘book box’, a dense core of books surrounded
by more fluid study zones arranged round the periphery. The main
reading room is a dramatic triple-height space, overlooked and surveyed
by perimeter study zones on the floor above, so users can inhabit a more
intimate enclave, yet be aware of wider goings on.
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ,
The monumental book box is clad in Fincof panels (more commonly
O RLEANS , F RANCE
employed for concrete formwork), a type of Finnish birch plywood
ARCHITECT
stained with dark phenolic resin. The panels evoke the warm leather of
LIPSKY + ROLLET
traditional bookbinding and study armchairs but this is faux luxury. The
budget necessitated an imaginatively frugal approach to materials, as
manifest by the double skin of polycarbonate used to clad the building
which combines good insulation levels with light diffusing qualities, so
the reading room seems wrapped in a rice paper screen, with readers
silhouetted against its translucent walls. South and east facades have
vertical, manually operable white polycarbonate louvres to provide
additional glare control. Depending on the sun angle and building users,
the vertical brise soleil create a changing pattern on the facades.
Though France is not as advanced as Germany in legislating for
efficient energy use, the need to keep capital and running costs down
proved an important incentive, giving rise to an integrated system of low
key, passive environmental control techniques that minimise mechanical
systems. The building is naturally ventilated, with fresh air warming and
rising up through the main reading room through the stack effect and
expelled through vents in the roof. In winter, the main gas-fired heating
system of water pipes in the ground floor slab is supplemented by a
network of local radiators for smaller cellular spaces. All this is achieved
in an undemonstrative yet thoughtful way that chimes with the wider
architectural intentions. Without succumbing entirely to the lure of
scientific rationalism, Lipsky + Rollet manage to make complex things
look elegantly simple and obvious. This is science with soul. C. S.
6

7
6
Study zones on the perimeter.
7
The monumental book box at the heart
of the library clad in plywood panels
stained with phenolic resin.
8
Light diffuses softly through the
polycarbonate skin while panels of clear
glazing frame external views at study
table height.

Architect
Lipksy + Rollet, Paris
Photographs
68 | 7 Paul Raftery/VIEW
8 69 | 7
 This is perhaps the ultimate
boutique hotel, an individual
concrete tube set in lush green
surroundings, running water not
included. Aimed principally at the
young and hardy, Dasparkhotel
makes a virtue of economy,
streamlining both architectural
form and the management/
booking process. Weary of the
tents and hostels that are the
usual preserve of the budget-
conscious traveller, Austrian
architect Andreas Strauss wanted
to develop a more contemporary
notion of cheap, no-frills
accommodation. His solution
is a trio of chunky concrete
cylinders each just large enough
to accommodate a basic sleeping
platform. Once anchored on site,
the tubes are perfectly stable
and secure, and the thermal
mass of the concrete keeps
occupants cool in hot weather
(Dasparkhotel is a seasonal
summer gig). Internal surfaces
are simply sealed with clear
varnish and rear walls enlivened
by artist Thomas Latzel-Ochoa’s
2
paintings. A circular timber door
is accessed by a number code regional cultural organisation for There are no set rates; instead attracted all sorts of clientele,
lock, so eliminating the fuss of Upper Austria, but the project guests leave what they feel is from bashful teenagers to elderly
keys and concierges. gained momentum through the appropriate in a pay-box inside Dutch cyclists. Expect to see the
Supplied by Austrian firm generosity of suppliers, doubtless each cylinder, the proceeds compact, concrete compound
C. Bergmann, the concrete tickled by Strauss’s off-the-wall of which cover cleaning and featuring in the next volume of
cylinders are standard off- vision of an encampment of maintenance costs for a season. Hip Hotels. C.S.
the-peg industrial grade, each temporary, tubular troglodytes. This summer the tubes will be Architect
weighing 9.5 tons. The cost of Visitors book online and are at Ottensheim, a village outside Andreas Strauss, Ottensheim
buying, fitting and transporting mailed back an access code, Linz, with plans to further Project team
Andreas Strauss, Gunda Wiesner,
the three cylinders was around together with details of the expand the concept at Maribor
Claudia Kogler, Nicki Diemannsberger
€5000. Initial funding came nearest and most congenial in Slovenia. Though aimed at the Photographs
from KUPF-Innovationstopf, a showers, WCs and cafés. youth market, the tubes have Dietmar Tollerian

TUBULAR TROGLODYTES
1
The concrete
tubes are
equipped with a
sleeping platform.
Guests pay
Off-the-peg industrial grade concrete cylinders are what they think
is appropriate
appropriated to create the ultimate budget hotel. and use nearby
washing and dining
facilities.
2
The tubular trio.
Cylinders are
standard industrial
grade; the concrete
keeps the interior
cool in summer.
3
Happy campers.

BUDGET HOTEL ,
LINZ , A USTRIA
ARCHITECT
66 | 7 ANDREAS STRAUSS 3 67 | 7
 Solar umbrella
Lawrence Scarpa’s own family house in Venice Beach is an imaginative
and ecologically aware response to the balmy Californian climate.

84 | 7 ar house 1
 Frugality and sustainability are
the hallmarks of Pugh + Scarpa’s
practice, and Lawrence Scarpa’s
family house is an imaginative
manifestation of those principles.
Despite its imposing facade, it is
an addition: a spacious living area
grafted onto the rear of a vintage
60sqm bungalow, and an upstairs
master suite cantilevered back
without touching the roof of
the old building, so avoiding the
need to bring the old structure
up to code. A tilt-up concrete
shear wall braces a wood-frame
structure, and a steel frame
supports the cantilever. All the
2
other materials are recycled:
rusted cold-rolled steel for the (warmed by its purple acrylic where it is miserably hot and
front fence and surface cladding, lining) and doubling as a heat humid, and you get sweaty walking
cherry wood and chipboard, chimney when the skylight is from your house to the car. The
homosote (pulped newsprint) opened. Pocketing glass sliders ocean breezes in Venice make this
and a translucent screen of plastic open the living room to the front, the best climate on the planet, and
pellets used to clean up oil spills. and the master bedroom opens to it’s a crime not to take advantage
Ninety solar panels wrap a terrace, bringing the outdoors in. of it. Green architecture is an
the south side and canopy the The notion of indoor-outdoor easy, commonsense thing to do
bedroom terrace, blocking the living in southern California – we have an in-house electrical/
sun and generating an energy was pioneered by immigrants mechanical engineer and typically
credit. The house is cooled by from cold climates, such as the make our buildings 50 per cent
FAMILY HOUSE , V ENICE , cross ventilation, and all rainwater Greene brothers of Cincinnati more energy efficient than more
CALIFORNIA , USA is retained on site. A narrow, and Schindler and Neutra from conventional solutions.’
ARCHITECT wedge-shaped lantern rises above Vienna. Scarpa had the opposite Like many architects, Scarpa
PUGH + SCARPA the kitchen, pulling in natural light experience: ‘I grew up in Florida, launched his practice with
PLACE

PISANI PLACE
PISANIPLACE

1
Partly wrapped in a skin of photovoltaic
panels, the house reads as series of
PISANI

floating planes.
2
The suburban Californian context. The
BOCCACCIO
BOCCACCIOAVENUE
AVENUE BOCCACCIO AVENUE new house is built to the rear of an
existing vintage bungalow.
3
Indoor outdoor living is ideally suited
to the Californian climate, though it
was originally pioneered by immigrants
from colder latitudes.

WOODLAWN
WOODLAWNAVENUE
AVENUE WOODLAWN AVENUE

site plan
20
20
NN 20 N

3
85 | 7
 cross section

16

4 14

15
FAMILY HOUSE , V ENICE ,
CALIFORNIA , USA
ARCHITECT
PUGH + SCARPA roof plan

kitchen remodels and residential everything in this inventive house

DN

additions and, when he and his
wife moved into a run-down 1923
cottage on a through lot, they
did an inexpensive remodel for
does double duty. The entry to a
guest bathroom and lavatory is 13
concealed behind a hinged section
14
of the bookcase that lines one wall. DN

themselves. The long back yard Concrete steps with a cantilevered

prompted thoughts of expansion handrail lead to a springy mesh 12 11

and the arrival of their first child,
five years ago, made that dream
a necessity. The 130sqm addition
was done on a tight budget within
a restrictive zoning envelope. It
was important not to overwhelm
the cottages on either side, so the
staircase supported on a steel tube
of the same rusted steel, which
runs up the inner wall, hovering
first floor plan
over a massive built-in sofa. The
interior is a collage of textures
and tones, from the patinated
steel panels around the hearth UP

7
steel fence reduces the impact of to the soft suede finish of the
UP

5 UP

4
the two-storey structure. homosote. A storage wall of grey- 6
1
From the front you can look green mdf is a backdrop for the
through the house to the street on parents’ bed, which opens onto an 2
DN

3
the far side, and glimpse treetops unenclosed bathing area. Though UP

UP
9
through the glass in the bedroom. very different from its neighbours, UP
UP 8
10
Openness and transparency the house has a strong sense of
DN

dematerialise the gritty steel place.Venice, conceived a century DN

and concrete, and a brise-soleil of ago as a picturesque pastiche of

bristles filters the light. Scarpa calls La Serenissima, became a tough, ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500)
it the world’s largest scrubbing blue collar neighbourhood, known UP

brush. The original facade (now the more for oil, bikers, and the Beats, DN

rear) has been abstracted. A steel- than for its few surviving canals. 1 living room
2 dining
framed glass box pushes forward Crime and gentrification co-exist 3 kitchen
beneath an open steel canopy, and in one of the few districts of West 4 bedroom
5 study
the same material is employed for LA that has not succumbed to the 6 bathroom
7 closet
the car port and entry door. suffocating quest for respectability, 8 pond
Leaves from a eucalyptus, and vigilante committees intent on 9 bamboo planter
10 laundry
planted by the architect five years imposing a sterile conformity of 11 master bedroom
before and sacrificed for the taste.Venice is getting pricey but 12 master bathroom 4
13 terrace Master bedroom.
addition, were laid in the concrete it retains its edge, and Scarpa has 14 skylight 5
forms and pattern the surface made an important contribution to 15 photovoltaic roof panels Dining area. Interiors are characterised
16 roof by spatial fluidity and an animated
of the wall beside the entry. A its diversity. MICHAEL WEBB collage of textures and tones.
6
low wall that surrounds the Living room.
plunge pool serves as a bench for Architect 7
Pugh + Scarpa, Santa Monica Vertiginous steel mesh staircase.
entertaining, as does the edge of Photographs 8
86 | 7 the sunken living room. Almost Marvin Rand Roof terrace.
5 6
7 8

87 | 7
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34 | 7 35 | 7
 AIRPORT TERMINAL ,
MADRID , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
RICHARD ROGERS
PARTNERSHIP
Trudging at midnight along Gatwick’s deserted corridors to board a
six hour late flight to Madrid, it struck me that Gatwick epitomises all
that is worst about the modern airport experience. The queuing, the
disorientation, the anomie, the slog of physical distances, the lack of
daylight and the endless shopping malls as a substitute for any kind of
interior life. Doubtless Gatwick’s designers and mood managers thought
that a gaudily coloured carpet would alleviate the route march to the
departure gate, but the effect was like putting lipstick on a baboon.
In common with its bigger and more unmanageable sister Heathrow,
Gatwick favours the Belly of the Beast model of passenger processing.
Inside the Beast’s Belly you could literally be anywhere. Dallas, Dacca,
Dresden, Darwin; guess where you are from the carpet in the corridors.
Truly, the airport is everywhere yet nowhere.
These are familiar protestations but worth restating. Fuelled by the
phenomenal growth of air travel the airport has become a necessary
contemporary evil, but any building type defined by such unforgiving
parameters (passenger flows, aircraft regulations, security paranoia,
rampant commercialism and uninhibited bigness) would struggle to be a
thing of inspiration.Yet within its short lifespan (it is only 70 years since
Gatwick was a shed in a field) the airport has also suffered from a kind of
hideously accelerated development. There are no archetypes to inspire or
refer to, only a parade of rapidly obsolescing mutations. While most cities
can muster a memorable church, city hall or museum, the memorable
airport is far more elusive. A quick roll call of notables might include
Piano’s Kansai, Foster’s Chek Lap Kok, SOM’s Haj Terminal in Mecca,
Saarinen at JFK, and Charles de Gaulle in Paris. And, of course, Stansted
(AR May 1991), Foster’s romantic vision of a sleek techno-shed in a field,
still maintaining its dignity no matter how many branches of Accessorize
36 | 7 it is obliged to accommodate.
To this woefully short list can now be added Richard Rogers’ new A car park building
B terminal building
terminal at Barajas airport in Madrid. In terms of physical size and C satellite building
political ambition, the new terminal is a very heavy hitter designed to D service tunnel
E existing runways
increase Barajas’ current annual capacity of 25 million passengers to F new runways
70 million. This will make it Europe’s second busiest airport and also, G existing terminals
crucially, one capable of accommodating the new A380 Airbus, the
next generation of 800 seat super jumbos. Madrid is a natural locus of B
exchange between Europe and Latin America and this latest tranche
of airport development, which includes two new runways, aims to
strengthen the historic umbilicus between Old and New Worlds. After A
years of playing second fiddle to Barcelona, Madrid is feeling expansive
again, with a revitalised Barajas seen as a key aspect of civic and economic
image making. D
Such a highly charged agenda has helped to give an almost unbelievable
impetus to an exceedingly large and complex project. Construction
drawings, for instance, were completed in a mere five months.
Comparisons with Heathrow’s Terminal 5, Rogers’ other major airport G E
project, are sadly instructive. Even at twice the size of T5 and begun C
eight years after it, Barajas is now complete, and its development (unlike
T5’s which was mired in a planning and bureaucratic morass), seems
like a model of clarity and vision. From the first enlightened move of F
hiring a British architect (this is Rogers’ first Iberian job but his project
E
team worked closely with local firm Estudio Lamela), Barajas has been
F
underpinned by political will, a responsive client in AENA, the Spanish
airports authority, plus the room and the resources1 to build. 2
The rippling roof
Circumstances were in place for Rogers to deliver and he and project unifies the volumes
director Ivan Harbour have done so resoundingly. Barajas civilises the of concourse and
boarding pier. Car
numbing experience of air travel, humanising the flows and processes of drop off is on the
far right. site plan
airport life and using them to configure a building of power and presence. 37 | 7

3 experiential romance. The hypnotic swell of the roof creates different
Though the design was first begun in 1997 as a competition proposal,
it still seems fresh and retains a spirit of dynamism and assurance. The
most obvious formal move is the undulating roof, suggesting a kinship
with T5, but Barajas also adopts the organisational model of Kansai (AR
November 1994). As at Osaka, a wavy roofed concourse building is
incised by multistorey canyons and linked to a single, immensely long pier
that contains the boarding gates. This arrangement has the advantages
of directional clarity (you are always moving in a linear progression
either to or from your gate) and allows natural light and even views to
trespass delightfully into what is usually a hermetic interior. And whether
conscious or not, there is also a sense of Rogers picking up where
Piano left off, taking Kansai’s generative concept of a ‘soft machine’ that
persuasively fuses the biological with the mechanical, on to the next level.
Arriving by car2 gives the best first view of the architectural
achievement. As you swing round to the north-west of the existing
Barajas complex, the new terminal appears as a vigorous wiggle in
the bleached altiplano landscape, like a back-of-the-envelope sketch
made flesh. The shrug of the roof seems to mimic the heave and roll of
distant hills and there is a brief rainbow flash of colour. Cars dropping
off passengers glide under the roof’s gull wing embrace, sweeping past
a vast parking structure for 9000 vehicles. The roof of the car park is
landscaped and its walls shrouded in gauzy metal mesh, softening the
impact of bulk. Six access silos boldly coded by superscale graphics add a
slightly surreal touch.
3
The landscaped roof of the
parking structure minimises
its bulk.
4 cross section through main terminal building showing departures in red, arrivals in blue
Welcome to Madrid. Vehicle
drop off and pick up under the
ultimate porte cochère.
5
Check-in hall. The roof plane
is liberated from the clutter
of service; sculptural free-
standing funnels, for instance,
are used for air handling.
AIRPORT TERMINAL ,
MADRID , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
RICHARD ROGERS
38 | 7 PARTNERSHIP
Progress from check-in to departure gate is marked and measured by
the rise and fall of the roof and rhythm of its structure. The basic unit of
support is a Y-shaped assemblage of tapering steel members anchored
by concrete moorings. Painted signature Roger egg-yolk yellow, the
steel members form the angular branches of the arboreal structure
with the more massive concrete trunks extending down through the
building. Organised around a 18 x 9m modular grid, Barajas is actually
just a huge3 and potentially extendible kit of parts, with consequent
economies of scale in materials, detailing and construction time. Certain
elements that were specially designed for the project, such as the vaguely
anthropomorphic floor mounted air-handling units and wok-like light
fittings, have since gone into general commercial production.
Tempering this High-Tech rationale is a fair dollop of spatial and
sorts of spaces – grandly lofty halls for check-in at its peaks, and more
intimate areas for waiting, eating and circulation at its troughs. The
obvious conceptual model is the market roof amiably sheltering teeming
humanity and a diversity of activities. Some critics have also suggested
that it also alludes to the rhythmic vaults of the famous Cordoba
mosque. Clad in thin laminated strips of Chinese bamboo (astonishingly,
each strip was individually fixed by hand), the roof has a seductive, tactile
quality, like being inside a giant musical instrument. Even more lyrically,
project architect Simon Smithson likens the heaving geometry to being
underwater and seeing the surface of the sea softly rising and falling
above you, with shafts of sunlight percolating down into the depths.
Chracterised by tactful and imaginative handling of light and views,
Barajas has managed to break free from the dead hand of airport anomie.
Glazed walls offer a redemptive connection with the exterior, and the
harsh Madrid light is filtered and channelled around the interior through
a series of oculi in the rippling roof. Light catches the creamy floor of
Spanish limestone, turning it to a gleaming horizontal plane that brightens
the cavernous spaces. Most dramatically of all, light sears down into the
canyons, three parallel voids carved into the length of the building. As
4
an obvious means of funnelling daylight to the arrivals hall below, these 5
multistorey clefts also signpost the various stages of departure, from
check-in to aircraft boarding. At intervals, the canyons are spanned by
bridges, so departing and arriving passengers are periodically aware
of each other, helping to mitigate feelings of disorientation. While
the intermediate canyon provides contemplative views down into the
continued p56
cross section through satellite building
39 | 7
 AIRPORT TERMINAL ,
MADRID , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
RICHARD ROGERS 1 public space airside
2 public space landside
PARTNERSHIP 3 horizontal and vertical circulation
4 retail
5 airport services
6 baggage transport system
PUBLIC SPACE AIRSIDE
PUBLIC SPACE LANDSIDE
HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL CIRCULATION
RETAIL
AIRPORT SERVICES
AUTOMATIC BAGGAGE TRANSPORT SYSTEM
level 2

level 2

level 1

level 1

ground level

ground level

level -2

level -2 6
The great nave of the boarding
pier, with its kaleidoscopic
columns. Arriving passengers cross
40 | 7 main terminal satellite building by bridges to the upper level. 6 41 | 7
 7

7
Baggage reclaim hall with
distinctive ‘wok’ light fittings.
8
Canyon in baggage reclaim hall.
Departing passengers cross over
bridges at upper level. Light is
filtered down into the depths
through fixed louvres in the oculi.

AIRPORT TERMINAL ,
MADRID , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
RICHARD ROGERS
42 | 7 cut-away isometric of roof and canyon PARTNERSHIP 8 43 | 7
 9

AIRPORT TERMINAL ,
MADRID , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
RICHARD ROGERS
PARTNERSHIP

baggage reclaim hall, the canyons at land and airside are filled with
the panoply of vertical circulation. Long banks of escalators and stairs
bestride the chasms, and curious glass lifts that might have sprung from
the imagination of Heath Robinson scuttle busily up and down. The
airside canyon is also filled with the inevitable monstrous regiment of
shops, but by setting clear protocols for fit-outs, Rogers has tried to
contain the dismaying effects of commercial intrusion.
The 38 boarding gates are contained in a soaring treble-height pier, 10
with a further 26 docked on to the satellite building (a sort of ‘mini-
me’ version of the terminal), which is linked to the main complex by
underground shuttle. At three quarters of a mile long, the pier seems
infinite, an elegantly elongated nave articulated by the repetitive march
of its arboreal structure. Along its length, the signature Rogers yellow
is amplified by the full range of the colour spectrum. This apparently
whimsical touch is partly an aesthetic decision, but it also assists with
orientation, the colour coding of the structure matching the signage for
boarding gates. As departing passengers head for the red, orange, blue
or green columns, this is the end of the line; beyond are the planes, the
runway and the sky. Arriving travellers make the journey in reverse,
docking into and across the boarding pier nave, communing with the
baggage reclaim floor at lower level and finally emerging into the
brilliance and bustle of the landside canyon. The new terminal is devoted 9
to Iberia, British Airways and their smaller commercial partners, with Waiting and shopping – boarding
gates with retail units. Rogers
budget airlines kept at some remove in the existing terminals. has attempted to minimise the
The romance of Barajas belies the technical feat of its realisation. It impact of commerce.
10
might all look effortless, but below stairs and behind the scenes is a Airside canyon for arrivals,
seething netherworld of operational spaces such as the vast subterranean animated by the panoply of
vertical circulation.
baggage-handling facility. Nothing stands still in this building for long, 11
Connection with the exterior
and the continuous, relentless choreography of people, planes and stuff makes passengers feel as though
shapes and animates the architecture. That there can also be scope in they are somewhere.
this huge, impersonal machine to create humanely scaled, dignified and
even sensuous experiences is the building’s remarkable trump card. With Architect
Barajas, the airport as a type finally seems to have reached an important Richard Rogers Partnership, London
Associate architect
benchmark in its short and unsatisfactory evolution, the grubby Estudio Lamela
caterpillar finally transformed into a butterfly. Is it too much to hope that Structural & services engineers
the civilising mission of Rogers’ Spanish soft machine can help set the INITEC Tarmac Professional
Services
agenda for the next generation of airports? CATHERINE SLESSOR
Structural design
Anthony Hunt Associates
1
The budget for the main terminal, satellite and car park was €1238 million. The total Barajas Facade design
development budget was €6000 million. ARUP Facades
2
The proposed train link from the new terminal to central Madrid is still under construction; it should be Lighting consultant
completed next year. Jonathan Speirs
3
Total built area, including parking and access roads, is approx 1 100 000sqm. The main terminal is Photographs
44 | 7 470 000sqm and the satellite 290 000sqm. Duccio Malagamba 11 45 | 7
 HOUSE , C LONAKILTY ,
COUNTY CORK , I RELAND
ARCHITECT
NIALL MCLAUGHLIN
The architect for this project,
Niall McLaughlin, was given
the challenge of producing
a building that would match
the striking beauty of its site,
at Clonakilty, County Cork,
on the west coast of Ireland.
In their project description,
the practice makes reference
to the ‘beautiful shards of
metamorphic rock that finger
out to the sea from the base of
the small cliffs’; the new building
2
82 | 8
element of the project, which
adds to the conversion of a
boathouse and the coastguard’s
cottage, produces a built shard
of its own, distinctive but
responsive to the geological
forms in which it sits.
The conversion elements
of the project are simple and
effective, providing a master
bedroom and bathroom in the
cottage, and guest rooms in the
boathouse. The new extension
for living/dining is reached via a
glazed cloister, the whole based
round a quiet courtyard. The
experience of each element of
the design, from arrival to sitting
at the dining table, is a journey
in miniature, with vistas of sea
and coast powerful, but not
ubiquitous, and complemented
by domestic interior views.
The temptation to provide
maximum views from all points
at all times has been wisely
View point
Niall McLaughlin’s house conversion and addition
respect and enrich their coastal environment.
1
Long elevation borders a
courtyard space.
2
The wind protected site.
3
Light was a key design prompt.
 83 | 8
ar house
3

resisted, and the cliché of the
big picture window in the
extension has also been avoided,
in favour of a pair of separated
framed views, one from the
living area and one from the
dining area immediately next
HOUSE , C LONAKILTY ,
COUNTY CORK , I RELAND
ARCHITECT
NIALL MCLAUGHLIN
84 | 8 section showing converted boathouse (left) and cottage
to the courtyard. Responding
to light has been a successful
driver for the project, given that
the relatively sheltered location
of the existing buildings, on
a south-east facing site, has
resulted in a lack of sunlight.
0 5m
As the architect puts it, ‘We 4
View sharing dining space.
have designed the extension to 5
capture the last scraps of sun The cottage contains master
bedroom and bathroom.
as it declines behind the hill 6
in the early evening’. The new Cottage interior.
7
extension more than makes up The area looking back to the kitchen.
8
for this, producing a totality Separation of function avoids a
in which comfort, aspect, light picture window cliché.
and geographical drama are
synthesised to great effect.
This is an architectural
project where success has
been achieved by treating
each potential difficulty as
a constructive opportunity.
Rather than a series of tactical
responses, which end up
compromising the diagram of
framed views and calculated
routes, the building has a
4 feeling of serenity and
completeness that belie the
design effort required to achieve
such an outcome. PAUL FINCH
Architect
Niall McLaughlin
Structural engineer
Packman Lucas
Photographs
Niall McLaughlin and Nicholas Kane 6
5 4 2
1 3
9
B
6 7 C
10
0 5m 10m
geometry responds to topography
1 entrance
2 living room
3 dining
4 kitchen
5 lavatory
6 master bedroom
7 ensuite
8 guest bedroom
9 guest bathroom
10 slipway
0 5m 10m
10m
the addition frames the space
7

8
85 | 8
ART MUSEUM , B ERNE ,
SWITZERLAND
ARCHITECT
RENZO PIANO

MONUMENT
FOR A MINIATURIST 1
The rollercoaster profile of
the arched steel members
forms the defining image of
A new museum dedicated to Paul Klee swells seductively into the Swiss landscape. the new museum.
 The arcaded streets of the old town of Berne, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, have acquired a counterpart in the pedestrian concourse
that links the three volumes of the Zentrum Paul Klee, Renzo Piano’s
latest showcase for art. An undulating steel structure emerges from
three hills to the east of the city, facing over the ringroad and surrounded
by fields. It’s a monument that celebrates the work of a brilliant
miniaturist; a fusion of architecture and landscape, warmth and precision,
structural daring and welcoming interiors. It captures the unique spirit of
a native son who made his reputation in Germany, fled Nazi persecution
to return home for a final burst of creativity, and is buried close by.
Klee was astonishingly prolific, meticulously recording the 10 000
works he created in his thirty-year career. ‘Not a day without a sketch,’
he noted in his journal, even as he neared his death in 1940. Members
of the artist’s family and the Klee Foundation promised to donate their
astounding hoard of 4000 paintings and drawings if Berne would provide
a dedicated space to show them. The chief sponsors were Professor
Maurice Müller, a surgeon who invented the artificial hip, and his wife,
Martha, who selected the location and the architect, and insisted that the
building be a centre for all the arts and for people of all ages. Piano has
created a museum that reaches out to embrace the visitors who stream
in from footpaths, city bus, and motorway.
Like so many of his buildings, the Zentrum has a strong, simple diagram
that belies the complexity of its design and construction. Piano shifted
the site from the one that had first been chosen to address the sunken
motorway, mirroring its gentle curve in the glass facade and even in the
lines of vents cut into the floors of the galleries. That gives the building
a symbolic link to the contemporary world, and to the city that lies
beyond, concealed within its river valley. The undulating topography of the
adjoining hills inspired the profile of the steel beams, which swoop and
soar like a rollercoaster, rising from the earth at the rear to form a trio
of imposing arches in front. Each rounded vault encloses a discrete set
ART MUSEUM , B ERNE , S WITZERLAND
ARCHITECT
RENZO PIANO
2
The trio of
topographic bumps
mimics the gentle
undulations of
the surrounding
landscape.
32 | 8
of spaces that are linked at the front by a 150m long glazed concourse 3
A serpentine path
containing the café, ticketing, shop, and reference area. Extended opening leads up to the main
hours encourage visitors to come early or linger in this protected piazza. entrance.
A changing selection from the permanent collection is displayed in the
central pavilion, with a temporary exhibition gallery below. To the north,
meeting and restoration areas lead out of the concourse, with a creative
workshop for children below, and a subterranean auditorium behind. The
south pavilion contains the administrative offices, archives, and seminar
rooms, all on the main level.
The 4.2km of steel girders were cut and shaped by computer-
controlled machines but then, because each section has a different
configuration, the 40km of seams were hand-welded. The arches are
slightly inclined at different angles, braced by compression struts, and
tied to the roof plate and floor slabs. In contrast to this assembly of
unique parts, the concrete floors were constructed as a single structure,
without settlement joints. The glass facade is divided into upper and
lower sections, which are joined at the 4m roof level of the concourse,
and are suspended from girders to avert stress from thermal expansion
in the steel roof. The glass is shaded by exterior mesh blinds that extend
automatically in response to the intensity of the light, and the high level
of insulation minimizes energy consumption.
All of these measures pay off in the galleries and archives, where
temperature and humidity must be maintained at constant levels, even
though they are seamlessly linked to the busy public concourse. The
permanent collection is displayed beneath the curved vault in a 1700sqm
room that is divided by suspended flats into a benign labyrinth of
interconnecting spaces. Each white screen hovers a couple of centimetres
above the oak floor as do the peripheral walls. To achieve the low lighting
level required by these sensitive works, illumination is indirect and
filtered. Spots cast their beams on the white-boarded ceiling vault, and
this glow is diffused by suspended square scrims.
3
4
To the rear, the vaults merge
into the ground. Planting
will gradually be established
between the ridges to make the
transition more seamless.
4
 5

5
The tapering profile of the vaults.
6
Detail of main facade and inclined
steel arches.

site plan

cross section

34 | 8 long section through north pavilion (concourse, cinema, auditorium) long section through middle pavilion (concourse, galleries) 6
 7
Café and information area in the
soaring public concourse that
unites that trio of vaults and
runs along the main facade.

11

11

9
12
10 10

8 15
7
5
6 4
5
13 5
1
14
2

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:750)

ART MUSEUM , B ERNE , S WITZERLAND 1 north pavilion

ARCHITECT 2 central pavilion
3 south pavilion
RENZO PIANO 4 main entrance
5 concourse
6 information
7 café
8 servery
9 cinema
10 AV rooms
11 restoration workshops
12 permanent collection
13 shop
14 reference section
15 offices and administration
16 temporary galleries
17 auditorium
18 children’s workshop

17

16

18

lower ground floor

36 | 8 7
 It’s easy to see in the open geometry of the plan a reference to some
of Klee’s compositions, and the skein of slender cables supporting walls,
lights, and scrims evokes his spidery penmanship. Piano’s greatest feat is
to give these tiny, intense works the space they need to breathe. Such a
concentration of invention could easily overwhelm the viewer; here, each
work seems to float in its own white void, bathed in a cloud of soft light,
achieving an emotional as well as a formal resonance. Works are grouped,
not chronologically, but by affinity, so that you can explore the infinite
variety of ways in which this master employed line, colour, figurative and
abstract imagery; always enigmatic and never repetitive. Toplit stairs and
a piston-operated lift that is a work of art in itself carry you down to
a room of similar size that presently houses the 366 sketches Klee did
in his last fertile year. Here, the works are arranged on a peripheral and
inner wall that trace the rectangle defined by slender structural columns.
Scattered around both galleries on oak plinths are 40 hand puppets
that Klee made around 1920 to amuse his family. Fabricated from the
commonplace materials and crudely painted, they have a compelling
talismanic quality, revealing the inner child in the artist and in all who 8

connect with his work.

That spirit carries over into the children’s museum, aptly named
Creaviva for its emphasis on creative play in a succession of workshops
that are open to all ages. The steeply-raked 300-seat auditorium that
burrows into the ground behind is a black box lined with curved
sound baffles in the same orange hue as the Venetian plaster walls of
the outer lobby. Regular performances of chamber music (Klee was an
accomplished violinist), dance, and theatre will be interspersed with
lectures and readings. All will reflect the versatility of the artist and his
friends over four turbulent decades and their enduring legacy.
MICHAEL WEBB

ART MUSEUM , B ERNE , S WITZERLAND

ARCHITECT
RENZO PIANO
9

10

Architect
Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Genoa
Associate architect
ARB Architects, Berne
Structural engineers
Ove Arup & Partners, B + S Ingenieure
Services engineers
Ove Arup & Partners, Luco, Enerconom, Bering
Photographs
Paul Raftery/VIEW

8
The curve of the arch runs through
the glazed link between volumes.
9
Main gallery for the permanent
Klee collection.
10
Main gallery is an airy labyrinth
of suspended flat panels that
subdivide the space. In places, light
is diffused by horizontal scrims.
11
38 | 8 Part of the children’s workshop at 11

Shingle church in Kärsämäki by Anssi Lassila: a log-built core encased by a black, tarred shingle clad cloak.
Interior restoration of St Olaf ’s Church,Tyrvää by Ulla
Rahola replaces the wooden interior lost in a fire in 1997.
GOOD WOOD
The exhibition From Wood to Architecture
at The Museum of Finnish Architecture
presents 17 recent buildings in Finland,
many by young Finnish architects unknown
in the international architectural arena.
Wood is the oldest building material known
to man – the earliest known wooden artefacts
date back some 14 000 years. As two thirds
of Finland is covered by forests, it is hardly
surprising that timber is the national building
material. And as climate change becomes
clad in copper, and the lookout tower in Helsinki
by Ville Hara composed of a strong but light
meshed shell structure of timber strips (AR
December 2003). There are also several villas in
coastal or lakefront settings, and an annex for the
University of Oulu Department of Architecture
by Claudia Auer and Niklas Sandås.
Among the larger projects are the Finnish
Forest Research Institute in Joensuu, which
is the biggest office building in Finland, and
the Sibelius Concert Hall in Lahti by Kimmo
Lintula and Hannu Tikka, both of which have
loadbearing timber structures. Timber is an
excellent material for long-span structures:
the tensile strength of birch compared to its
mass is higher than that of ordinary steel and
far superior to concrete.
Appropriately, one of Finland’s best-
known wooden buildings is on show in the
next room. The exhibition Returning Home
– Sibelius’s Ainola (with the same exhibition
dates) features Ainola, an artist’s villa built
for the composer Jean Sibelius in 1904 by his
friend Lars Sonck, who, like Sibelius, played
a leading role in the development of Finnish
more of an issue, builders are increasingly National Romanticism. JULIA DAWSON
encouraged to build more ecologically. Wood,
From Wood to Architecture until 4 September 2005, Museum
a renewable and natural material, has an of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, Finland. www.mfa.fi
important role to play with respect to climate
change policy and programmes, since its use Photographs (clockwise from top left): Jussi Tiainen, Jussi
Tiainen, Matti Sanaksenaho and Kimmo Räisänen.
helps reduce greenhouse gases: the carbon
stored in wooden buildings is kept out of the
atmosphere. A well designed, well kept timber
building lasts hundreds of years and if it
needs to be demolished the wood components
can be recycled and reused.
Although its use as a structural and
cladding material in Finnish construction
has declined considerably over the last forty
years, wood is now experiencing a revival,
with new opportunities for structural use and
surface treatment. This is reflected in the From
Wood to Architecture exhibition in Helsinki. The
buildings featured employ wood in a variety
of ways, traditional and innovative, painted
and natural, from glued timber and laminates The sharply curved stair in a house in Espoo by Jyrki
to solid logwork, but always with inherent Tasa: a three-storey work of art of steel and timber.
elegance and clean lines.
From Wood to Architecture is housed in one
large room moderated by a dividing curtain
of hanging planks of wood that you can
touch and smell (and, if so inclined, swing)
as you work your way round the numerous
large-scale photographs, explanatory texts
and models. The buildings exhibited include
Heikkinen & Komonen’s cultural centre in
Kuhmo which has an asymmetrically sloping
turf roof growing heather and lingonberry,
the Kärsämäki shingle church by Anssi
Lassila, built using eighteenth-century
methods, a luminous chapel in Turku by Chapel, Turku by Matti Sanaksenaho, the copper-clad
Matti Sanaksenaho with a timber structure structure will form a green patina to blend with trees. 103 | 8
 This latest in a series of elegant, force winds. The bar-like volume made from oxidised steel, a tough,
minimal, object houses by Sean of the building is hoisted up on cheap industrial product creatively
Godsell is a further speculation steel pilotis, adding to the sense appropriated for the project. In
on the potential of an Australian of elevation and transforming the places the gridded metal sheets
vernacular that relates more house into a vantage point from hinge open to form brises soleil.
explicitly to Asian regionalism which to survey its surroundings. Organisation is admirably
than European historicism. Spare The undercroft is deployed as a economical. Rooms are simply
of form and clad in gridded skin car port and storage area. Lifted butted together in a long line and
of industrial grating, it has clear clear of the dense vegetation, linked by a looping promenade
1
echoes of previous Godsell the elongated box appears to deck. A communal living, dining The long bar-like volume
projects, such as the Kew House, hover lightly above the ground, and kitchen space is placed at of the house bar appears
to float in the landscape.
the Carter Tucker House (AR Dec its mass further softened by a the prow of the block, with 2
2000) and the Peninsula House skin of rusted metal mesh that three bedrooms and a study Rough, oxidised metal
mesh cladding envelops
(AR Dec 2002), in which simple enfolds the two long sides like a to the rear. Depending on the the long flanks in a light
and heat diffottusing veil.
Miesian volumes are wrapped in rough veil. More prosaically, the time of year, sliding glass doors 3
a light and heat diffusing layer of cladding is actually floor grating connect individual rooms with the The undercroft.
slatted timber or metal.
Here, the brief is for a
weekend house on a beachfront
site, which might suggest a
sybaritic vision of lotus-eating
excess and a commensurately
indulgent architectural response.
However, the clients, a couple
with children, wanted a simpler,
heartier experience that re-
connected them with nature and
the elements beyond the climate
controlled confines of office and
home life in the city.
Set on St Andrew’s Beach on
Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula,
the site is immediately privileged,
being one of the few locations
in Australia where construction
is permitted directly on the
foreshore. The elevated site
commands ocean views and
though hot in summer, the winter
climate is often harsh, with gale
2

SHORE PATROL
This beach house explores traditional
vernacular means of tempering climate.

HOUSE , S T A NDREW ’S B EACH ,

VICTORIA , A USTRALIA
ARCHITECT
SEAN GODSELL
60 | 8 1 61 | 8
 4

HOUSE , S T A NDREW ’S BEACH ,

VICTORIA , A USTRALIA
ARCHITECT
SEAN GODSELL
5

promenade deck or seal them off and protects the occupants

from it, but to move around the
house always involves traversing
this interstitial space, which subtly
blurs the boundary between
interior and exterior realms.
The house updates and
reinterprets traditional Australian
responses to climate moderation.
Elements of the outback
homestead – the sunroom,
the breezeway and the sleep-
out – are re-organised into an
abstract verandah which shelters
while enhancing the fluidity of
the loosely defined spaces. The
external environment is filtered
and modulated through a series of north elevation
layers so while harsh extremes are
tempered, occupants are always
aware of the elemental dynamics
of light, climate and nature. C. S.
Architect
Sean Godsell Architects, Melbourne
Photographs roof plan
All photographs by Earl Carter apart from
nos 3 & 7 which are by Hayley Franklin

3
3
1 car port 5 4 6 7 7 7 3
9 9 7
2 store 1
8
3 deck
4 kitchen
5 living
6 study first floor
7 bedroom 4
8 bathroom/laundry Rooms are linked by a
9 bathroom promenade deck.
5
Main living/dining space.
6
3 2 2 1 Sliding glass doors enclose
N
the inner realm, but
moving around the house
always involves negotiating
this interstitial space.
7
62 | 8 site plan ground floor plan (scale approx1:750) 6 Room with a view. 63 | 8
ar_aug_2004 _ROJO_REVISED 20/9/04
Spain, like Italy, maintains a most
distinguished tradition of tomb-
building, but in many places it is
becoming eroded by what Manuel
Clavel Rojo calls a ‘kitch-esque
style’, with a language composed of
PVC door and window frames and
bathroom tiles ornamented by
plastic flowers and musical angels.
So when he was asked to make a
family mausoleum in the little La
Alberca cemetery in a pine forest
on the edge of Murcia in south-east
Spain, Rojo was determined to
return dignity and simplicity to the
rites of burial and mourning. Yet he
did not want to fall into what he
considers to be the trap of wistful
Classicism like Loos and Aalto with
their broken column grave stones.
The Murcia tomb is orthogonal,
with no references to history; it
DIGNITY IN DEATH
Imaginative understanding of materials makes this tomb a fitting set for rites of passage.
M AUSOLEUM , M URCIA ,
S PAIN
ARCHITECT
M ANUEL C LAVEL R OJO
12:34 pm Page 58
speaks through light, space and
materials. It is made of slate and
glass with a big wooden door, and
is fronted by a simple rusted steel
cross. Built on a slope, the tomb is
designed to enhance the vertical
dimension of the entrance
sequence that rises from a massive
slate base that emerges from the
hillside in rather the way that Peter
Zumthor’s thermal bath protrudes
geologically from its Alpine incline
at Vals (AR August 1997).
The tomb chamber is entered at
the lower level through a narrow,
3.6m high door of solid wenge
wood which, once opened, reveals
a shaft of luminance falling from the
tall translucent panel that rises
vertically in the upper part of the
entrance sequence. The panel is
made of thick sheets of glass laid
horizontally on top of each other
with slightly ragged edges that,
externally, give the glass a texture
that relates to the surrounding
slate blocks. Looking up from the
doorway, an image of the metal
cross is discernible through the
translucent plane, while its shadow
is thrown on the thick glass when
the sun is in the right direction.
Rojo calls the platform on top of
the slate block ‘an altar where
burial occurs’. It is of travertine,
penetrated by two slots. One is for
the internment ritual, in which the
coffin is lowered down into the
tomb-chamber, while the actual
insertion of the remains into their
niche is hidden from above. This
opening is closed by a solid slab of 1
Tomb speaks through light, space
Pakistani onyx, which can be slid in and materials. In foreground is onyx
and out of position. slab covering coffin entrance.
1
ar_aug_2004 _ROJO_REVISED 20/9/04 12:35 pm Page 60

A shallow pool with a glass base is

formed in the other slot in the
travertine. Here, water is
continuously in motion, gently
pouring from a smooth slot. So the
light that passes through the pool
to the underground chamber
flickers, in contrast to the more
constant luminance from the onyx
slab and the translucent vertical
glass panel. In daytime, the space is
filled with constantly changing light,
a reminder of the evanescent
nature of life in the constant, calm
presence of death. E. M.
Architect
Manuel Clavel Rojo
Project team
Luis Clavel, José Estrada, Jose Domingo Egea,
Antonio Victoria, Jose Antonio Abad,
Marmoles Santa Catalina, Cristaleria Acriper
Photographs
All photographs by Juan de la Cruz Megías,
apart from no 4 which is by David Frutos Ruiz

2
Visitors’ entrance is at lower level
with huge translucent panel above.
3
Travertine podium is an altar for
burial rites. In foreground coffin
entrance, beyond pool slot.
4
Chamber with light from onyx slab.
5
2 Cross with pool behind. 3

4 5

1 niches
2 coffin entrance above
3 pool above

3 2

plan of chamber (scale approx 1:100)

M AUSOLEUM , M URCIA ,
S PAIN
ARCHITECT
60 | 8 M ANUEL C LAVEL R OJO axonometric section 61 | 7
ar_aug_04_tezuka_done 20/9/04 12:09 pm Page 40

M USEUM OF N ATURAL
H ISTORY , M ATSUNOYAMA ,
N IIGATA , J APAN
ARCHITECT
T EZUKA A RCHITECTS

The Niigata Prefecture is to the east of Japan’s big island Honshu, and
runs from the sea to the high central backbone of the country. In the
mountains, up to five and a half metres of winter snow can settle,
literally submerging buildings and the even young trees of the
magnificent, scented evergreen forests. To allow the public to
interpret and investigate the natural world, the Matsunoyama
Natural History Museum has been set up on the edge of the forest
overlooking mountains and meadow.
Takaharu & Yui Tezuka have made a building that wriggles, snake-like
east-west through the landscape in a brown, almost smooth rusted
steel skin. Entered from the south, the snake encloses an exhibition
N gallery showing natural and artificial worlds, a reception hall,
administration, a lecture theatre and, as the snake’s head twists round
from east to west, a posh cafeteria called ‘the culinary arts experience’.
site plan
A rusted steel observation tower terminates the tail to the east, and is
climbed by energetic visitors to obtain magnificent views over forests
to the mountains. At key moments in the plan, notably where the snake
changes direction, great transparent panels are inserted in the skin,

SNOW BOUND
In the high backbone of Japan, rusted steel super-
strong skin resists winter loads and thermal stresses.
offering marvellous views into the forests surrounding the site. The
mullionless transparent expanses are so big that they cannot possibly
be called windows; they are almost invisible thresholds between
interior and the outside. They reinforce a feeling of heightened reality,
enhanced by the strange perspective tricks of the route.

1, 2
Like a deserted industrial site or a
strange animal, the museum snakes
through its clearing between forest
1 and rice field. 41 | 8
ar_aug_04_tezuka_done 20/9/04 12:09 pm Page 42

3
c Tadashi Kawamata’s paths and deck
relate interior and nature …
4
... as do the huge thick acrylic panels.

20

M USEUM OF N ATURAL
H ISTORY , M ATSUNOYAMA ,
b N IIGATA , J APAN
ARCHITECT
T EZUKA A RCHITECTS

b 80
a 75mm acrylic sheet
b plasterboard
a
c site welded Cor-ten steel backed
by 70mm urethane foam
d precast concrete with dust-proof paint
eaves detail e galvanized grating

75

a
Ç
PÇeÇ
kÅÇ
ÅfÇ
k{Å Ç
VÇ
TÇO
40

d e d

125

3
4
206
Ç
fÇk}
ÅOÇ

320 30

foot detail section showing principles of heating and ventilation

1 entrance porch
2 hall
3 reception
4 exhibition
5 special (butterfly) gallery
6 office
7 lavatories
8 laboratory 6
9 store
10 Kyororo hall 12 7
8
3
11 culinary arts 9
12 stair to offices and staff rest

10
2

5 11

42 | 8 ground floor (scale approx 1:450) 43 | 7

ar_aug_04_tezuka_done 20/9/04 12:09 pm Page 44

M USEUM OF N ATURAL
H ISTORY , M ATSUNOYAMA ,
N IIGATA , J APAN
ARCHITECT
T EZUKA A RCHITECTS

In winter, the temperature difference between inside and exterior is

often very great. And pressure from deep snow can be extraordinary
(depending on the nature of the snow, how it fell, and how long it has
settled and so on). So the ‘thermally stable’ plates of rusted steel that
form the outer skin are 6mm thick, and are supported on a skeleton 5

of steel I beams. Skin and skeleton are designed to withstand

pressures of 1500kg/m2; the equally pressure resistant acrylic panels
are 75mm thick. All steel elements are thoroughly insulated. Inside,
there is a skin of plasterboard supported by a lightweight inner steel
skeleton. This white skin is separated from the main structure by a
generous cavity that acts as part of the ventilation and heating system.
Warm air is injected along grilles in the polished concrete floors and
stale air is extracted through slots in the plasterboard at eaves level.
Heat is radiated to the interior through floor, walls and ceiling. In
summer, the system can be used to circulate cooling fresh air.
In winter, the museum projects through the snow with its tapering
tower acting as a landmark and sign of civilization; it groans with
snow stresses. People look out into the surrounding banks of snow in
which a surprising amount of life flourishes below the surface. In
summer, the long brown snake slips along the contours of its semi- 6

wild habitat, which is enhanced and intensified by timber paths and a

deck by Tadashi Kawamata. From some points of view, the museum 8

seems like a picturesque long-abandoned industrial building, a mine 9

perhaps, in the middle of the countryside. Other aspects in different

seasons reveal a cave, a shelter amid the snow, a lighthouse, a
welcoming hut in the forest. And of course always an animal: snake or
even fox. The museum’s complexity of possible readings and spatial
events enhance those of the natural world it sets out to interpret.
VERONICA PEASE

Architect
Tezuka Architects:
Takaharu Tezuka + Yui Tezuka
Associate architect
Masahiro Ikeda/MIAS
Project team
Takaharu Tezuka, Yui Tezuka, Miyoko Fujita,
Masafumi Harada, Masahiro Ikeda,
Ryuya Maio, Mayumi Miura, Taro Suwa,
Takahiro Nakano, Toshio Nishi,
Hirofumi Ono, Tomohiro Sato,
Makoto Takei, Hiroshi Tomikawa
Mechanical engineer
Eiji Sato, Kisakatsu Hemmi/ES Associates
Landscape
Shunsuke Hirose/Fudo Keisei Jimusho
Photographs
Katsuhisa Kida

5
Special collection.
6
Museum is intended to interpret
local ecology.
7
Snow building up.
8, 9
Cranked plan causes perspectival
illusions of exploding and shrinking
44 | 8 7 space. 45 | 10
ar_august_2004_endo_done 20/9/04
In the last few years, Shuhei
Endo’s experiments with
galvanized corrugated steel have
become world-renowned. He
realized that the very cheap
material, commonly used only in
industrial and agricultural
buildings, could have many more
applications when its stiffness is
increased by bending and curving
it at right angles to the
corrugations. Buildings like the
bicycle sheds at Sakai railway
station (AR April 1997) and the
little building in the park in Hyogo
Prefecture (AR October 1998)
resulted, showing how corrugated
A TELIER AND HOUSE , B IWA -
CHO , S HIGA P REFECTURE ,
J APAN
A RCHITECT
S HUHEI E NDO
Curvaceous corrugated
Endo continues his exploration of bent corrugated metal in a domestic application.
1
From pool with kitchen/dining room in
foreground. Endo manages to achieve a
wide variety of space in a tight site.
12:44 pm Page 77
metal could suddenly become an
impressive substance, adopting
new and dramatic forms that can
enclose flowing silvery spaces.
The new house and studio in a
suburb of Biwa-cho in the Shiga
Prefecture takes the development
rather further than earlier
experiments. It is fundamentally a
single continuous strip of
corrugated metal bent to enclose
all the internal spaces of the
building, and some of the external
ones too. The wide metal ribbon
slides and writhes sideways, east
to west, in flattened coils starting
with the garage, then defining a
partly covered outside platform,
thereafter soaring up to make a
double-height gallery, descending
to kiss a pool and finally returning
to the ground to define the
bedroom. The spaces it defines
ar house
are pinned and connected by a
long axial route that runs
westward from the main entrance
and garage through the double-
height space, past a comparatively
conventional terrace (which is
defined to the west by the glazed
wall of the poolside kitchen/dining
room) and ending with the
bedroom in the south-west
corner of the site.
The metal ribbon is not pierced,
so all daylight comes from glazing
on the east and west flanks. By
setting the entrance back from the
access road on the east side of the
site behind the garage and the
metal terrace, the house is
ensured a good deal of privacy,
which is enhanced by the
imperforate metal walls that
prevent overlooking from close
neighbours on the tight suburban site plan
1 77 | 10
ar_august_2004_endo_done 20/9/04 12:44 pm Page 78

2
North terrace.
3
Compressed kitchen/dining room.
4
Garage and entrance with metal
terrace left. Colour and texture of
galvanized steel relate to traditional
grey tiles on neighbouring houses.
5
Junctions of flowing steel and more
orthodox elements are not always
2 easy.

A TELIER AND HOUSE , B IWA - CHO ,

S HIGA P REFECTURE , J APAN
ARCHITECT
S HUHEI E NDO

sites to north and south.

Ingenuity of composition and
construction is undoubted, but section A-A 4

the adaptation of what Endo calls 5

1 entrance
‘Springtecture’ to domestic 2 garage
architecture involves several 3 metal terrace
4 gallery
problems: thermal and acoustic 5 north terrace
ones are obvious. And there are 6 rest room
7 bedroom
also difficulties in relating the 8 bath
basically orthogonal geometry of 9 kitchen/dining
10 pool
rooms to the writhings of the 11 lawn
steel. Partitions are made in
orthodox brick, and in glass
framed in steel and timber.
Particularly acute problems occur 11
10
where walls meet the roof curves
and special pieces have to be made
to achieve the junctions.
Yet such difficulties have proved
5
soluble, if at a price. Springtecture
is clearly coiling itself for further 9 2
leaps. VERONICA PEASE

Architect
Shuhei Endo 1
Photographs
Yoshiharu Matsumura
8 4

6 3
7

78 | 8 3 ground floor (scale 1:200) 79 | 10

 There is a tendency among
HOUSE , T OKYO European architects to
ARCHITECT experiment with varying
JUN A OKI silhouettes. In the UK one
thinks of the emerging work of
Caruso St John and Sergison
Bates, while more widely across
continental Europe buildings by
Studio Granda (AR July 1992),
Gigon + Guyer (AR June 2004),
and Herzog & de Meuron (AR
August 2003) have derived new,
distinctive and highly specific
forms that have avoided the lure
of bling and blob. Since the mid
1990s, in opposition to High Tech
and POMO, traditional pitch roof
forms and restrained Swiss boxes
began to morph in response to
site and programme. Articulated
in detail with intricate tectonics,
and through formal distortion
– torsion and twists, architectural
nip and tuck – typologies slowly
evolved. While space and material
ATTIC LIGHT
Through the careful distortion
of familiar forms, Jun Aoki’s
latest Tokyo house makes the
ordinary extraordinary.
1
Jun Aoki’s G House comprises a
timber-framed attic set above a
concrete plinth.
2
Internally the attic has a complex
arrangement of interlocking
spaces, lit by an irregular
1 arrangement of skylights.
remained key considerations,
it was the search for form that
prevailed as the main concern,
and with a pulled vector here,
an elongated ridge there,
exaggerated forms emerged.
Strangely familiar, yet dramatically
new, a form of abstract post-
modernism brought a new play
on architectural simile – ‘it’s like
a barn, an oast house, but with a
twist’. In Japan, a similar tendency
is emerging.
With earthquake regulations
enforcing a minimum 500mm
gap between adjacent
properties, densely packed
urban neighbourhoods have
made the detached home one of
the country’s most widespread
architectural types, considered
by many architects to be one of
Japan’s cultural treasures. So it
is no surprise that an emerging
generation of architects is
2 63 | 9
bringing new interest to this area
of specialism, with architects
such as Yoshiharu Tsukamoto
carrying out extensive research
into the rhetoric and spatial
composition of postwar housing.
In this field, Jun Aoki is also a
serious contributor, shown here
with G House, a contemporary
abstraction of a traditional
timber-framed pitched-roof
detached house. Situated in a
residential district of central
Tokyo, G House is a rendered
house set on top of a reinforced-
concrete podium. With internal
spaces conforming to this
formal division, living, dining and
entertaining spaces are contained
within the concrete podium, with
attic bedrooms above. With no
distinction between wall and
roof, the distorted attic form
could certainly be described as
a contrived, compelling object, location plan (scale 1:600)
 closet

3
The central atrium
7 connects living
rooms with the
mezzanine study, bath
from where the
uppermost loft-
like bedroom is
accessed via stair.
5 Direct and reflected
light plays on the
attic’s angular
surfaces.
2
3

west elevation (street entrance) east elevation (rear)

long section
HOUSE , T OKYO
ARCHITECT
JUN A OKI

south elevation
8
1 parking
2 kitchen
3 living/dining north elevation
4 child’s bedroom
5 study
6 bedroom
short section 7 bath
8 cellar

closetcloset closet closet

7
bath bath bath bath
4 5

64 | 9 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:140) plan through horizontal void first floor plan second floor plan 3
 4
The uppermost
bedroom sits at
the apex of the HOUSE , T OKYO
attic. ARCHITECT
5
Where timber JUN A OKI
meets concrete,
an interstitial
void is expressed
as a continuous
datum.
6
Oblique views
from the
mezzanine study
connect spaces
via the atrium
screen.
7
With the
double-height
atrium and
mezzanine
adjacent to one
another, the full
height of the
lofty attic form
is exploited to
maximum effect.

4 5

(see Peter Buchanan, AR August
2005), not dissimilar in form
to Prada’s angular prism (AR
August 2003). Here, however,
justification for the derivation of
form is attributed to traditional
formal types and to specific
site constraints, with the subtle
inflections in plan reflecting the
tapering plot, and a recognition
of adjacent building heights
producing dramatic distortions
in elevation. Furthermore,
adhering to good old-fashioned
Modernist truth-to-form, the
internal volume reflects the
external form, with lofty voids,
passageways and bedrooms
creating a complex series of
interlocking spaces. The spatial
complexity resonates externally,
with an apparently random
arrangement of timber sash
windows that sit proud of the
rendered surface, creating
a pattern that subverts any
recognition of floor levels, shifts
66 | 9 our perception of scale, and
increases the form’s sculptural
significance. The resultant form
is bold and distinctive and is
further modelled by a re-entrant
corner cutout, set directly above
the sunken entrance court.
Internally the passage of light
has been carefully orchestrated
with the attic form serving as
an enormous skylight for the
podium beneath. Two voids help
achieve this; a central double-
height atrium that serves as the
focus of the house connecting
living spaces with a mezzanine
work study, and more curiously a
horizontal void, 770mm high, that
articulates the structural division
between concrete basement and
timber frame; a continuously
expressed interstitial datum
that lies coincident with the
re-entrant cutout. Light fills
the spaces, and set against
the cool interiors that are
dominated by white walls, timber
soffits and concrete structure,
Aoki’s interest in decorative
ornamentation (most overtly
expressed in his work for Louis
Vuitton, AR November 2004) is
also evident, demonstrating some
of his more quirky influences.
These include the use of silk
and lace in bedroom curtains,
traditionally used to make
kimonos, and flock wallpaper, as
featured in George Cukor’s 1964
film My Fair Lady; the wallpaper
being applied with restraint to
feature walls in the living room,
easily changeable, he explains, as
tastes change. 6
Built to a high specification, the
budget of this house represented
an equal split between land and
construction, with the relatively
high construction costs funding
the big concrete basement, which
has a large cellar and fine finishes
throughout. ROB GREGORY
Site area 106.75sqm Floor area 154.98sqm
Architect
Jun Aoki (Tokyo?)
Photographs
Edmund Sumner/VIEW 7
 ar house

1 5
2 3

Living on the edge

Walter & Cohen’s house: a threshold between suburbia and the South Pacific.

Sydney’s Bondi Beach is, rightly,
one of the world’s more famous
crescents of sand, but its natural
beauty is not matched by the
architecture fronting it and
sprawling over its cliff-top
4
flanks. No single carbuncle but
a plague of minor boils; a rash
of postwar brick and clay-tile
houses that owe everything to
the worst of English suburbia and
nothing to the might of the South
Pacific Ocean.
Contemporary architects are
gradually making inroads with
more climatically responsive
1 houses that are replacing the
80m above the South Pacific …
2 tacky brick boxes. London-based
… surrounded by Sydney’s Walters & Cohen has replaced
suburban brick boxes …
3 one such bungalow on the very
… Walters & Cohen’s new house edge of the sandstone cliffs to the
is entered through a walled
courtyard. north with a house made up of a
4
H OUSE , S YDNEY , Once inside, breathtaking views
pair of pavilions in white render
A USTRALIA are revealed from within the and glass that cling vertiginously
clerestoried living room …
ARCHITECT 5 80m above the surf. Porous
88 | 9 W ALTERS & C OHEN … and across the rooftop pool. Sydney sandstone does not
readily last as an exposed
building material in such a
weather-beaten location but
geo-technical surveys indicate
that it provides a solid footing to
the concrete structure – along
this section of the cliffs at least.
A walled entrance court
deliberately conceals the
spectacular views, which are
only revealed to the casual
visitor after reaching the
L-shaped first-floor living area
wrapped on two sides with
glazing. Views outwards allow
whale watching, views
downwards can reveal shoals of
fish 80m below, and those
upwards give advance warning
of any approaching electrical
storms that can buffet the house.
In an exercise in deferred
gratification, you enter through
a solid timber door set in a blade
of masonry some 7.5m high and
flanked by equally tall etched
glass panels 250mm wide. The
double-height hall beyond is an
atrium between seaward and
landward pavilions of the
building. Its wedge shape
culminates in a deep internal
lightwell fronted by a 4.5m x
2.5m frameless glass panel.
Uplights are set into the
polished concrete floors to
avoid the need for lights within
the soffit high above; none of
the first floor’s ceilings are
interrupted by light fixings.
A flight of timber treads is
cantilevered off the wall,
supported by an internal edge
beam of welded steel angles,
some of which return vertically
to form the framework for the
glass balustrade. Upstairs, the
panorama awaits.
Concealed at entrance level
on the seaward side is a suite of
rooms with ocean views, two
bedrooms and a woodworking 89 | 9
 studio for the client. Steel-
framed sliding doors and
windows allow uninterrupted
views, even from the bathrooms
that have bluestone-clad (from
neighbouring Victoria) baths
pushed against the glass. Handles
are everywhere minimized or
absent. Full-height doors at this
level pivot shut to 10mm-wide
aluminium returns set in the wall.
This minimal detailing prescribed
by Walters & Cohen and a
neatnik client has been clarified
and executed throughout by
local practice Collins and Turner
(both former Foster and Partners
employees).
All the timber used, including
the matchstick screens of the
garage and the double-height
oriel above, is recycled jarrah –
a tough Australian hardwood
– some of it sourced from an
old wharf from the port of
Fremantle in Western Australia.
The oriel serves another
double-height space on the
landward side reached from a
half-landing and incorporating
a mezzanine bedspace – itself
accessed by a beautifully built
formed-concrete staircase.
A small square window gives
glimpses back west across
the peninsula and Sydney
Harbour to the distant Central
Business District.
This room, like the whole of
the upper floor in both pavilions,
is surmounted by a clerestory set
above two steel channels back-
to-back to conceal perimeter
lighting. The steels act as a ring-
beam for each pavilion and steel
uprights carry the steel roof with
its deep-shading eaves. An air-
conditioning zone has been
created between the floors but
the combination of under-floor
heating for the winter months
and the cooling breezes pushing
over the lip of the cliff suggests
that mechanical climate control
will not be necessary.
Although some blinds may
need to be installed against
strong morning light, the rest of
the cantilevered upper floor,
kitchen, living, dining, study and
TV areas, make the most of the
uninterrupted gull’s back views.
Most of the glass doors open,
with only a glass cliff-edge
balustrade (on a curve with a
setting-out point some 200m out
to sea) between you and the
drop, but opposite the dining
area incorporation of structure
into a masonry panel creates a
framed view. This living area is
backed by a waist-high insertion
of jarrah shelves and cupboards
that runs 7m from the return of
the staircase balustrade, then
folds around the study zone and
makes a backdrop to a sunken
TV area. Here the glazing forms
a frameless box reflecting the
sea and the cliffs by day and the
moon by night. The nose of this
box, seen from the entrance
courtyard, is a subtle indicator
of the axis of splendour to come.
ROBERT BEVAN
Architect
Walters & Cohen
Executive architect
Collins and Turner
Landscape architect
Barbara Schaffer
Engineer
Murtagh Bond
Photographs
Richard Glover
6
Master bedroom suite.

H OUSE , S YDNEY , A USTRALIA 6

ARCHITECT
W ALTERS & C OHEN

section AA through pool

1 paved forecourt
2 double garage
3 rear entrance
3 4 5 4 laundry 13
5 pool plant room/garden store 11 14
2 6 dressing room 10
1 7 external courtyard
8 internal circulation area 12
6
9 main entrance
10 bedroom 15
7 7
9 11 bathroom 8
8
12 guest wc
13 kitchen 19
14 upper garden
11 16 18
15 bridge link
11 10 16 study 20
10
10 11 17 informal living area
18 formal living area
19 upper deck area 17
20 pool

90 | 9 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:325) first floor plan

 The only non-Japanese architect in
this issue, John Pawson cultivates
a formal and material refinement
that has obvious Oriental affinities,
so this commission for a house
in Tokyo is especially intriguing.
Having lived in Japan, Pawson has
some understanding of its culture,
and has designed a couple of retail
schemes. This, however, is his first
residential project and presented
a different sort of challenge in
its intimate scale, awkward site
conditions and the integration of
traditional and modern aspects of
Japanese domestic life.
The clients are a middle-aged
couple with no children who had
acquired a small piece of land in
Setagaya, a suburban district to the
south-east of the sprawling Tokyo
metropolis. The couple are keen
cooks and had eagerly devoured
Living and Eating, Pawson’s
evangelical paean to good food
BOXING CLEVER
A glacial exterior conceals a tranquil inner realm
of minimal materiality animated by light.
86 | 9
and the minimum lifestyle. Seduced
by his architecture, especially his
own house in London’s Notting
Hill (AR May 2000), they simply
cold called the office and asked if
he could design something for
them. The outcome is an elegantly
impassive two-storey box that
though it turns its back on its
surroundings, conceals a tranquil,
sensuous inner realm.
Made of concrete which is then
lightly rendered and painted, the
box has a weighty, casket-like
quality, its sides pierced by the
barest handful of glazed incisions.
Internal organisation aims both to
structure and celebrate domestic
life while editing out extraneous
distractions. Spaces for cooking,
dining and relaxing are arranged in
distinct yet fluid zones at ground
level, with sleeping, washing and
dressing quarters above, linked by
a single flight of stairs.
A long low wall flanking an HOUSE , T OKYO
adjacent site draws you in to the ARCHITECT
entrance at the south-west JOHN PAWSON
corner. Though currently vacant,
the neighbouring site is due to be
developed, and Pawson’s response
to this uncertainty is to turn the
house in on itself. A secluded
internal courtyard planted with a
solitary Japanese maple forms the
dwelling’s focus and fulcrum. The
main living quarters face on to
this courtyard as does a tea
ceremony room, with traditional
tatami mat floor, that also
functions as a guest bedroom.
Boundaries between external and
internal spaces are consciously
blurred through familiar Pawson
optical illusions – diaphanous
planes of full-height glazing appear
to dissolve walls and a stone
workbench seamlessly extends
the length of the house into the
courtyard. site plan
Site Plan400
1:
1
The plot of land in
front of the house will
eventually be built on,
so Pawson’s approach
is one of tactical
hermeticism.
2
The pristine box poised
in typically dissolute
1 urban surroundings. 2

3 5
A single flight of stairs
links the two floors.
4 6
The living area dissolves
into the courtyard.
In scale the courtyard is perhaps
more Mediterranean than
Japanese, but nonetheless its
double height helps to filter out
nondescript surroundings and the
idea of perceiving nature through
the meticulous framing of
individual elements – an expanse
of sky, the branches of a tree – is
very particular to Japan. Windows
set up and define views, but those
on the long south side, which will
be hemmed in by as yet unbuilt
new houses, are infilled with
translucent glass to preserve
privacy. As with all Pawson’s
architecture, the subtle play of
light and a limited palette of
materials – plaster, concrete,
limestone, timber and glass –
tempers the formal rigour.
The challenges of building on
such a constricted site aptly
illustrate the architectural and
economic dynamics of the
Japanese urban condition.
Astronomical land values (in this
case the site cost twice as much
88 | 9 as the house) and demanding
1 entrance
2 kitchen
3 dining
4 living
HOUSE , T OKYO
5 tea ceremony room ARCHITECT
6 courtyard
7 bedroom JOHN PAWSON
8 dressing area
9 terrace
10 bathroom
long section through stairwell and tea ceremony room
C C
Section C 200
1:
Characteristic domestic
asceticism from Pawson.
Bathroom overlooking the B B
focal courtyard. long section through living area and courtyard
building regulations generate an
elaborate gavotte of compromise
and deference (both to neighbours Section B 1:200
9
and wider authority) that often
7 4
serves to discourage creative
thinking. Clearly inflected by the
more profound nuances of
Japanese tradition, Pawson’s spirit 8
of sensuous rationalism meets 10
such pragmatic challenges head on.
The house has a glacial
composure and otherworldly
beauty that recalls (if not too first floor
much of an Oriental cliché) the
poise and grace of a classical
geisha carefully settling herself
down between a couple of slightly
dissolute salarymen for an
evening’s chaste entertainment. 3
4 6
Though these enigmatic creatures
may draw stares, they are never 2
returned; so it is with this house.
CATHERINE SLESSOR
5
Site area 195.23sqm Built area 97.50sqm 1
Floor area 181.17sqm
8: Dressing
Architect
9: Bedroom
John Pawson, London 10: Terrace
Photographs 11: Bathroom
Edmund Sumner/VIEW ground floor plan (scale approx 1:200) 5 12: Sky Shower 6
 HOUSE , C HITA , A ICHI In the somewhat culturally
ARCHITECT starved region of Nagoya City
POWER UNIT STUDIO – the venue for this year’s World
Expo (AR June 2005) – a young
couple’s anti-suburban house
from maverick designers Power
Unit Studio battles against
lazily packaged homogeneous
architecture.
Unconventionality does not
have to lead to brashness,
however. Suprisingly modest,
the house reveals little from the
street. It is not until you enter
that its full force is deployed,
LAUNCH PAD
Standing defiantly on a suburban
hilltop, the Y House declares
war on conventionality.
dramatically opening out into
an expansive living room that
follows the site’s topographical
slope. A steep concrete floor
leads directly to the back of the
house, before cantilevering out
into the garden, overlooking
the forest beyond. Privacy is
maximised, curtains and blinds
are put away, and occupants
exist in their own world behind
gravity-defying concrete blinkers
that screen unsightly views. As
thin as they are, the angular
screens give the impression of a
house that is curiously buoyant
with no visible means of support.
This visual precariousness
is further heightened by the
kitchen hovering on one side,
the bathroom floating off on the
other, and the studio hanging
over the living room. A large
glass screen in the studio offers
a vantage point for observing
the comings and goings below,
adding a curious contour to
the house. It is no surprise that
children have been discovered
playing war games in the forest,
1
Blue sky thinking: The Y House,
where the imagination can take
off, and the only real question is,
why not?
 HOUSE , C HITA , A ICHI
ARCHITECT
POWER UNIT STUDIO

basement level plan 1 entrance

2 living/dining
3 kitchen
4 study/bedroom 2
5 bathroom
6 lavatory
7 bedroom 1 B2 Plan S=1:100
3m 0m 2

lower ground floor plan (scale approx 1:250)

B1 Plan S=1:100
section through entrance, living room and basement bedroom
3m 0m

Section1 S=1:100
3m 0m

upper ground floor plan (entrance) section through studio, bathroom and basement bedroom
N

GF Plan S=1:100
3m 0m

using the house as their enemy strategically inserted in the although the imperfections and
headquarters. You don’t need study to bring light to the idiosyncrasies ultimately give Section2 S=1:100
3m 0m

childish make-believe, however,
to see the space as something
other than a house, be it an
army HQ, astronomical research
laboratory, or aircraft carrier.
Whatever it is, as the architect
explains, it was always intended
for a family, with the studio
reserved for children.
Despite the intention,
less child-friendly features
proliferate, not least the balcony
edge and sharp corners, but
70 | 9 also a large rectangular hole
basement area below. With a
10 metre drop, enough to make
cautious adults weak at the
knees, it is hoped that children
growing up in this house will be
smarter and more agile.
In concept both daring and
playful, the couple engaged
fully with the architect and his
construction team during the
fabrication of the house, all
responding well to a difficult
job. Minor defects in the floor
required some making good,
the house more character. This
is not a place to interrogate
each and every detail; it is
instead a place in which to
lose yourself, and to let your
imagination take off, sitting on
the balcony edge gazing into the
forest beyond.
Site area 324.73sqm Built area 124.47sqm
Floor area 136.29sqm
Architect
Power Unit Studio, Tokyo
Photographs
Edmund Sumner/VIEW
2
Defying convention and gravity,
behind the modest street facade,
forms become more expressive.
3
The main living space is at the
centre of the spatial composition.
4
Concrete blinkers provide privacy.
5
The entrance level studio/bed-
room overlooks the living space
to the left, the garden to the right,
and gives (assisted) access to an
upper terrace. 4 5
 CITIES, ARCHITECTURE
AND SOCIETY
Urban constellations – the earth from space at night. Image by Craig Mayhew and Robert Simmon, NASA.
This issue of the AR focuses on the 16 cities that feature
in the main display of the 10th International Architecture
Exhibition at the Arsenale in Venice. Cities have been
selected to ensure a degree of consistency in size – they are
all above 3.5 million people – and geographical distribution
across the globe. Above all, though, they have been chosen
because each city is undergoing a period of significant change
that has a direct impact on its urban form, city policy and
future development. The following 32-page section provides
an overview of each city, comprising a short personal
account of everyday life and a complementary analysis of
social and spatial attributes, developed by the team at the
London School of Economics. Together they provide a unique
perspective on global urban change.
Imagine that we could see the entire earth from space at night-time.
The enormous patches and cordons of light closely mirror the world
maps of urban extents and the wider human footprints associated with
them. If we think of the concentrations of consumption of electricity
as representations of human settlements, then large-scale patterns of
urban development begin to take shape before our eyes. From this we see
that most of Europe is criss-crossed by urban development and that a
dense band of urbanisation is consolidating at the core of this continent,
stretching from southern England to northern Italy. In North America,
vast parts of the United States, except perhaps its deserts, are covered by
an almost geometric grid that also links sections of Canada and Mexico.
These spatial continuities illustrate the high degree of integration that has
developed between cities and their respective regions.
Looking beyond North America and Europe, we identify other areas of
intense urban dynamism. From the sky, the entire Japanese archipelago
– a relatively older urban system that shares many commonalities with
North America and Europe – looks almost like an urban continuum. This
reflects the fact that Tokyo’s capital region can be accessed from anywhere
in the country in a few hours’ time via a sophisticated high-speed rail
network. In Tokyo, nearly 80 per cent of the population use public
transport to get to work (in Los Angeles, by contrast, 80 per cent use
private cars), which provides a model for efficient growth for what is today
the world’s largest metropolitan area with over 30 million people. After a
period of relative economic stagnation, Tokyo is beginning to once again
explore its unique characteristics; its architects and planners engaging with
issues of public space and particularly the relationship to water within this
dense and fragmented mega-city.
The world map clearly indicates the extensive city-regions that are
rapidly forming in southern Asia and coastal China, areas expected to
concentrate close to half of the world’s urban population within a couple
of decades. According to the United Nations, Mumbai – India’s dynamic
powerhouse – is set to overtake Tokyo as the world’s largest city by 2050,
but nowhere is the dizzying velocity of this transformation as tangible as
in the largest Chinese conurbations. Shanghai is now one of the world’s
fastest growing cities while Beijing is hurriedly transforming itself in
anticipation of the 2008 Olympic Games. As Shanghai grapples with the
social challenges of integrating a ‘floating population’ of rural in-migrants
numbering perhaps five million people – the population of greater Milan
– it continues to grow at a breathtaking rate in both height and breadth,
with nearly 3000 buildings over ten storeys high in a city that had less than
300 only ten years ago. 3 35 | 9
 Cities with populations
over 1 million in 1950.
But rapid urbanisation is not always paralleled by the exponential
economic growth and comprehensive infrastructure investments of
the Asia Pacific region. In central and coastal Africa, what may appear
as dim clusters of light during the night are actually massive urban
agglomerations sheltering millions of residents with, as indicated by the
scanty reach of their electrical grids, only the most basic and deficient
infrastructure. Demographic pressures are bound to continue – by 2015
with each passing hour, Lagos will add 67 new residents, Kinshasa 34
– leading to a disproportionate concentration of young people in the
southern hemisphere that coincides with a global imbalance of social
indicators such as literacy and income levels. In Egypt, one child is born
every 20 seconds and many people move to Cairo within the space of one
generation. In this city, over 60 per cent of the population lives in informal
settlements with buildings up to 14 storeys high in a city with only 1
square metre of open space per person (each Londoner, by contrast, has
access to 50 times that amount).
Even Johannesburg, that economic and cultural engine of southern
Africa, is challenged to maintain its current levels of infrastructure
provision in the face of a growth scenario whereby its population may
double in a matter of decades. In this post-apartheid city that is struggling
with crime, fear, segregation and AIDS, there are attempts to bring
people back to the abandoned downtown, from which in the last decade
many businesses fled to anonymous corporate areas on the urban fringes,
Cities with populations
36 | 9 over 1 million in 1975.
with small-scale projects around transport hubs (or ‘taxi ranks’) that are
designed to re-humanise the public realm of the city otherwise hidden
behind security fences and inside gated communities.
There is a growing awareness that the urban agenda is a global
agenda. The environmental impacts of cities are enormous, due both
to their increasing demographic weight and to the amount of natural
resources that they consume. Every aspect of urban living has significant
implications for the planet – from the billions of people driving cars
along metropolitan highways to the energy required to either heat or
cool buildings and to bring in food, often from the opposite corner
of the world. In the developed economies, it is estimated that over
50 per cent of energy is consumed by buildings and 25 per cent by
transport. So, a slight change to this energy equation in cities will have
a massive impact on the global stage. It has been argued that the degree
of dispersion of urban forms can be related to consumption of non-
renewable resources and emissions.
A generation of urban leaders is rising to meet these challenges. In
Europe, for example, many big-city mayors are implementing important
urban reforms that will enable their cities to be more competitive in the
global economy and smarter producers of knowledge and culture. These
cities are responding to contemporary social challenges, in some cases
accommodating the large-scale influx of new residents and in others
managing demographic decline without imploding irreversibly.
Cities with populations
over 1 million in 2000.
Around the world, urban leadership is acquiring a growing momentum,
from metropolitan coalitions for smart growth and growth with equity
in the United States, to the big-city governments in China whose
social reforms may allow for less segregated urban settlements and
more integrated labour markets. Some of the most innovative urban
interventions of the past twenty years have in fact come from Latin
America, a region otherwise mired in macroeconomic problems and
widening social inequalities. Following the exemplary case of Curitiba in
Brazil, Bogotá today stands out as a perhaps unexpected best practice case
of egalitarian urban transformation. The effect of a series of coordinated
actions by successive mayors has turned a once violent, car-dominated city
facing dramatic levels of in-migration from its rural hinterlands, into a
calm and well-managed city that still exudes the passions and experiences
of its syncretic Latin American culture.
From this partial and selective survey of the state of the world’s cities,
we see that our current urban age is problematic, and rife with urgent
challenges, yet also promising, in that it offers the potential to re-think
the meanings, functions, capabilities and virtues of different city forms
and urban strategies. This is where architects and the design professions
can and must contribute to the construction of an environmentally and
socially sustainable world. Although each city faces its own particular and
complex set of challenges, there is a growing consensus on some broad
issues which cities in virtually every region of the world must address if
Cities with populations over
1 million in 2015. All maps from
World Urbanisation Prospects,
United Nations, 2003.
they are to harness their economic potential and at the same time become
more socially-equitable and ecologically sound.
We could simplify our understanding of the situation by arguing that the
basic task at hand is how to accommodate the masses of newcomers in
dense conditions and with constrained resources. Yet this straightforward
phrasing would mask the complex intersection of economic, social
and environmental dimensions that must be tackled and the range of
mutually-reinforcing interventions that need to be devised. Providing
affordable and dignified shelter in areas well-connected with their
surrounding urban fabric; creating safe, beautiful and well-designed
public spaces conducive to social integration; generating employment
with liveable wages and sound workplace conditions that stimulate
creativity, virtuous circles of skills generation and synergetic team work;
securing cheap, fast and reliable mobility for all of the city’s residents with
integrated public transport networks; in sum, designing the constituent
pieces of a contemporary, sustainable city. These are some of the elements
of our global urban era which demand multidisciplinary analysis and
intervention. Rather than proclaim a one-size-fits-all manifesto, we intend
that the comparative social and spatial data, marshalled for the purposes
of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition but also with wider
scope, will reach architects as a call-to-action for the creation of innovative
morphological practices, honed to suit the unique challenges and assets of
each city system, and above all, its citizens. RICHARD BURDETT
37 | 9
 comment
CATHEDRAL AND BIKE SHED:
ICONS AND THE CITY
This year’s Venice Biennale addresses cities. Here, Charles Jencks argues
that what he describes as the ‘convulsive beauty’ of the iconic building will
continue to be significant in their future.
Monuments have lost their power to enshrine permanent memories,
but society has scarcely lost its appetite for grand structures. Quite
the opposite: the self-important building characterises our time,
partly because the size of commissions becomes ever larger under
late-capitalism and partly because architects and their commercial
products must compete for attention. So a strange mood has developed,
something of a double-bind, where the architect and society both have
misgivings about the iconic building but cannot help producing it, in
ever greater numbers and in ever weirder forms. This is a cause for
considerable irony, and a little analysis.
Monumental change
Consider the decline of the monument, something that sets in with the
rise of modernisation and the constant upheavals of the marketplace.
When whole areas of the city, as Marx described them, ‘melt into air’
because of development, when the names of squares and districts
change overnight, what is the meaning of a monument? It can signify
anything, and often today that might be an embarrassing change in
sentiment. This can be seen clearly in places of revolutionary change
or military conflict. Vietnam and Iraq have witnessed the constant
toppling of monuments and renaming of squares. But the shift was
already apparent in eighteenth-century France.
In the space of about fifty years, the major public square in Paris
next to the Tuilleries was re-named and restyled five times. First, in its
creation, what was christened the Place Louis XV had a facelift and
a new monumental setting for the new monument to the King, an
equestrian statue based on that of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. Then,
like Saddam Hussein’s statues, this was toppled in a revolution, and the
square was named after the event, in 1789. Then, after the guillotine
had done its work on Danton, Robespierre, Mme Roland, and countless
others, the Place de la Revolution was re-styled as the Place de la
Concorde – for twenty years. Predictably, with the restoration it was re-
christened ‘Place Louis XV’ and then, on schedule at the appropriate
moment, ‘Place Louis XVI’. Finally, because of an overwhelming
desire to please the people, King Louis-Philippe re-minted the old coin
for the area, calling it the Place de la Concorde. More honestly it might
have been Discorde. What was the monumental strategy of Louis-
30 | 9 Philippe? Where the guillotine was, he erected a large, granite obelisk,
borrowed handily from Luxor and, underlining the point of the images
and hieroglyphs carved into its surface, pronounced the great lesson for
France: ‘It would not recall a single political event’. Fantastique!
Here is the first icon of calculated ambiguity, call it an ‘icon without
a clear iconography’, or as I term it, an ‘enigmatic signifier’.Ever since
Louis-Philippe, artists, architects and now the general public have
learned to enjoy, or suffer, their perplexing situation. The monument
has been toppled as much by commercial society as by revolutions, by
branding as by conscious iconoclasm. It’s true the World Trade Center
was destroyed as a symbol of American hegemony, as an icon of a
foreign policy that was hated; but it is untrue to think that Americans ever
liked the building very much, or thought of it as a venerable monument
worth worshipping. That is, until it was brought down, repeatedly, on
TV. At that point, the media gave the ruins and the previous image
an enduring religious presence. An icon always has a trace of sanctity
about it; it is an object to be worshipped, however fitfully.
Spiritual inflation
And this leads to the second reason that the iconic building has replaced
the monument. In our time in the West, as Chesterton’s adage has it,
when men stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing, they
believe in anything. This epigram nicely states the problem for society
and the architect. Today, anything can be an icon. The philosopher,
Arthur Danto, has drawn the same conclusion in the post-Warhol
world of the marketplace: ‘Anything can be a work of art’. A Brillo box
was Warhol’s contribution to this truth, a ridiculously banal object, as
unimportant as he could find. Yet with his nomination of the throw-
away package, one supported by Leo Castelli and then the larger art
world, this ephemeral box became expensive art. Marcel Duchamp,
originator of the ready-made fifty years earlier, was piqued; at least
his objets-trouvés had a sculptural and industrial presence, a surreal
charge, a convulsive beauty. Yet Duchamp’s ire had no more effect than
other attacks on Pop Art. Along with many other contemporary art
movements, the politics of the counter culture ushered in the period of
pluralism and relativity, the era of post-modernism.
The implications were not terribly pressing in the conservative
world of architecture, at least for thirty years. Then Frank Gehry’s
Guggenheim and the so-named ‘Bilbao Effect’ did their work. At that
1. Architecture:
Lincoln Cathedral, as
featured in Pevsner’s
The Buildings of
England, Lincolnshire,
1964.
2. Building: An iconic
bikeshed? Design by
Chun Yeug Cheng and
Ka Fai Lee, University
of Hong Kong.
(See more at www.
reinventingthe
bikeshed.com)
1 2
point, developers and mayors could see the economic logic of the
sculptural gesture (with its many enigmatic signifiers), and the same
method was applied to any and every building type. This presented a
semantic problem, inverting notions of appropriateness and decorum.
‘Lincoln Cathedral’, Nikolaus Pevsner had famously pronounced,
‘is architecture, while a bicycle shed is building.’ Architecture versus
mere building, everyone carries around this historical distinction
and it tells them when to ornament the building, or make it a whole
sculptural ornament. So, what happens when this difference is eroded,
or even reversed; when a bicycle shed becomes not only architecture,
but an icon?
That is the question raised today in an age when anything can be
believed. Consider some of the more famous recent iconic buildings,
the ones that receive media saturation from New York to Beijing.
The Prada headquarters buildings in New York and Tokyo by Rem
Koolhaas and Herzog and De Meuron; the LVMH Tower in New York
by Christian de Portzamparc (AR May 2000); Philip Johnson’s AT&T
Building; Toyo Ito’s TOD building in Tokyo, for shoes; or convention
centres by Peter Eisenman and Santiago Calatrava; and, perhaps most
symbolically, Future Systems’ building for Selfridges in Birmingham
(AR October 2003). I have selected only commercial exemplars to
bring out the fact that relatively banal building tasks have usurped the
expressive role of more elevated ones – demonstrating the relativity
of post-modernism. But the poignant truth about the last mentioned
structure is that it has appropriated the position of the church, both
literally and metaphorically. Here, an all-over skin of glistening discs
bumps and grinds its way to the edges of a big site, sprawling like a
garrulous matron at a cocktail party, determined to strut her stuff
while all the time, squashed low in the background, are the darkened
bones of an unloved church – dirty, miserable and in the shade. As
in Thurber’s world, the woman’s bloom brings on the man’s cringe.
Selfridges, as its architects grant, is meant to be sexy and remind one of
a Paco Rabanne dress, body-hugging clothes, sparkling sequins, tits and
bums and, on the inside, yet more intimate parts.
Why not? This emporium markets the body image, so why can’t
the whole building be an icon to taking off and putting on clothes,
to narcissism? If sexuality pervades the media and the arts, why can’t
architecture reflect it too? If people no longer go to church, only follow
politics as a sport, and dedicate themselves to shopping, then why
can’t Prada become the icon of the moment? Clothes are worshipped,
scanty-clad celebrities are emulated today almost like saints, and money
is the only universal in which a global culture believes.
The iconic buildings that have arisen recently in Asia, Africa and
the Muslim world often underscore these general points. They appear
to have little faith in the iconography and symbolism they sport. Like
slogans they hang around, with embarrassment, in the air. In this sense,
failed iconic architecture is a very good symbol of failed belief, which is
why some people hate the genre. Icons without a supporting iconography
are like spots on the skin that signify measles, an unintended betrayal of
meaning, a symptom waiting for the doctor’s analysis, often a denial of
the very meaning they hope to assert. In such cases, the genre should
be re-christened Ironic Iconic for it sends self-cancelling messages.
Graham Morrison, an English architect and critic of the movement,
speaks of the River Thames transformation into the Costa del Icon.
Like Mrs Malaprop putting on airs and confusing words, the failure of
iconography can be funny, as long is it is happening to other people.
Overdetermined and here to stay
The problem, of course, is that it is happening to us and the trend
will not go away simply because architects and critics don’t like it.
The iconic building is an over-determined genre, it has many deep
causes that find support in the economy and society. The two I have
mentioned, the decline in belief and the eclipse of the monument are
powerful enough, but consider the other forces. Politicians, such as John
Prescott in Britain (until recently) and mayors such as Bloomberg in
New York, demand the ‘wow factor’ in new building, explicitly ask for
the ‘Bilbao Effect’, which brought in millions of dollars to that rust-belt
city. Developers have always had one eye on this factor. It is nothing
new for skyscrapers or the recent spate of competitive tall buildings that
Mayor Livingstone is promoting in London.
Beyond the competitive drives of a global society and a celebrity
culture, both of which insist on the mediation of architecture by the
mass media, there is the public’s growing taste for iconic building. When
done well, by Gehry at Bilbao or with his Disney Hall in Los Angeles,
it finds a popular response parallel to that in the art world. While few
modernists, such as Picasso, became celebrities, it is now a well-travelled 31 | 9
 5 6. Marilyn Monroe’s
fluttering skirts and
legs are actually
Gehry’s real Disney
Hall, Los Angeles,
2003, collaged
without distortion in
Photoshop (Madelon
Vriesendorp, back
cover of The Iconic
Building – The Power
of Enigma, 2005).

7. Rem Koolhaas’ Casa da Musica, Porto, 2005, opaque ‘milky quartz’,

3. Norman Foster’s Swiss Re skyscraper (AR May 2004) ...
4. ... mapped onto codes that are iconic to it; drawing by
Madelon Vriesedorp. 5. Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall,
Los Angeles, 2004 (AR March 2004)
3 4
a seven-sided polygon, made in cream-white concrete.The interior
spatial dynamics are a consequence of wrapping the exterior planes
across shifted volumes – as Philip Johnson called it, architecture as the
high art of waste space. Here it is entirely convincing.
8. Metaphors drawings by Madelon Vriesendorp. 8
6

route to the top in Brit Art and for their American counterparts. Peter
Eisenman has said no architect can hope to place a building in The
New York Times without a press agent, indeed only one of the best
agents, because these column-inches are the rarest commodity. When
artists and architects see their branding departments as essential to
their work (and Damien Hirst has said it is the most important thing
for an artist) the information world has finally exacted its revenge.
However, one should not therefore underestimate the desire of the
public for good iconic buildings. They still make people leave home.
The erosion of deference and hierarchy
The critics of the iconic building often assume we are living in a
Christian or Modern or socialist culture, that is, one with some
coherence. Or, perhaps, they hope we will soon recapture such a
condition. For instance, in The Last Icons, Miles Glendinning argues
for a return to a ‘hierarchy of decorum’, in effect a new social
contract going back to the eighteenth century and its hierarchy of
the genres and the arts (with historical painting at the top and genre
scenes at the bottom); he ends up supporting social housing and the
Cumbernauld New Town, as antidotes to the iconic disease.
Of course one must curse and lampoon follies, and try to prevent
them, although demanding better icons by better architects might
be a better policy. In any case, the strategy of deference to a past
hierarchy is at best a stopgap and at worst a craven posture. Consider
Graham Morrison’s solution to iconitis, the building that doesn’t
know its social station. He puts forward Richard Rogers’ London
skyscraper on Leadenhall Street as a positive icon. Why? Because it is
‘in keeping with [its] surrounding without compromising architectural
integrity’ and, in particular, because it ‘brilliantly’ defers to St Paul’s
Cathedral’. Whether this tall structure is in keeping and doffs its
cap to St Paul’s is as likely as global cooling; the real question is the
more difficult one for a pluralist culture, facing up to the unpopular
assumptions behind deference.
The unpleasant truth of the current fashion-celebrity syndrome
is that it substitutes fame and notoriety for traditional value. It
knows the price of everything, in Oscar Wilde’s definition of the
cynic, and the value of nothing. Today, social hierarchies are suspect
and are perceived to rely only on power and class. The value and
symbolism that used to justify an integrated culture are no longer
32 | 9 currency. That is why Modern architects, especially commercial ones,
sublimate iconography to technique and abstraction. They don’t ask
what deeper symbols a building should provide, nor in what style
should it be, because these questions are thought to be dangerous
and meaningless. Instead, they take the pragmatic route of deferring
to St Paul’s; and again not because they are Christians, or sudden
converts to Prince Charles’ contextualism. Rather, it is the easy way
to get planning permission. ‘Being in keeping’ means ‘get the job,
and keep it’. Wilde’s definition of the cynic was right.
Calculated outrage
In this light, it is easier to understand the negative logic of the
outrageous iconic building, the way it seeks to provoke a paranoid
reaction, especially among journalists. Since the scarce resource of
a celebrity culture is column inches, these structures have to grab
attention with an unusual image that annoys just as it inspires. This
ironic message can be carefully double-coded. With one gesture
it says ‘who wants to defer to the outmoded symbols of St Paul’s,
especially in an age of celebrity?’ Here it follows the logic of the art
world, one adopted by the successful exhibits Sensation and Apocalypse
at the Royal Academy: shock and awe against symbols of conformity.
If an iconic building isn’t hated enough, as the Eiffel Tower was
at its inception, it will never inspire enough negative energy to be
noticed, and then go on to be debated and defended.
Here we touch one of the deep and complicated truths of the
genre. How does the successful iconic building inspire paranoia, fear,
even initial loathing, and then go on to win over a more permanent
response? How does the architect steer between the Scylla of the
one-liner and the Charybdis of mere provocation? The Costa del
Icon is a real cautionary tale; horrors outnumber Cinderellas.
Obviously there is no simple strategy of design and, as in all things
creative, risk and failure stalk every move. Yet there are several basic
guidelines, if not rules, for dealing with the iconic building.
Cosmic and multiple
In my recent book The Iconic Building – The Power of Enigma, 2005, I
argue that architects, through their recent practice, have shown a few
successful strategies of design. If an iconic building must have a new
and provocative image, but cannot directly call on the iconography
that underlay traditional or religious architecture (because that is no
longer believed), then it must produce enigmatic signifiers that allude
to unusual codes. These will be affective, and some of the excitement
will come from the convulsive interaction of the meanings. In the
case of Norman Foster’s Swiss Re skyscraper in London, the codes are
fairly obvious (missile, screw, bullet, penis, finger, pinecone, cigar) and
also somewhat far-fetched (brain and Russian doll. The sketches that
Madelon Vriesendorp and I have made to bring out these analogies
usually map an outline or silhouette, and obviously there are many
more than the ones we show, particularly visual metaphors in the
details, materials and interior spaces. All these similarities make up
the compound experience of relating the new and unusual shape to
the old and familiar code. That relating is what the eye and brain do,
when confronted by a shockingly different building. They map new
onto old visual codes. This instant and largely unconscious process
produces the metaphor – in Foster’s skyscraper the tabloid one, ‘it
looks like a gherkin’ – and the public and journalistic excitement. And
that reaction creates the iconic building, the architecture in the shape
of something uncanny, fascinating, horrible, lovely.
If multiple enigmatic signifiers overcome the bane of the one-liner,
they also have another potential virtue. They can allude to nature
and the cosmos. At the end of my treatise I summarise many of the
key signifiers and argue that, if you scratch an iconic building hard
enough, it bleeds such meanings: overtones of the sun and water; fish
and animals; crystals and our body parts; rhythmical growth forms of
plants and galaxies. These patterns of nature are the not-so-hidden
code of the iconic building, and perhaps they are so for want of
anything more pressing, faute de mieux. If the architect is going to spend
an excess of time and money on an unusual image, one that does
not have the sanction of religion or ideology, then in the age of the
ecological crisis it will be an image that relates us to the cosmos. Not
everyone agreed. Several critics have said this conclusion was sadly
predictable, a special pleading which they disliked. They didn’t want
icons to the cosmos. As Woody Allen opined, ‘What has the universe
ever done for me?’ In effect, they would prefer the return of God.
In His absence, however, it is possible I was right: cosmogenesis, the
process of the universe unfolding, will become the ultimate referent of
this expression. We will have to wait another ten years to find out, but
already there is some evidence. Consider three iconic buildings not in
the book, because they were incomplete, or I hadn’t yet seen them: the
new Library of Alexandria in Egypt (AR September 2001); the Wales
Millennium Centre in Cardiff (AR April 2000), and Rem Koolhaas’
Casa da Musica in Porto, Portugal (AR August 2005). They also lend
support to the theory. The three are obvious icons meant to put their
city on the map, glorify their interior functions and canoodle the public
with their rhetoric. The three adopt unusual, sometimes awkward
geometries, to package their overall volumes, none of which is directly
iconic of a single meaning but all of which allude to nature.
The Welsh Performing Arts Centre suggests a geological metaphor
of banded courses as if it were a sedimentary stack of different
slates laid down over millennia – in layers of purple, grey, blue and
green stone. The Egyptian library sinks a circular disc partly in the
ground and raises a larger section towards the heavens, an allusion
to solar symbolism and solar gain, and with the angled gesture of
cosmic observatory. The third example, a more sophisticated work of
architecture, was originally perceived in the local Portuguese press as
‘the diamond that fell from the sky’, because the crystalline facets were
transparent in the competition model. As built opaque it is now known
as ‘the meteorite from heaven’, a white-cream polygon made from
rectangles plus oblique triangles. Because of its seven-sided geometry
and repetitive rhomboids, it is more like milky quartz than a meteor or
diamond, but the point of such metaphors is not, primarily, denotation.
It is the overall, natural connotations that matter, ones that are fresh
here, slightly hostile and severe as nature can be and, importantly, ones
that are transformed throughout the building.
I am not arguing that the cosmic references in such buildings act as
precisely as the Christian iconography in a medieval cathedral. The
point of the enigmatic signifier in an agnostic age is to be carefully
suggestive, a distinct trace rather than a conventional denotation, an
allusion rather than a clear sign. But I stick to my hypothesis that this
trace is usual and, to a degree, inevitable in the emergent genre. If one
is going to spend a fortune on a prominent and uncanny landmark, it is
likely to have some iconography with cosmic overtones because these
remain basic patterns and affecting images.
Whether the successful iconic buildings, in a decadent age, make up
for the many failures is a matter of opinion, but the attempt to quash
them with building codes and committees will not be fruitful. Creativity
and pluralism are too strong for the architectural police. Rather, the
policy might be to demand more thought on the iconography behind
the buildings, more coherence in the use of metaphors, and the careful
interweaving of many codes to neutralise those embarrassing mistakes
that come with any high-risk venture. CHARLES JENCKS 33 | 9

Ever since John Winter
audaciously clad his seminal
Highgate house in a skin of
weathering steel back in 1969,
Cor-ten’s quasi industrial aesthetic
of shipyard and factory floor
has become globally ubiquitous.
According to Neil Jackson, in his
entertaining study of the genre in
The Modern Steel House, it took
seven years for Winter’s little
building to slowly acquire the
coveted purplish-brown patina
of worn-out boiler plating. Now
pre-weathered Cor-ten clads
the world, from police stations
70 | 10
1 1
and parking lots to OMA’s Las
Vegas Guggenheim (June 2002).
Yet it never quite loses its quality
of otherness, as demonstrated
by its use in this recent Brussels
apartment block. Here the
‘instant’ patina of age and distress
still provides a bracing shock
of the new and unusual amid
wedding cake historicism.
The building lies in Schaerbeek,
to the north-east of Brussels city
centre, a district populated by
many Turkish immigrant families.
It occupies a compact, chunky
wedge that turns a corner
Shock of the
new.
2
The cramped
corner site.
3
Cor-ten panels
are only 4mm
thick.
4
The new block
thrives on
contrast.
THE JOY
OF RUST
Clad in a coarse carapace of
rusted steel, this housing block
is a startling urban presence.
between Avenue de la Reine and HOUSING, BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
Place Liedts. Cars and trams surge ARCHITECT
past the prow-like site which MARIO GARZANITI
is anchored between a couple
of existing muscular apartment
blocks. To the spirit, if not the
letter, architect Mario Garzaniti
follows the familiar template of
the continental walk-up tenement,
though the proportions and
internal arrangements are more
generous and imaginative than
might normally be expected. Two
duplex apartments are stacked
above a shop at ground level,
the floors linked by a narrow
3 4 71 | 10
 communal staircase inserted into
an intermediate slot between
the new and old buildings.
Despite being logements sociaux,
the duplexes are quite inventive
spatially, making the most of the
awkward, wedge-shaped plot. The
top floor flat even has a modish
sleeping loft overlooking the living
space below.
But the most striking aspect
of the project is the rusting
metal carapace that envelops the
building in a coarse caress, as if
the hull of an ageing supertanker
had somehow careered into
the block. Yet the monolithic
appearance is slightly deceptive;
the Cor-ten panels are only a thin
outer skin (a mere 4mm thick)
5 riveted to stainless-steel omega
profiles attached to the concrete
walls. Flexible bands prevent the
HOUSING , B RUSSELS , B ELGIUM risk of galvanic coupling (where
ARCHITECT one type of metal encourages
MARIO GARZANITI cross section looking north-west cross section looking north-east the rapid corrosion of another)
that can occur when Cor-ten and
stainless steel come into contact.
Slight disparities in the
2 ochre tones of the panels add
a sense of patchwork variety
1 and animation to the overall
composition. Cor-ten shutters
are incorporated into the facade,
filtering light through vertical
3
9 10
slits in the manner of a modern
mashrabiya. When closed, the
shutters lie flush with the panels,
9 giving the block an unsettlingly
seamless, hermetic quality.
1 street entrance Clearly this is a building that
2 communal staircase
3 shop
thrives on contrast (modern Cor- 6

4 flat entrance ten and traditional wedding cake)

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:200)
10
5 living
6 dining enhanced by the jolting surprise
7 kitchen of seeing so visually and culturally
8 internal staircase
9 bedroom second floor fourth floor
challenging a material employed
sleeping loft on such an ambitious scale. Yet it
is more than just a skin, attested
by the generous proportions of
the apartments and the way in
which light animates the interiors.
The gritty boiler plating conceals
4 4 a sensitive soul. C. S.
5 7 5 7
Architect
Mario Garzaniti, Liege
Photographs
6 6 Alain Janssens

5
Facade detail.
6
8 8
Light filters through the
perforated shutters.
7
Duplex apartments are quite
generously proportioned.
8
72 | 10 site plan first floor third floor Sleeping loft. 7 8 73 | 10
 Trinity Road in south London is
a typical leafy Victorian suburb. HOUSE EXTENSION ,
Stolid brick houses with bay LONDON
windows and big gardens exude an ARCHITECT
air of decorousness and prosperity. ALISON B ROOKS
Yet even in a sleepy conservation ASSOCIATES
area the urge to remodel is quite
common. Here, however, Alison
Brooks attempts something
rather different. Commissioned
to extend a Victorian house as
part of a larger remodelling, she
saw it as a chance to experiment,
both with form and materials.
More specifically, it intensifies her
investigations into the use of metal
that began when she worked with
Ron Arad in the early ’90s, and the
idea of continuity – manipulating
a single architectural material to
perform a multitude of functions,
so that spaces are ‘wrapped’ and
tend to de-materialise.
The extension opens up the
house to rear, consolidating its
relationship with the large garden.

Brass origami
imaginative extension to a house in south London.
Delicate planes of patinated brass fold around this
Brooks was adamant that the new
architecture should not compete
with the robust character of the
existing Victoriana, so her tactic is
to make the addition as intangible
and ethereal as possible. But the
outcome is not the stereotypical
glass box. Instead, lightness is
expressed through a single planar
skin of patinated brass that is
apparently cut and folded to form
walls, roof, columns and benches.
The exquisitely thin brass planes
enclose a new kitchen, dining
room and external terrace, as well
as framing and filtering views to
the garden beyond.
Though the crisp, orthogonal
geometry was derived from simply
folding a piece of cardboard, the
actual construction was inevitably
more complex and crafted. The
richly patinated brass panels are,
in fact, supported by a slim steel
structure. Cor-ten was initially
considered for the cladding, but
it tends to bleed and stain before
the coating of rust finally stabilises.
By contrast, the patination of brass
is gentler and its effects can be
more closely controlled. Though
not commonly used as a cladding
material, brass is also harder
(stiffer) than its closest relative
copper, and more economical. 1
The new glass and
Brooks likens the construction patinated brass
process to the fabrication of a
ar house
pavilion tactfully
extends an existing
large-scale piece of jewellery. The Victorian house.
94 | 10 3mm thin sheets of raw brass

2
were cut and folded in a specialist
metal fabrication workshop and
temporarily assembled on site.
The panels were then dismantled
and removed to be patinated by
hand.Varying the effects of acid
and heat generates different hues,
from pale blue to deep turquoise,
but the patina also responds to
the daily effects of the weather,
so the panels have a genuinely
chameleon-like quality. Finally, the
patinated pieces were carefully
reassembled. Full-height glazing
adds to the sense of lightness and
seamlessness and the composition
is anchored by charcoal grey
porcelain floor tiles.
cross section
site plan
HOUSE EXTENSION , L ONDON
ARCHITECT
96 | 10 ALISON BROOKS A SSOCIATES
Thinness is another crucial
aspect of this language of elegant
abstraction. The brass panel
constructions are only 60mm thick
and, as the pavilion is seen from
the upper storeys of the house,
its roof is also a rigorously pared
down structure, with an upstand
reduced to 50mm from the more
usual 150mm.
Though the pavilion is a
meticulously crafted one-
off, Brooks sees it as a useful
prototype which feeds
into an ongoing process of
experimentation and discovery.
The practice is working on a
major housing development
long section
1 6
2 7
2
The pavilion is conceived as a
series of thin folded planes.
3
Pared down architectural
language does not attempt to
compete with original house.
4
Views through to garden are
framed and defined.
5
Mounted on a slim steel sub-
structure, the brass planes are
only 60mm thick.
in Cambridge and plans to
incorporate off-the-peg brass
cladding panels (developed by
copper specialists KME) in a six-
storey apartment block. In an era
besotted by conspicuous gestures,
it is especially pleasing to see
humble or disregarded materials
used imaginatively. Brooks’
architecture has always reflected a
concern for making and materials,
and her latest project consolidates
this lineage. CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architect diagram of folding process
Alison Brooks Associates, London
Metal fabrication
John Desmond
Photographs
Dennis Gilbert/VIEW
1 entrance
2 hall
3 wc
4 dining room 3
5 living room
6 kitchen
7 dining pavilion
8 terrace
9 magnolia tree
9
8
5
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:200) 4 5
ar_oct_04_lett-smith_done 6/10/04 11:49 am Page 62
SHAW PRODUCTION
A sensitive addition, carefully knitted to a distinguished theatre, provides
new facilities and civilized spaces for staff and public alike.
Niagara-on-the-Lake is a picturesque town at
the point where the Niagara River flows into
Lake Ontario. Set in the spectacular scenery
of the Great Lakes near Niagara Falls, the
town is the focus of the region’s burgeoning
wine industry and the home of the
internationally distinguished Shaw Festival.
The combination of historic architecture
(dating from the 1790s when the settlement
was briefly the capital of the colony of Upper
Canada) with nature and culture makes the
town both a popular bolt-hole from nearby
Toronto and a destination for visitors from
around the world.
The Shaw Festival, started in the late 1950s
as a summer event to stage the works of
George Bernard Shaw, now embraces a
catholic range of theatrical tastes during its
eight-month season from April through
November. Productions are presented at the
small historic Court House and Royal
George Theatres in the centre of town, and
at the 860-seat Festival Theatre, designed by
Ron Thom and built in the 1970s at the east
edge of town looking over the Commons and
federal parklands beyond. As the Festival
grew over the years, so backstage facilities
became increasingly inadequate, a problem
that has been addressed by the new
production centre which serves all three
theatres. Designed by Lett/Smith Architects
and recently completed, the 4000m2
1
Upper foyer looks over pool and
court towards old building.
2
New entrance, left, with box of big
rehearsal hall behind.
3
Looking from court towards upper
foyer with rehearsal hall behind.
1 3
S HAW F ESTIVAL T HEATRE
PRODUCTION CENTRE ,
N IAGARA - ON - THE -L AKE ,
C ANADA
ARCHITECT
L ETT /S MITH A RCHITECTS
extension doubles the area of the Festival
Theatre.
A major concern was how to expand the
building’s facilities, yet minimize the apparent
scale of any addition in this sensitive setting.
It was also important to maintain the
intimate feeling of the Festival Theatre and
the views from its foyers and terraces.
Operationally, the obvious place to build the
extension would have been at the north end
of the site, where the existing stage and
backstage areas are located. However, the 2
only available land was the space used for
coach parking to the south and adjacent to
the theatre’s entrance and foyers. In section,
because the stage and dressing rooms of the
theatre are one level below ground, the
logical connection to the new production
facilities was at this level.
Above ground, the new production centre
reads as a separate pavilion that makes a new
courtyard with the existing theatre. Both
buildings are entered from a new forecourt
and parking area on the west side of the site.
The theatre entrance has been rebuilt to
house an expanded box office and shop
together with a small library, a space for pre-
performance talks, and a new meeting room
planned in a glassy corner bay. This area has
also been excavated to incorporate the
critical basement level link to the new
building. A more modest entrance to the
63 | 10
ar_oct_04_lett-smith_done 6/10/04 11:49 am Page 64

S HAW F ESTIVAL T HEATRE 4

Large rehearsal hall can be made
PRODUCTION CENTRE , light-tight with adjustable fabric
N IAGARA - ON - THE -L AKE , baffles between columns.
5
C ANADA New staff restaurant and green-
room is much less daunting in use.
ARCHITECT 6
L ETT /S MITH A RCHITECTS Upper level of foyer, from which …
7
… light pours down to lower level.

1 4

12 2
10
8 5 4

section

1 existing Festival
19 Theatre 5
2 upper rehearsal hall
3 lower rehearsal halls
4 green-room
17 5 lower lobby
6 recording suite 6
8 1 11 7 box office call centre production centre alongside opens into a
8 office
18 9 dressing room separate foyer, which serves the large new
18 10 10 sunken courtyard rehearsal/multi-purpose room at ground
11 south terrace
2 level. Within this foyer, a skylit well with a
12 patrons’ lounge/
12 upper lobby
13 receiving
glass stair provides daylight, access and a
14 library/multimedia visual connection to the lower level at the
room
16 15
14
15 new theatre entrance
point where the theatre’s existing backstage
8
8
16 Shaw shop corridor meets the new building. At this
17 wardrobe cutting
8 8 and fitting junction, a large new green-room and staff
8 13 18 set/lighting design restaurant opens out to a south-facing
19 lobby extension
sunken garden terrace and, adjacent to this
ground floor plan social hub, staff offices also look into the
sunken court. On the east side of the new
building, a sound studio and two smaller
rehearsal rooms – one daylit from the
sunken garden and the other dark – extend
out under a newly created lawn.
The glassy large rehearsal hall provides a
working area equal to the stage of the
3
Festival Theatre. Columns are pulled inboard
3
to create a circulation zone around the
perimeter, and adjustable fabric baffles at the
column line enable the room to be blacked
8 8
1 8 8 out, acoustically dampened, and planned to
8 6 8
8 simulate different stage layouts. The space
8
8 10 has a lighting grid and control room at high
8
5
level as well as access for scenery and props
from a new loading bay.
4
8
Much of the warmth and intimacy of the
9 Festival Theatre was created by its red brick
8
8 7
walls, brick pavers, cedar shingled roofs and
8
8 wood pergolas. This principle of using
9
untreated natural materials without applied
finishes both inside and out – which makes the
7
64 | 10 lower level plan (scale approx 1:1000) Theatre resonate strongly with the work of
ar_oct_04_lett-smith_done 6/10/04 11:49 am
Aalto and other Scandinavian Modernists –
has been continued in the new production
centre. Externally, the rehearsal room is clad
with copper to distinguish it from the theatre,
while the entrance lobby provides a
transitional piece between new and old. A
new expressed concrete structure is
integrated with brick walls and pavers that are
detailed to match the original theatre. The
double-height stairwell wall is clad with rift-
cut oak veneered panels with the grain
running horizontally. Partially wrapped by a
reflecting pool and pergola, the lobby is fully
glazed on the north and east, with views out
to the theatre and the Commons respectively.
Used by company and staff, this space also
serves as a members’ bar for theatre patrons
and as a venue for special events.
The courtyard between the existing and
new buildings provides the theatre with an
elegant outdoor room and new gardens to
complement the mature wisteria on the
pergolas of the theatre. The threshold to the
space on the west facade of the buildings is
marked by a covered outdoor walkway and
the pavement lights that illuminate the lower
level corridor. Small windows to the box
office and the new building’s lobby are
8
66 | 10
Page 66
seemingly carved into deep, chamfered S HAW F ESTIVAL T HEATRE
copper-clad reveals, both to emphasize the PRODUCTION CENTRE ,
solidity of the brick volumes and to frame N IAGARA - ON - THE -L AKE ,
the courtyard threshold. C ANADA
The thoughtful relationship between the ARCHITECT
two buildings is a seemingly effortless L ETT /S MITH A RCHITECTS
resolution of complex operational
requirements. This is a scheme in which
Architect
voids – courtyard, lightwell and sunken Lett/Smith Architects, Toronto
garden terrace – are as important as the Project team
programme spaces. They not only bring Peter Smith, Bill Lett Jr, Chris Lyons
Structural engineer
daylight generously into areas below ground
Chris Turner Associates
level, but also ingeniously connect back-of- Mechanical engineer
house with front-of-house, and old with new. TMP Niagara
Landscape
The simple strategy of designing circulation
Janet Rosenberg + Associates
so that one is always walking toward views of Acoustics
landscape – both natural and designed – Aercoustics Engineering
humanizes the typically dark, maze-like Theatre
Theater Consulting Group
backstage spaces of the theatre. Combining Photographs
the green-room and restaurant provides Ben Rahn
company and staff with a much-needed place
to meet, talk and socialize informally. Unlike
the many recent buildings that call for
attention, the new production centre is quiet
and understated, allowing the Festival
8
Theatre to continue to play the starring role, Looking back at new building from
while at the same time providing fine new old at dusk. Walkway is illuminated
by light from corridor below shining
facilities for staff and public alike. up through glass blocks.
ar_oct_04_saucier_done 6/10/04 11:31 am Page 58

F IRST N ATIONS G ARDEN P AVILION , 1

Building follows existing path
M ONTREAL , C ANADA
between maple forest (left) and
ARCHITECTS spruce (right).
S AUCIER + P ERROTTE A RCHITECTES 2
Undulating roof takes form
from land and bed of existing
stream. Cast in-situ and lifted
onto rusted steel columns.

Designed as a permanent commemoration of the great peace of

Montreal negotiated by the French and the aboriginal people in 1701,
the First Nations Garden Pavilion in that city’s Botanical Gardens
creates a place where visitors can learn about the cultures of Quebec’s
11 aboriginal nations and a venue for sharing First Nation wisdom.
Confronted with the problem of designing a building for a diverse
group of people whose existence was traditionally focused on the
natural landscape, the architects chose first to study the land. Working
with the aboriginal communities, they selected a site along a path in the
Botanical Gardens that marks the boundary between two forests – one
a conifer forest that was the ancestral home of groups including the
Naskapi, Cree, Innu and Algonquin and a second, made up of deciduous
trees, where the Micmac, Malecite, Abenaki and others had
traditionally lived. Seeking to develop a scheme that captured the
significance of this route and boundary while retaining existing trees, a
long, thin ribbon of space defined by a roof was envisaged as a casting
of the path. Warped to acknowledge land contours and the bed of an
existing stream, this roof was cast in concrete and lifted high into the
trees. Supported on slender randomly distributed columns of self-
rusting steel, it forms a canopy threaded through the forest.
The new pavilion provides exhibition spaces with a conservation
workshop, offices, storage, shop and small meeting room for
educational programmes. To minimize the impact of this building in the
landscape, museum workspaces and storage are below ground and the
other public spaces grouped in two small blocks at each end of the
canopy. The shop is housed within a light glassy pavilion above the
museum workspaces. Screened with a mat of lashed tree branches that site plan

WINDING THROUGH THE WOODS

To celebrate the cultures of the aboriginal peoples of Quebec and the natural landscapes in which they evolved,
this pavilion in the Montreal Botanical Garden evocatively enhances and responds to the woods in which it is set.

1
58 | 10 2
ar_oct_04_saucier_done 6/10/04 11:31 am Page 60

3 4 6 7

F IRST N ATIONS G ARDEN P AVILION ,
M ONTREAL , C ANADA
ARCHITECTS
S AUCIER + P ERROTTE A RCHITECTES
provide shading along the south-west facade, it merges with the 3, 4
Concrete roof is clad in lead-coated
surrounding forest and exploits the ambiguity of inside and out. At the copper and provides shelter for display
opposite end, a meeting room is made with walls of rough shuttered cabinets.
5
concrete and self-rusting steel – materials that successfully embed it in Ramp to lower level.
the ground. These moves reduce the apparent bulk of the new building 6
Exhibits in display cases elegantly
and leave the wisp-like canopy as the scheme’s predominant element. emphasize importance of the land to
aboriginal peoples.
The museum exhibits are planned in a series of large free-standing 7
glass vitrines placed along the path and sheltered by the undulating Shop is above museum workspaces and
screened with lashed tree branches.
canopy. Emphasizing the importance of the land, the designers have
focused the exhibits on the raw plant materials from which everyday
objects such as baskets, hats, toys and other household objects were
traditionally made. These are collected to create an outdoor display roof plan and section
that is beautifully organized, clearly legible and carefully lighted. A birch
bark canoe, up-ended and set against a translucent screen of birch bark,
is viewed against the backdrop of the forest, alongside displays of other 1 bridge
2 boutique
significant examples of everyday objects juxtaposed with screens of 3 storage
cranberries, twigs and cones sandwiched between sheets of glass. 4 open to below
5 exterior exhibits
By carefully scrutinizing the form of the land and considering its 6 meeting area
particular significance to the First Nations’ people of the region, this 7 washroom
8 courtyard
new pavilion radically transforms the programme of the building to 9 interior exhibits
10 offices
create an educational focus and a distinct place in a fragment of forest ground floor
11 kitchen
at the heart of the city. BRIAN CARTER 12 ramp

Architect
Saucier + Perrotte Architectes, Montreal
Project team
Gilles Saucier, André Perrotte, Anna Bendix,
Maxime-Alexis Frappier, Christian Hébert,
Sergio Morales
Engineers
Genivar
Landscape
5
60 | 10 Williams Asselin Ackaoui et Associés lower level (scale approx 1:500) 61 | 10
ar_oct_04_shim_sutcliffe_done 6/10/04 12:00 pm Page 80

H OUSE AND RESTAURANT ,

O NTARIO , C ANADA
ARCHITECT
S HIM -S UTCLIFFE A RCHITECTS

Life in Stratford, Ontario

Rundles Restaurant and tower house in a

revolves around a summer

riverside setting in Stratford, Ontario.

Shakespeare festival that was
started by Tyrone Guthrie in the
early 1950s and has become a
driving force of the local

SHIM FIT
economy. In this setting, Rundles,
a restaurant housed in a former
boathouse overlooking the river,
has prospered and grown
incrementally over the last thirty
years under the watchful eye of
the same proprietor.
The most recent addition,
designed by Shim-Sutcliffe for an
adjacent site that was formerly a
small parking area, provides both
a new entrance to the restaurant
and a residence. The boundary 2
between living and working is
marked by a 20ft (6m) high site-
cast concrete wall that slices an existing garden at the side. In formed by highly articulated site- and rear of the house. Rooms
obliquely between the contrast with restaurant cast concrete that creates the facing the street are generous in
orthogonal volumes of the two entrance, the tapered sliver of long outer face of the house, a section and open into the central
buildings. The angle of the wall space created against the other ramped parking space on the void, while those looking over
gives the restaurant more street side of the concrete wall defines street, and a water garden the rear garden are more
frontage, provides space for a the rear entrance to the house, outside the kitchen. The more intimate in scale and shielded
reconfigured entrance and which is smaller in scale and private areas of the dwelling are from view by screens of
additional indoor and outdoor mysteriously illuminated by held in a tall, slender volume immaculately detailed fir studs
seating areas. isolated shafts of daylight. This perched on this concrete ground, and shiplap cladding. A backlit
Passing a small garden, patrons entrance makes it possible for the entered by a wooden ramp. The translucent glazed aperture in
enter into a toplit space with a proprietor to move discreetly foyer is the base of a double- this wooden skin momentarily
ramp up between the concrete from the restaurant into the rear height toplit void, which captures
boundary wall and a new low wall garden and down into the sunken the sky at the heart of the house. 1
to the expanded dining area. double-height kitchen of the Vertical circulation moves The new residence is clad with a
cement board rainscreen articulated
Within this slot, guests can also dwelling. theatrically around and through by a single chimney and corner
windows to the bedroom ...
continue up to a smaller rear This lowest level of the house is this void, connecting floors on 2
dining room, which looks out to cut into the sloping site and is alternating split levels at the front ... and the living room.

11
10

4
7

80 | 10 1 cross section through restaurant ramp and residence’s lightwell long section through residence 81 | 10
ar_oct_04_shim_sutcliffe_done 6/10/04 12:00 pm Page 82

H OUSE AND RESTAURANT ,

O NTARIO , C ANADA
ARCHITECT
S HIM -S UTCLIFFE A RCHITECTS

reveals the silhouette of the stair

and the occupants of the house,
who are subsequently seen on
the bridge across the void leading
to the master bedroom or on the
landing that projects into the
kitchen. Although there are no
doors, each room has a clear
threshold marked by a change of
floor finish from the wooden
stair to carpet, stone or
concrete. Moving through the
house, unfolding views alternate
between pastoral river scenes 3 4
generously framed by windows
that slice open the front corners
of the house and close-up oblique
views of the informal backs of
adjacent buildings.
While at first glance the 11
construction of the new
concrete wall seems to define an
impenetrable boundary, the
relationship that it creates
between restaurant and dwelling 9
is both complex and malleable.
Just as the restaurant has a
10
seasonal life, closing from
October through May to become
a cooking school, so the house
kitchen can be private or utilized
for demonstrations for the bedroom level plan (residence)
cooking school. Likewise, the
proprietor can live in a former
flat above the restaurant kitchen,
enabling the residence to
become a guesthouse during the 1

theatre season. This shifting

boundary between public and 5

private does not merely provide 7

flexibility, but underlines a rich

and ambiguous relationship
between life and work, giving 2 4

new meaning to the concept of

living above the shop.
B. C./A. W. L.
6
8
Architect 3
Shim-Sutcliffe Architects, Toronto
Project team 1 restaurant entrance ramp
Brigitte Shim, Howard Sutcliffe, Donald 2 main restaurant
Chong, Jason Emery Groen, John O’Connor, 3 extended seating area
Min Wang, James Song 4 main residential entrance
5 rear residential entrance
Photographs
6 living room
James Dow 7 kitchen (residence)
8 study
9 lightwell
10 bedroom
11 bathroom
3, 4
Each building has its own primary
circulation space: the house – a
fir-lined lightwell; the restaurant –
82 | 10 a toplit ramp. entrance level of restaurant and residence (scale approx 1:250) ground level kitchen plan (residence)
 In a quiet backwater of fields and
woods on the island of Hirvensalo
in the south-west of Finland, St
Henry’s Ecumenical Art Chapel
grows from its site – a hillock
surrounded by pines and spruces
– embracing context and the
natural environment.
The chapel is not immediately
apparent on approach: following
the bend of the road you are
suddenly confronted by the
elegant copper-clad church,
its volume contrasting with
its surroundings. It has the
appearance of an upturned
ship’s hull. The design vocabulary
juxtaposes copper and wood, light
and shade. The chapel was finished
earlier this year so the copper is
new; eventually its green patina
DIVINE LIGHT
will help the church blend with the This chapel in Turku draws on a long tradition
surrounding pine trees.
of remarkable Finnish churches in which religion,
St Henry’s is approached head
on, up a gentle dogleg pedestrian
nature and light come together.
ramp to the small foyer lit by
natural light at the western
entrance. You proceed from here
through a passageway to the
church proper, from darkness to
light; at the far eastern end two
side windows the height of the
chapel throw light down onto the
altar, breathtaking on a sunny day.
The architect describes the main
hall as the stomach of the fish,
the fish being a symbol of early
Christians (fitting as the church is
ecumenical).
Gallery and chapel are one
volume, with the gallery at the
back, and the chapel proper in the
front, with the altar terminating
the axis. The benches are removed
for art exhibitions and you can
view the art while religious
ceremonies are being conducted.
The whole interior, bar the
glazing around the altar, is of
wood, the warm smell of which
permeates the space. Seating is
simple angular backless benches
made of solid, edge-laminated
common alder; but this elegant,
pared down minimalism could
prove inhospitable during long
church services. The chapel’s
loadbearing structure consists of
tapering ribs of laminated pine

1
ST HENRY ’S ECUMENICAL ART The wide windows at the
front of the chapel light up
CHAPEL , T URKU , F INLAND the altar. The copper cladding
will take on a green patina
ARCHITECT in time.
66 | 10 SANAKSENAHO A RCHITECTS 67 | 10
 two metres apart. Between these
ribs is a curved interior lining
of 100mm wide, untreated pine
boarding. At the moment this is
very light, but with time the tone
will deepen to a reddish hue. The
pine ribs are lit by spotlights.
The floorboards are 200mm
wide, 50mm thick pine planks
and run parallel to the axis of
the space. These have been
waxed to create a clicking sound
when walked on, reminiscent of
the floors of old churches. The
patinated altar is the last public
work by academician and sculptor
Kain Tapper. In the altar window
an artwork by Hannu Konola
filters light onto the altar wall.
Matti Senaksenaho continues
the distinguished legacy of the
Finnish church architecture of
Engel, Aalto, Sonck, Bryggman and
more recently of Juha Leiviskä in
his luminous churches in Myrrmäki
and in Männistö (ARs June 1987
and June 1994). JULIA DAWSON

Architect
Sanaksenaho Architects, Helsinki
Project architect
Matti Sanaksenaho
Photographs
2 Jussi Tiainen

ST HENRY ’S ECUMENICAL A RT
CHAPEL , T URKU , F INLAND
ARCHITECT
SANAKSENAHO A RCHITECTS

2
The chapel, rising from its hillock,
is reminiscent of an upturned
hull, or, more prosaically, an
upright iron. plan
3
Looking towards the simple altar,
illuminated by natural light from
side windows.

68 | 10 cross section long section 3 69 | 10

 AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ,
BERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
BEHNISCH & PARTNER

HISTORY
AND
MEMORY
One of Berlin’s great
cultural institutions
has been imaginatively
remodelled to connect
with the life of the city.

1
The great
glazed facade
of the new
Akademie der
Künste speaks
of a welcoming
sociability,
binding the life
of surrounding
Pariser Platz
to the life of
60 | 11 the institution. 61 | 11
 2
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ,
BERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
BEHNISCH & PARTNER
The Akademie der Künste is a bit like the British Royal Academy except
that it involves a larger spectrum of arts, including literature, theatre,
film and dance as well as painting, sculpture and architecture, and that it
draws its membership – currently 370 persons – from an international
field. Founded in 1696 under royal patronage, it had various homes
until 1907, when it took over the former Arnim Palace at the corner of
Pariser Platz. In this central location, on Berlin’s east-west axis between
Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate, it grew and flourished until
1937, when the arts were ousted in favour of Albert Speer’s office for the
replanning of ‘Germania’. By the end of the War much of the building had
been destroyed, and as Pariser Platz lay close to the Wall of 1961 on the
Eastern side, it was reduced to a station for border guards.
Meanwhile, revived academies grew up in new homes separately in
the East and West sectors of the city, the Western one in a building by
Düttmann in the Hansaviertel. Only after reunification in 1989 could a
return to the original home be entertained, and only through combining
the East and West academies could it be achieved. The members
overcame their differences and accepted the necessary reduction in
numbers, so by 1993 a decision had been made to return to the old site.
State funding was promised, a brief was drawn up, and a limited
competition was opened to the internationally distinguished architect
members, 18 of whom took part. Günter Behnisch stood aside from
the first stage, but after an indecisive outcome he decided to take
part in the second, and in 1994 an architectural jury led by Gabriel
Epstein was unanimous in declaring the Behnisch design the winner and
recommending its construction. Their choice was supported in style and
intention by representatives from all the other arts, seeming to point
the way to a happy future, but support from the city was less consistent.
Delays over permissions and struggles over funding were compounded
by contractual difficulties which is why we have had to wait until 2005 to
see the completion and opening of Behnisch’s building.
Pariser Platz originated as part of the new western suburb of Berlin
laid out on a rectangular grid for Friedrich Wilhelm the First of Prussia in
1733. It was part of a processional route used for victory parades, and
the name Pariser Platz commemorated victory over Napoleon in 1814.
The west side, as main gate, was always the most formal and symmetrical,
and the Brandenburg Gate as we know it today was added in 1789.
The rest of the square, when first laid out in the 1730s, was fronted
by noblemen’s palaces in two grand stories with Classical orders and
mansards, though irregularly grouped and with varying plot widths. Long
deep sites left room for generous gardens behind.
As the city grew in the nineteenth century, the peripheral position
became central, and the buildings exchanged their domestic roles for
institutional ones. Density of accommodation increased, provoking
62 | 11 expansion upwards and rearwards into gardens. The Akademie was
3
typical: it used the existing three-storey Arnim Palace for offices and
meeting rooms, then filled the garden to the back with a large block of
top-lit exhibition halls, leaving only a narrow open space next to each
party wall. After the destruction of 1945 and subsequent clearing of
debris, these exhibition halls – protected by flanking rooms added by
Speer – were the only remains of the former square apart from the gate.
To maintain historical continuity and memory of the institution it was
desirable to keep at least some of these exhibition rooms, and now that
art often consists of installations and performances rather than painting,
artists seem to prefer a dialogue with an existing place rather than being
framed inescapably by the white room of the architect. But retention of
the old chain of rooms was not easy. Taking more than half the length
of the site, they ran down the middle, and their roof lights required
void overhead. With its many departments, meeting spaces, offices, and
archives, the Akademie constituted quite a large programme, constrained
by party walls each side, building lines to front and rear, and a height limit
respecting the Brandenburg Gate. The site could have been filled with
artificially lit and air-conditioned floors like a huge open-plan office, but
to meet the accommodation requirements in a civilised way, giving people
daylight, views, air and visible spatial progressions, demanded ingenious
exploitation of every opportunity for transparency.
Accepting the central string of galleries, Behnisch chose to make a
relatively open block fronting the square for the ceremonial and public
parts, and a more solid south block to rear for the archives. These set up
a fruitful contrast, for while the archive block was to be a straightforward
piece of rational modern building with solid and repetitive floors, offices
to the facade, and storage within, the front block varied in storey height
and took diagonal slices across the plan, varying from one level to the
next. This allowed a series of stairs to develop irregularly in the well
behind, setting up a rotation in the space. The ascent from level to
level was to be a drama and a discovery, with ever-changing views into
the spaces behind as well as back through to the Pariser Platz, and a
generous open terrace in the middle. Its floors would carry the principal
elements of the Akademie: on the ground, foyer and book sales; on first,
2
the reading room for archive material; on second, main lecture hall; and Hemmed in between the
on third, presidential offices. The fourth rooftop level with glass roof and Adlon Hotel (left) and Frank
Gehry’s DG Bank (right),
open terrace with views of Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate has become Behnisch’s controversial
the members’ bar. In plans of the developing design, the specific features glazed skin is a rare moment
of lightness amid Pariser
of each floor varied, but the contrast between floors in shape, height and Platz’s po-faced historicism.
layout was retained, and the stairwell with its many diagonals remained 3
To the rear, the building
the vertical visual link. becomes more expressive.
4
Having determined the destiny of back and front, there remained The glazed winter garden-
the question of the sides. The solid party wall to the west backing onto style passage linking the
Akademie’s front and rear
Frank Gehry’s DG Bank (AR August 2001) could take a single row of departments. At ground
offices at three upper levels, looking out over the galleries and fed by level, this is a public space. 4 63 | 11
 5 AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ,
Networks of stairs, terraces
and landings provide points BERLIN , G ERMANY
9 for informal interaction. ARCHITECT
6
9 Entrance hall, with flying BEHNISCH & PARTNER
bridges and staircases.
7
The convivial members’ bar
at top floor level, with views
over Pariser Platz.
8
One of the original core of
gallery spaces.

16

15

9 15 1 entrance from Pariser Platz

2 bookshop
3 original hall
4 refurbished original galleries
5 entrance from Behrenstrasse
6 store
14
7 delivery access
8 public access and winter garden
11 9 Hotel Adlon
10 reading room
11 bridge link
12 12 atrium
13 plenary chamber
14 sculpture garden
12 9 17 15 offices
16 roof of exhibition halls
17 members’ bar
18 terrace
10 18

first floor fourth floor

6 7

9 7
9

4
15
9
8
8 4

6
3 14

12

9
2

12 13

64 | 11 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:750) second floor original 1907 plan 65 | 11
 AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ,
BERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
BEHNISCH & BEHNISCH
long section looking east
a corridor behind. On the east, by contrast, the rebuilt Adlon hotel
already presented a windowed facade a short distance away, and was
best left open. This was the obvious place for a through pedestrian street
that links Pariser Platz to Behrenstrasse and the Holocaust Monument
beyond (AR July 2005). This public space remains open from dawn to
dusk, lit by a glass roof. It contains the Akademie’s public café on a slightly
raised level, for the floor slopes gently up from one side and down to the
other. To link the Akademie’s front and rear departments more directly
outside the public realm, a pier-like passage was added, linked to the main
stair system and suspended within the space at first floor level.
Behnisch is well known for his flowing spaces and his belief in
transparency, and the whole idea of the Bonn Parliament (AR March
1993) was to create a parliamentary chamber visually open to the
outside world, letting the public see the debate and members see the
Rhine. In the history of German architecture, this concept of a glass
palace reaches back to the Expressionist period and to the dreams of a
glass architecture flaunted in the drawings of Bruno Taut and the poems
of Paul Scheerbart, sources acknowledged by Behnisch and Durth.*
In the case of the Akademie, the contained site and dense programme
necessitated the elimination of as many solid walls as possible, and
the building’s public role required not only that the foyer seem open
and inviting, but that the main functions appear behind an open facade.
Other architect members submitting designs to the competition had
also envisaged heavily glazed facades, so it came as a shock when this
assumed freedom to exploit the unrestricted face of the site was
refused. Following a town-planning concept of the early 1990s, a law had
been passed in 1993 compelling all facades on Pariser Platz to be clad
in yellow or grey stone with window holes showing the same ratio of
solid to void as the Brandenburg Gate. The Akademie assumed that this
law would be negotiable, and the glass facade was adjusted in detail to
satisfy the authorities. After much discussion, permission was granted in
December 1995, but it was rapidly rescinded after local elections, for a
new conservative politician had taken over building policy.
Although Behnisch has always tended to make the most of
contingencies, he considered the facade rule ill-founded and threatening
to the whole social identity of his project. He argued that stone facades
with vertical window holes had been an inevitable part of nineteenth-
century technology, but that in a framed building they make no sense.
With the full backing of the Akademie he challenged the law, working
with the German historian Werner Durth to produce further revised
facade versions. These correctly restated the divisions and proportions
of the Akademie’s old front to strengthen the historical argument, but
66 | 11 remained predominantly glazed.
AKADEMIE DER KÜNSTE ,
BERLIN , G ERMANY
ARCHITECT
BEHNISCH & PARTNER
Eventually Behnisch won his case, but building was delayed three years,
and the financial situation became in consequence more difficult.
Fearing that it would run out of money, the Berlin Senate decided
to sell off the part of the site intended for the archive block, moving
the archives instead to a deep basement under the front. This policy
backfired, for difficult ground conditions meant cost increases, reducing
the value of the sale. Further delays and cost increases were caused
when the general contractor appointed by the Senate went bust. The
intended archive block has been built to Behnisch’s general plan, but by
other architects and for other uses, compromising the Behrenstrasse
facade and removing the main justification of the pier-like link. Also lost
is the continuity through layers from street to street and the intended
contrast between the ordinary back and more dramatic front.
Fortunately little sense of the delays and struggles persists into the
completed building. As the only public building in the square and as a
primary representative institution for the arts in Berlin, it seems apt
that the Akademie be open and inviting. Its penetrability, declared in
the through-street and friendly top-lit café, give new life to a rather
po-faced square that desperately needs it. Events taking place within
can be witnessed from without, especially at night, binding the life of
the square to the life of the institution. All would have been hopelessly
constrained by a stone mask. The feeling in the plenary chamber or in
the member’s bar of being ‘on the square’ would also have disappeared.
The constraint of the facades only teaches us, once again, that
aesthetic quality cannot be assured by decree and is not achieved
through materials and regulating lines, even if plot lines and height
restrictions are essential. Memory – of cities, institutions, and buildings
– matters, but is always subject to selection and interpretation, and a
good architect is needed for a creative dialogue. Behnisch’s choice to
concentrate on the old exhibition halls as the heart of the institution
was a more profound act of memory than facade rules read into
historical evidence by modern bureaucrats. PETER BLUNDELL JONES
*The story of the struggle over the building’s style is recorded in the book Berlin Pariser Platz by
Günter Behnisch and Werner Durth, published for the Akademie by Jovis, Berlin 2005 (German with
English summaries).
Architect
Behnisch & Partner, Stuttgart, 9
Deck leading out to the
with Werner Durth
Photographs
sculpture garden beyond. Light
cascades through the kinked
Werner Huthmacher/artur except nos atrium space that unites the
1 & 4 by Jürgen Henkelman/artur various floors and activities. 9 67 | 11
 The centre of Oxford is a three-dimensional palimpsest. Many of COLLEGE EXTENSION ,
the quadrangles and gardens date back to medieval times, when the O XFORD , E NGLAND
colleges were religious foundations and all the dons in holy orders. ARCHITECT
Since then, the buildings have been altered and added to, generation MAC CORMAC JAMIESON
by generation, often by the best architects of the day, so the whole & PRICHARD
intricate interlocked fabric is a commentary on English architecture
from medieval to modern times.
St John’s is not one of the oldest colleges, but it is the richest. It
was founded in 1555 by Thomas White, a London merchant, who left
it very well endowed with property (among much else, it owns many
of the pubs in central Oxford). It was formed on and around the
Cistercian monastery of St Bernard, dissolved in the early 1540s as
one of the last victims of Henry VIII’s policy of seizing the assets of
the great monastic institutions.
In the twentieth century, having wealth and a lot of land from
having carefully looked after White’s bequest, it was natural that the
college should expand, and there have been several major building
projects. MacCormac Jamieson & Prichard have much experience
of building for Oxford and Cambridge colleges and in the early
’90s the office was chosen to design the Garden Quadrangle, a
reinterpretation for the late twentieth century of traditional student
accommodation set round a raised secret garden over an auditorium
and dining hall (AR October 1994).
The quad has worked well, so when ever increasing numbers of
fellows caused the college to decide to extend its Senior Common
Room (SCR) with new dining and social spaces, Richard MacCormac
was given the job. While St John’s has large grounds, they are
precious, and the site for the extension was constricted, between
the President’s garden and the existing SCR building (parts are
seventeenth century, and the whole is listed as a historic building
Grade 1).
MacCormac’s extension replaces one built in the early 1950s
by David Booth and Judith Lederboer to the east side of the
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century parts. Stone-faced over
a concrete structure, the Booth and Lederboer building was a
chokingly buttoned-up, po-faced compromise between neo-Georgian
and Modernism (AR November 1957). Its disappearance can scarcely
be mourned. The new piece could not be more different. At first
floor level, it cantilevers eastward toward the President’s garden as
a simple and elegant glass box. All along the east side of the floor
is an external slatted screen of oak shutters supported on a semi-
independent frame of oak members flitched to stainless-steel splines.
This device serves two purposes: in the morning, shutters are
closed and protect the east-facing glass box from the sun; later in the
day, shutters are opened mechanically until they stand at right angles
to the glass facade. From the inside, the arrangement frames the
medieval garden between fins, intensifying the relationship between
the new lunch room and the trees over the ancient green space,

LUNCH BOX
This addition to an Oxford College elegantly
extends the historic continuum.

1
The new extension
is a simple glazed
box housed within
an external screen
54 | 11 of oak shutters. 1 55 | 11
 2 COLLEGE EXTENSION ,
Detail of the layered facade.
3 OXFORD , E NGLAND
The new sitting room over- ARCHITECT
looks a narrow garden.
4 MAC CORMAC JAMIESON
Linking stair between sitting & PRICHARD
and lunch rooms.
5
The generous, luminous new
lunch room, which can seat
an extra 36 places.

2
diagram of historical evolution

5
2

3
6
6 6 6 4 5

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500) second floor

1 sitting room
2 kitchen
3 servery
4 lunch room
5 terrace 4
6 existing rooms

3 3

6 6

56 | 11 location plan first floor 57 | 11

 6
Shutters and glazing
filter the light.
7
The elegant, legible
box adds to the
historic continuum of
the college.

cross section

while protecting (to some extent) the president’s privacy – one of 6

the reasons why the ’50s extension was so buttoned up was that the
then president was much less generous, and required fenestration of
the east front to be kept to a minimum.
The new lunch room is deep in plan, and the back of the space,
away from the great east window, is illuminated in daytime by
light slots along the north and south sides that pour luminance
down the oak panelled walls à la Soane. (There is further homage
to Soane in the SCR antechamber designed in 1980 with a shallow
saucer dome by the distinguished architectural historian Howard
Colvin, a fellow of the college.) The new lunch room is big enough
to offer 36 new dining places, and its specially designed furniture
can be reconfigured to provide a formal meeting place for senior
members of the college. Joinery of the furniture and the room
itself is immaculate. So is the wide oak balustrade that edges the
room inside the glass wall, helps to provide gentle visual transition
between room and garden, and prevents diners looking straight COLLEGE EXTENSION ,
down into the President’s garden. OXFORD , E NGLAND
The lunch room is the focus of the new addition. Existing stairs ARCHITECT
have been supplemented by new lifts, and new kitchens have been MAC CORMAC JAMIESON
knitted in on the ground floor. Under the cantilever is a new sitting & PRICHARD
room, which looks out east across a slender garden and straight into
a tall newly-planted, impenetrable evergreen hedge that protects the
President’s privacy at ground level. On the second floor is a terrace
that serves another communal sitting room and rooms for visiting
fellows. By being drawn back from the edge of the building, the
terrace does not intrude on the President and his garden.
Such sensitive and nuanced understanding of geometry, locus,
history and the craft of building gives the little place great subtlety,
and makes it an enriching addition to Oxford’s three-dimensional
historic palimpsest. PETER DAVEY

Architect
MacCormac Jamieson & Prichard, London
Photographs
58 | 3 Peter Durant/arcblue 7
 To preserve the picture postcard
view over Lake Bled, an hour’s
drive from the Slovenian capital
of Ljubljana, the local authorities
insist that every building and tree
visible from the lake be preserved,
including a decrepit hillside villa
a company president bought for
the same enchanting view. He
decided to move his family here
from an apartment in the capital,
invited several architects to make
proposals, and selected Ofis on
the recommendation of a friend.
It was an inspired choice,
for Ofis, though it had yet to
complete a building at that time,
had demonstrated a gift for
interweaving old and new and
creating fluid interconnecting
spaces. Rok Oman and Spela
Videcnik established their firm in
1995 after meeting at architecture
school in Ljubljana, and set
up a satellite office in London
when they went there for their
Master’s at the Architectural
Association. They soon began
winning competitions – for a
remodel of the Ljubljana City
Museum (which opened last year,
AR December 2004), a cineplex
Going with the flow
Ramps and shallow stairs weave a spacious addition
into the fabric of a nineteenth-century villa.
ar house
86 | 11
and stadium in the provincial city
of Maribor, and a ground-hugging
housing complex in Graz. Just
finished is an apartment block
with boldly modelled balconies on
the Istrian coast (AR April 2005).
Le Corbusier is cited as a major
source of inspiration.
In Bled, the challenge was to
create a generous addition that
could not be seen from across
the lake. Ofis decided to gut the
villa, lower the ground around it
by a storey, wrap new living spaces
around the exposed base, and
insert a staircase that would rise
through the central void to the
children’s bedrooms on the first
floor and the master suite on the
second. Permits were issued and
construction was almost complete
when the entire complex was
seriously damaged by fire. Work
resumed, and the ‘old’ villa is now
a replica that’s more solidly built
than the original.
Ofis has played up the hybrid
character of the 1200sqm house,
contrasting the plain walls and
gabled bays of the villa with the
fully glazed, round-cornered
plenum that coils like a python
around its base. This is extruded HOUSE , L AKE BLED , S LOVENIA
into a three-car garage that is half ARCHITECT
buried and set at a right angle to O FIS A RHITEKTI
the house to define a forecourt.
Berms formed from the excavated
soil shield the entry facade; trees
screen the house from the lake,
except in winter, and the public
footpath is far below. This stealth
strategy paid off, giving the owners
openness and privacy.
A simple plan is enriched by
shifts of level, a generosity of
scale, and a sense of procession.
The family go directly from
garage to kitchen, but guests
enter though a massive door
that is set at an angle to the
facade and into a long, enigmatic
gallery. Automatic sliding glass
doors open to a stepped bridge
over a fountain, which provides
a soothing murmur, and a moat
that reflects light up onto the
walls. You walk forward to the
open living area, which faces
south over a wood deck to
the lake. Steel columns and
expansive glazing provide a
vitrine for the inner structure
of iroko wood, which is used
1
consistently for floors, ceiling
2
1
The new part
wraps sinuously
around the base
of a nineteenth-
century villa on
the shores of
Lake Bled.
2
The glazed
addition coils
around to create
site plan a forecourt.
87 | 11
 1 forecourt HOUSE , L AKE BLED , S LOVENIA
2 garages
3 entrance hall ARCHITECT
4 kitchen O FIS A RHITEKTI
5 dining
6 living
7 study
8 staircase
9 master bedroom
10 children’s bedrooms 10
10 8

second floor

8 9

3
first floor

and the cladding of rectangular The ramps complement the gentle

structural columns.
The feeling is that of a rather
grand yacht, which is appropriate
since the owners spend the
summers on their boat, and this
sensation is heightened by the
play of sunlight off the pool and
sweep and broad treads of the
staircase, which is cantilevered out 7
into the central atrium. Children’s
bedrooms and bathrooms are laid
out symmetrically to either side,
and the parents’ suite occupies all 3
of the top floor, wrapping around 8 6

lake. Panels of studded leather the stair hall. Three round-headed 1

punctuate the panelling.
Ramps lead up to the raised
areas at either end. To the west,
the kitchen is partially enclosed
with a screen of translucent glass
plates and can be shut off by wood
sliders. The husband’s study and
library to the east has built-in
cabinetry and massive book stacks.
4
windows in a gabled bay of the
villa frame views over the lake, and
you can step out onto a balcony 5
with a glass balustrade to immerse
yourself in nature. MICHAEL WEBB
Architect 2
Ofis Arhitekti, Ljubljana
Photographs
Tomaz Gragoic
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1000)

3
A processional
staircase opens up
the interior.
4
The grand stair
winds up from
the living area at
ground floor level,
to two floors of
88 | 11 long section cross section 4 bedrooms above. 89 | 11
 product review

Habitare, Finland’s
largest furniture
and interior design
fair, formed part
of Helsinki Design
Week at the end of
September. The theme
of this year’s Habitare
design competition
Mafoombey, a corrugated cardboard space designed by Martti Kalliala and
was ‘My music’: the Esa Ruskeepää, assisted by Martin Lucasczyk, was the overall winner of the
development of spaces competition. Morrison was impressed with the transformation of a humble
material like cardboard into something so wonderful. Inside the sound box is a
for listening to music. ledge to sit on and listen to music, cocooned by layers of cardboard providing
Of the 74 submissions, good acoustics as well as beauty and elegance. Photographs by Timo Wright
(exterior) and Jukka Uotila (interior).
Jasper Morrison
shortlisted four for
their diverse and Julius Kekoni and Seppo
Tusa designed Pino (Stack), a
clever use of materials. contemplative cuboid acoustic space
Julia Dawson reports. made of a lattice of timber elements
creating an enclosure that breathes
yet insulates the inhabitants from
the outside world. The simple
structure is composed of two
600mm thick wooden walls, I- and
Aisti (Sense) was in Jasper Morrison’s opinion the most impressive scheme U-shaped, built by stacking a grid
as it is so cheerful, colourful and alive. By Inka Ahola and Karoliina Korhonen, of 40mm x 40mm timber section
assisted by Richard Widerberg and Kimmo Modig, it was certainly the members. The architects’ inspiration
funkiest, with tubular foam plastic tentacles stretching out from two parallel was the old traditional woodbuilding
walls, cushioning the space and affording strong absorption of secondary techniques of Finland, using neither
sounds. The designers say the idea behind Aisti was to create spatial tension glue nor nails to hold it together
between two existing walls with one material, creating space, enhancing the but a few pull-bars. Loudspeakers
music and providing a place for people. are installed in the walls.

Haze is a white misty double-walled

nest resembling a soft snowball. It
is cushioned by a thick mattress
and pillows for lying down on to
listen to music, reminiscent of
childhood escapism in tents. The
shell structure of the felt nest, made
of 8mm thick reinforcing steel bars,
was designed by Aino Aspiala and
Antti Lehto from Helsinki University
of Technology, with help from Varpu
Mikola, Tuukka Linnas and Ville
Nurkka. The acoustics are superb.
90 | 11 Photographs: Hannu Lehto. 91 | 11

THE ARTIST WITHIN
From pigsty to showroom, this little
historic structure is cleverly reborn.
The wit and economy of thinking
that informed this design pleased
the judges; it is exemplified in
the punning description of what
has been achieved, turning a
pigsty (Saustall) into a showroom
(Schaustall). The tumble-down
1780 structure had seen better
times, and was partly destroyed
in the Second World War. It
was reassembled and added to
in the intervening period. The
original intention behind the
commission was to refurbish
the structure and upgrade it as a
showroom. However, its physical
condition made it difficult to
finance a thorough upgrade, and a
replacement building of the same
1 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:100)
2
size was not possible on the site,
due to its proximity to a street.
The generic solution, which
has a long history in architectural
approaches to sensitive ruins, was
to place a ‘house within a house’,
even if the original had been a
home for pigs. But how? What
should touch what? Could parts
of the new structure protect
the old, in the way the old walls
give extra protection to the new
building?
The architect, for reasons of
economy and logistics, placed a
timber ‘house’, which copied the
facade of the original building,
inside the stone but without ever
touching it, while the showroom
roof protects the existing 1
The restored building
structure. The arbitrariness of the – compact and crumbling,
windows now looks fashionable, but given new life.
2
based as it is on the functional Inserting the new structure.
3
requirements of the pigs and/or New and old elements are
the farmer rather than a jokey clearly legible.
translation of ordinariness.
Light, colour and warmth
transform the building at night;
visitors can pry into the gaps
between the structures and
wonder how it was all done.
The new internal life extends
the eighteenth century into the
twenty-first. P. F.
Architect
Fischer Naumann Partnerschaft, Stuttgart
Project team
Stefanie Naumann, Martin Naumann
PRIZEWINNER
SHOWROOM , P FALZ ,
GERMANY
ARCHITECT
FNP A RCHITEKTEN
East Elevation North Elevation 1:50
exploded isometric projection 47 | 12
 1
DIVIDED VIEWS
When is a room not a room?
The Jury is still out ...
T house – by Sou Fujimoto
– was a highly contested choice.
The house, which is essentially
a single volume space, provides
accommodation for a family of
four and also serves as a space
within which to display the
owner’s private collection of
contemporary art. Some Jury
members thought this was a
completely unworkable space
to inhabit, with the building’s
contorted spaces providing little
flexibility. Assuming that the client
was party to the design process,
however, raises an equally
86 | 12
2
pertinent counter-assumption are defined by lightweight timber 1, 2
By modelling the spaces, this
that the space is exactly what walls simply made from 12mm tailor-made home offers an
they wanted; a unique, bespoke, thick plywood fixed to 45x45mm alternative to conventional
domestic planning.
albeit unorthodox series of tailor- vertical studs. Each partition has 3
made spaces. an unfinished face, articulated From the street, the faceted
facade begins to express the
Recalling primitive housing by the exposed studs, and a complexity of the internal
arrangement.
models that arranged private smooth painted face, allowing the
areas around a central core, this architects to set up an alternating
home’s eight principal rooms arrangement of wooden or white
are ordered in a radial manner. rooms. R.G. 1 entrance
Rather than being organised 2 kitchen/living
Architect 3 master bedroom
around a centralised hall, however, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo 4 study
5 piano room
each space is a sub-division of Project team
6 Japanese-style room
Sou Fujimoto, Yumiko Nogiri, Koji Aoki,
the single volume, with no spatial 7 child’s bed
Hiroshi Kato 8 bathroom
hierarchy. Held between a single Photographs 9 child’s bed 2
unified floor and ceiling, rooms 1,3, Sou Fujimoto; 2, Shinkenchiku-Sha 10 parking
HONOURABLE MENTION
3
HOUSE , M AEBASHI 4
CITY , J APAN
6 5
ARCHITECT
SOU FUJIMOTO 2
7 1
ARCHITECTS
9
10
8
3 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:275)
 This housing in Trondheim,
Norway’s third largest city, is
an imaginative response to
the vibrancy and enterprise of
the local alternative lifestyle
movement. Svartlamoen began
life in the eighteenth century as a
working-class neighbourhood near
the sea front. After the Second
World War, it was re-zoned for
industrial use, sparking fierce
public protest which consigned
the area to developmental
limbo. By the 1980s, squatters,
artists and entrepreneurs
were colonising the redundant
building stock and by 2001, the
community had such an air of
permanence and legitimacy, that
the industrialisation plans were
scrapped. Instead, Svartlamoen was
re-zoned for residential use under
the wonderfully nebulous rubric
of a ‘semi-autonomous urban
ecological experimental area’,
which aims to crystallise and build
on its original informal spirit.
This project by local partnership
Brendeland & Kristoffersen is the
RADICAL CHIC
This imaginative new housing in Trondheim
attempts to build on a radical civic spirit.
COMMENDED
HOUSING , T RONDHEIM ,
NORWAY
ARCHITECT
BRENDELAND &
KRISTOFFERSEN
70 | 3
outcome of a competition for
low-rent, ecologically conscious
housing. Responding to the area’s
history of gentle subversiveness,
it suggests new possibilities for
urban living while displaying an
almost Swiss fetish for materiality
and formal rigour. The scheme
has two separate crisply prismatic
apartment blocks of two and
five storeys. The smaller block
houses six studio flats, while the
larger block has four storeys of
communal flats (each for five to
six people occupying an entire
floor) set above ground level shop
units. Bedrooms are monastically
compact and face north, while
communal living and dining spaces
overlook a south-facing courtyard.
Circulation is external on a broad
steel staircase that doubles as an
informal terrace in summer.
Timber use was part of the
brief, as it is renewable, recyclable
and (potentially) a local resource.
Assembled on site in just 10 days,
the prefabricated structure is
spruce, imported from Austria. The
144mm thick exterior walls are 1
Clad in Norwegian pine,
loadbearing to provide column- housing blocks have a formal
free space and internal partitions and material rigour.
2
are also quite robust (96mm thick), External staircase doubles as
a terrace in summer.
so that furnishings or equipment 3
can be fixed directly to the walls. Trondheim context.
4
Reduced energy consumption was Interior of studio flat in two-
another programme requirement, storey block.
5
so external walls have an Monastic rigour of top floor
additional layer of 200mm mineral bedroom in main block.
6
wool gypsum boards and an outer Communal living space in
skin of untreated Norwegian pine. main block.
Compact plans (which
encourage communal living)
and simple detailing make for
an economical solution both
in terms of capital and running
costs, yet there is no loss of
architectural or urban dignity.
Unsentimental and functional
in a way that recalls Norwegian
vernacular farm buildings,
the scheme resonates with
Svartlamoen’s radical history. C. S.
Architect
Brendeland & Kristoffersen, Trondheim
Photographs
1, 2, Jeroen Musch; 4, 5, 6, Johan Fowelin;
3, Geir Brendeland
2
3 4 6
1 entrance
2 communal living space
3 bedroom
3 4 4 studio flat
4 3
2 4
3
2
3 3
3
2 2
3
1 3
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:750) fourth floor plan cross section 71 | 12
 BALINESE BAMBOO
This hotel restaurant in a Bali tourist resort
explores vernacular forms and materials.

1 2

Jakarta-based Budi Pradono is structure forms a buffer zone 1

a young Indonesian architect
who has worked in Australia and
Japan (with Kengo Kuma) and
studied at Rotterdam’s Berlage
Institute. Paradoxically, this
cosmopolitan trajectory has led
between the activity of the
restaurant and the tranquillity of
the neighbouring villas.
Apart from bamboo’s obvious
aesthetic qualities, it has several
practical advantages over
A lightweight,
bamboo-clad pavilion
hovers over a pool.
2
Bamboo walls filter
light and air.
3
Elongated volume of
the entrance lobby.

him back to his roots, as evinced timber. It is lightweight, very

by this little restaurant in Bali
which draws intelligently on
vernacular forms and materials,
especially bamboo.
Commissioned to add a
restaurant to a tourist villa and
spa complex, Pradono evokes
the idea of a taring or tetaring, a
traditional Balinese temporary
ceremonial pavilion. Arranged
around a reflecting pool that
meanders through the entire
complex, the new restaurant
has three parts. Two lightweight,
permeable bamboo-clad pavilions
house dining and drinking, while
an elongated rammed earth
volume (made of local clay)
contains the entrance lobby.
This heavier, more impermeable
fast growing and construction
grade material available in three
to ten years, compared with
ten to twenty years for timber.
Harvesting does not kill the
bamboo plant, so there are fewer
problems with soil erosion. Here, 3
light magically filters and dapples 1 entrance lobby
2 reflecting pool
through vertical screens of 3 restaurant pavilions
bamboo and lightweight hovering
roofs. Yet this tropical idyll is
also tempered by a guiding sense
of refinement. C. S.
Architect 1
Budi Pradono Architects, Jakarta
Photographs
FX Bambang SN
3
2

HONOURABLE MENTION
RESTAURANT , B ALI , I NDONESIA
ARCHITECT
84 | 12 BUDI PRADONO A RCHITECTS site plan
In the Gansu province of
north-west China, the Po River
separates the humble village
of Maosi into two parts. This
has a significant effect on its
inhabitants, especially during
floods. Crossing the river is
an essential ritual of daily life,
forming the route for many,
including that for children
between home and school.
When the water rises above
ankle depth, the only means
of crossing it has been to
build a primitive bridge from
mud, straw and tree branches
– exploiting the limited means
available within the Loess
Plateau region.
Historically, each year, after
the autumn harvest, the villagers
BRIDGING THE GAP
Hand built by volunteers, this new structure in
China bridges more than a physical gap.
gather materials to rebuild the
structure, taking on average 15
days to complete it. Despite
this seasonal effort, the summer
rain would always return to
wash it away. At best, crossing
the bridge was precarious, with
the children adopting excellent
acrobatic skills, balancing as they
tiptoed across its narrow and
uneven deck; at worst, it was
lethal.
A solution came when a
number of academics from
Hong Kong considered the
problem; the end result
representing a collaboration
between the Chinese University
in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong
Polytechnic University and the
Xi’an Jiaotong University. Earlier
this summer, project volunteers
travelled to the remote village
and built this new bridge by
hand in just five days. Sited 1.5m
above the river-bed it will be
accessible 95 per cent of the
year, and is easy to maintain.
The 80m long bamboo deck
has already survived a freak 4m
flood, and an 80 year old villager
recently reported that, after
20 years, he could now visit his
friends on the other side. R. G.
Architect
Department of Architecture,
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Project team
Edward Ng (project leader),
Rollin Collins, Paul Tsang, Lucia Cheung,
Kevin Li, Chan Pui Ming, Karen Kiang
Photographs
Chinese University of Hong Kong
HIGHLY COMMENDED
BRIDGE , M AOSI , C HINA
ARCHITECT
DEPARTMENT OF
ARCHITECTURE , C HINESE
UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
2
1, 2
Bridge provides safe route to
school, meeting point and a
place for contemplation.
3
Made largely from local
materials, the bridge sits
comfortably in the landscape,
bearing on the river bed.
plan
section
1 2
 HONOURABLE MENTION
URBAN INSTALLATION ,
VANCOUVER , C ANADA
ARCHITECT
SATOSHI MATSUOKA &
YUKI T AMURA

Entitled Balloon Caught, this

ingenious urban installation
by Tokyo-based architects
Satoshi Matsuoka and Yuki
Tamura was the outcome
of an initiative to re-think
and re-animate public space
in Vancouver. Participants
were asked to explore the
spatial and urban potential
of an alleyway in Gastown,
the city’s oldest district,
through an intervention that
would allow different forms
of occupation through the
day. Proposals were also
intended as a generator of
activity, attracting the public
and offering new readings of
the city.
From such a solemn
programme comes a
delightfully whimsical riposte.
Translucent, glowing orbs
5m to 9m in diameter
are wedged between the
buildings in the alley, like
runaway balloons or delicate
paper lampshades. Festive
and seductive, the superscale
spheres heighten the spatial
experience of the narrow
alley. The installation is also
efficient, designed to be
installed and dismantled
in under a day. Lit from
within, the inflatable nylon
orbs change character from
day to night, as the city
centre site was constantly
accessible and inhabited.
Although only in place for
three days in the summer,
the urban balloons created
a buzz in downtown
Vancouver. The opening
night party drew a crowd
of 700 and subsequent
events attracted a mix of
designers, artists, planners,
delight

tourists, families and flâneurs.

Light in touch and spirit,
these charming inflatables
also gained an honourable
mention from the Jury. C. S.

Architect
Satoshi Matsuoka & Yuki Tamura, Tokyo
 COMMENDED
HOUSE , C OLIUMO
PENINSULA , C HILE
ARCHITECT
PEZO VON
ELLRICHSHAUSEN
ARCHITECTS
CLIFFTOP MONOLITH
Poised on a cliff, this simple concrete house boldly confronts nature and the elements.
Encompassing deserts and
glaciers in an intoxicating,
longitudinal sweep, Chile’s
mad geography has been a
crucible for a particular kind
of Modernism informed by
abstraction, climate and nature.
Many of the younger generation
of South American architects
are reconnecting with these
currents (Mathias Klotz is an
obvious example) to produce
strong, distinctive work that
resonates with place. Such
exploration is also apparent
in the work of the young
Chilean/Argentinian partnership
of Mauricio Pezo and Sofía
von Ellrichshausen who are
based in the coastal city of
Concepción. Commissioned by
72 | 3 a local cultural organisation,
this dramatic cliffside house
on the Coliumo Peninsula, was
commended for its response to
site and the strong, monolithic
quality of its architecture.
Some 550km south of
Santiago, the Coliumo Peninsula
is a breathtaking but remote
rural setting populated by
farmers, fishermen and the
occasional summer tourist.
The difficulties of transporting
materials and a largely unskilled
local labour force limited
the scope of the project,
but the architects exploit
these limitations to create an
architecture of great simplicity
and power. Poised vertiginously
on the edge of the cliff, the
house is an elemental concrete
cube perforated by large
square openings. Used both as
a summer house and informal
cultural centre, the building
had to be at once domestic
and monumental, apparently
contradictory propositions
which are skilfully resolved.
Service elements such as
kitchen, bathroom, storage and
staircases are relegated to the
perimeter, contained within
a 1m wide zone that acts as
thermal buffer. This frees up
the rest of the house, so the
living area, for instance, is a
grandly scaled triple-height
volume. The house steps down
the site, from bedrooms at the
top, through kitchen and dining
at intermediate level, to the
podium of the living area that
directly overlooks the cliff and
sea below. The roof also acts as
a terrace.
Construction was extremely
simple, with in-situ concrete
cast by hand in untreated timber
frames. Labour was provided
by local farmers and fishermen
who only had a small concrete
mixer and four wheelbarrows
at their disposal. In a spirit of
inventive economy, the timber
shuttering was recycled to make
robust sliding panels that screen
the service areas and windows
when the house is not in use. Yet
the engaging roughness of the
construction only adds to the
building’s primitive allure. C. S.
Architect
PvE Architects, Concepción
Photographs
Cristóbal Palma
cross section looking east cross section looking north
1 4
3
5
4
2
ground floor (living) plan first floor (kitchen/dining) second floor (bedrooms) roof plan
(scale approx 1:250)
3
1 living room
2 kitchen
3 dining room
4 bedroom
5 terrace
1
Cast by hand using the
most basic techniques,
the concrete house has a
primitive allure.
2
The raw concrete cube clings
precipitously to the hillside.
3, 4
The triple-height living room
– spaces are at once quite
grand, yet domestic. exploded isometric projection
73 | 12
 The work of the Shuhei Endo

STRAIGHT AND NARROW

Architecture Institute is very
familiar to the AR, and as such
with some members of the Jury.
While there were reservations
that the angular use of profiled
metal sheeting in this their latest
work was less refined than the
previous pioneering continuous
curves of their earlier work (ARs
April 1997, December 2000), it
was still felt that this project was

Even without the curves, Shuhei Endo continues

distinctive, well executed and
worthy of a commendation.
Earlier Endo work exploited
the strength achieved when

to experiment with corrugated metal.

lengths of corrugated sheeting 1
were lapped and bent into
dynamic and structurally
integral ribbons; this work is
slightly disappointing in that
it relies on less sophisticated
preformed corner components.
Nevertheless, a similar spatial
ambiguity drew the Jury’s
attention.
Space here is not defined
by function. Instead, it is
formed as the surface folds
to simultaneously define floor,
wall, ceiling and roof. The
2 3
continuity and reversal of the
double-faced surface allows the
distinction between outside
and inside to blur, avoiding
abrupt differentiation. Within
a homogeneous townscape,
openness and enclosure 8
combine. Compared to earlier
work, the result here is slightly
more bulky; a symptom perhaps
8
of the brief that required
increased structural stiffness,
providing internal and external 1 entrance
decks capable of supporting the 2 office
3 store
load of vehicles for sale. The 4 wc
5 rest space
solution, however, still exhibits 6 workshop
an economy of means that is 7 car lift 5
upper level plan 8 showroom space
impressive, and detailed scrutiny
1,2
of the construction sequence Within the ramshackle
reveals just how successfully the context of Nagoya City, the
car showroom is a distinctive
structure has been composed 7 4 5 composition.
3
to allow an otherwise flimsy, 2 3,4,5
The folded planes create
thin, lightweight material to 6 a variety of internal and
external spaces.
form a composite structure with 1 sequence of cross sections
6
adequate structural integrity. The
question still remains, however,
as to just how much further
the Shuhei Endo Architecture
Institute can continue to exploit
their interest in this particular COMMENDED
material? R. G. CAR SHOWROOM , N AGOYA ,
AICHI PREFECTURE , J APAN
Architect ARCHITECT
74 | 12 Shuhei Endo, Osaka ground floor plan (scale approx 1:333) SHUHEI ENDO 4 75 | 12
 HONOURABLE MENTION The second of two projects by
TAMBABOX , T AMBACOUNDA , Barcelona-based ex.studio was
SENEGAL possibly the most eye-catching
ARCHITECT and unusual of all the premiated
EX . STUDIO submissions. This witty, humorous
response to the visual richness of
Senegalese culture elicited a warm
glow from the judges; indeed,
what’s not to like about a glorious
technicolour Tambabox?
The savannah region of eastern
Senegal may be one of Africa’s
poorest, yet it is culturally
prosperous, mainly due to the
preservation of indigenous
crafts and customs, but also
because of its geography, which
encourages encounters and
exchanges with five neighbouring
countries, including Gambia
and Mali. Tambacounda, the
region’s capital, is the setting for
ex.studio’s experiment in colour,
light, textiles and human curiosity.
Inspired by the dazzling diversity
of the brightly coloured textiles
employed by the Senegalese to
make their distinctive boubous
(kaftan-like dresses and robes),
the wonderfully onomatopoeic
2
Tambabox is a timber-framed cube
clad in a patchwork of assorted with the inky darkness of its engaging robustness that seems
clashing fabric panels. Some have surroundings. Shadows of visitors well suited to its context. The
tailored sleeves attached to them are projected and revealed on the architects’ competition submission
for that essential touch of cross- kaleidoscopic backdrop. Tambabox slightly spoils this effect by
cultural surrealism. combines architecture, sculpture, including some portentous (and
The vividly coloured textiles textiles and tailoring in a simple doubtless lost-in-translation)
filter and regulate the sun’s yet highly lyrical way, transforming observations on their African
glare, so that from inside, the the ordinary and the everyday adventure (eg, ‘the textiles that
taut panels shimmer and pulsate into something gorgeous and delimit this architecture are
with coloured light like stained- extraordinary. murals in which the body is partly
glass windows. At night, lit from To build and assemble the transformed becoming part of
inside, the fabric clad structure Tambabox, ex.studio worked with the linen cloth’), but with such

BOX FRESH
is transformed into a glowing local carpenters and tailors, and seductive visuals, the judges were
polychromatic box that contrasts the compact structure has an happily hooked. C. S.

Inspired by the richness

of Senegalese textiles,
this little fabric clad box
seduced the Jury.

Architect
ex-studio, Barcelona
Project team
Patricia Meneses, Iván Juárez
Photographs
Iván Juárez

1
Out of the box – Tambabox in
context, with visitors.
2
Brilliantly coloured fabric
panels are suffused with light.
3
90 | 3 1 Tambabox in after dark mode. 3 91 | 12
 INFORMAL ORDER
With just three formal variables, this sinuous new settlement works with site and brief.
This project was a popular
choice, with many intricate
spatial qualities and bearing
more than a passing
resemblance to Sea Ranch
– Charles Moore’s celebrated
1960s Californian cliff-top
settlement, that has since
become a model of ordered
informality. Beyond this
association, however, this
contemporary interpretation
stood out as an extremely
HIGHLY COMMENDED accomplished work. Through
RESIDENTIAL CARE UNIT , an ingenious manipulation of
HOKKAIDO , J APAN modular plans and elevated
ARCHITECT forms, the architect has created
SOU FUJIMOTO A RCHITECTS a settlement with its own
60 | 12
striking identity, embodying the
landscape and place-making
qualities of Sea Ranch, without
merely copying it.
Adopting the contemporary
interest in applying a single
cladding material to both
walls and roof, the buildings
are simply articulated in black
profiled cladding, producing
an overtly contemporary
composition that sits
comfortably on a south-westerly
slope overlooking the sea in
Hokkaido in the northernmost
mainland of Japan. Providing
accommodation for up to
twenty mental health patients,
the campus consists of a sinuous
cluster of buildings: 11 square
units linked by 10 interstitial
triangular spaces. Three roof
types – flat, mono-pitch and
ridge – and three storey heights
further articulate each unit’s
form, adding complexity to
the building’s silhouette as it
descends the subtle gradient of
the site. The 5.4 x 5.4m units
contain cellular accommodation
– bedrooms, living rooms
and offices – separated by
triangular alcoves, entrances
and circulation zones. The Jury
remained less convinced about
the building’s appropriateness
1
On a gently sloping hillside
overlooking Hokkaido, the
11 cuboid forms create
an apparently informal
arrangement of buildings.
61 | 12
 as a dormitory for the
mentally disabled; however, in
response to this the architect’s
description of the scheme
as being ‘suitably ambiguous’
helped them settle on an equally
ambiguous decision.
When seeking to create a
comfortable home for twenty
residents, the designers wanted
to create a context that,
in a controlled, secure and
sensitively handled way, would
mimic the diversity and sense of
unpredictability of city life. The
form generates a wide variety
of spaces, of shapes and sizes,
gaps, dead-ends, nooks and
crannies, creating a series of
in-between places where people
may be naturally inclined to find
refuge. If likened to a city, this
arrangement seeks to create
alleyways and tiny squares on
every corner, instead of building 2
The buildings’ contorted plan
spaces, corridors and communal form gives westerly views
areas that recall the anonymous across the city, and into more
intimate external enclaves.
and potentially intimidating 3
Places for casual meeting or
effect of wide roads and large semi-public refuge.
public squares. 4
In the westernmost
Domestic dimensions and accommodation block,
city-like diversity are therefore three bedrooms provide
an alternative to standard
combined into a new series of rectilinear spaces.
internal spaces, from where
views across the coastal
conurbation of Hokkaido give
the residents a controlled link
to their wider context. R.G.
Architect
Sou Fujimoto Architects, Tokyo
Project team
Sou Fujimoto, Yumiko Nogiri, Koji Aoki
Photographs 1 entrance
1, 4, Dalci Ano 2 bedroom
3 alcove
2, 3 Sou Fujimoto
4 living room
5 washing room
6 wc
7 bathroom
8 dining room
9 kitchen
10 office
11 roof terrace

6
2
2

2
10
8
9
3 1

3 2 2
2 2

2 2
2 2
3

2 2
2 2

3 3
5 5
4 6
6
2
7
11 7
3 2 2

2
2 2

the three formal variables upper ground lower ground floor (scale approx 1:500)

HIGHLY COMMENDED
RESIDENTIAL CARE UNIT ,
HOKKAIDO , J APAN
ARCHITECT
62 | 12 SOU FUJIMOTO A RCHITECTS long section 3 4
 HIGHLY COMMENDED
ROLLING BRIDGE , P ADDINGTON , L ONDON
DESIGNER
THOMAS HEATHERWICK STUDIO
1 2
Good design is not just about
good ideas, rolling with it,
going with the creative flow; it
is also about good execution.
Great design comes when both
factors combine. Individuals
who repeatedly come up with
new tactics, those who try to
reinvent the wheel and more
often than not succeed, are
at best inspirational, and at
worst downright irritating.
In architecture, the prize
arguably goes to Herzog and
de Meuron, whose recent
exhibition (AR July 2005) drew
an observer to publicly deride
their ‘incessant inventiveness’.
In the slightly left-field world of
architectural device design, the
creative output of the Thomas
Heatherwick Studio is equally
challenging. You can almost hear
the secret thoughts of their
56 | 12 cross section – rolled out
observers saying, ‘now, why didn’t
I think of that?’
When asked to design a
retractable bridge, Heatherwick
was not content to redress
existing types: swing bridge,
lifting bridge, or rigid retractable.
Instead he came up with
something completely new. Well
almost; no single idea is ever
generated in isolation. The closest
precedent for this probiscus-
like coil is perhaps the military
bridge; the type that is rolled
out when existing passes have
been destroyed or that is used
by emergency services in times
of natural disaster, to give access
for aid or evacuation. Sited in
London’s Paddington Basin, this
bridge rolls open, by slowly and
smoothly unfurling. It mutates
from conventional pedestrian
platform into a circular sculpture,
that sits comfortably on the canal
bank when not required. The
structure is pushed and pulled
ROLL
by a series of hydraulic rams
set within triangular segments;
WITH IT
challenging logic by pulling it
open and pushing it closed. As it A new footbridge
recoils, each of its eight segments animates Paddington’s
simultaneously lifts, causing it to still waters.
curl until the ends touch to form
a perfect circle.
The studio’s aim was to make
function from movement. As
such it can be stopped at any
point along its journey, whether
at the very start, when it looks
as though it is hovering, or
halfway through its opening path.
Delightfully conceived, delightfully
resolved, delightfully detailed, and
delightfully made; don’t you just
hate it? R. G.
Designer
Thomas Heatherwick Studio, London
1,2,3
States of play: the bridge
is stable in any position,
as hydraulic rams push
cross section – rolled in 3 and pull. 57 | 3
HIGHLY COMMENDED
STADIUM CANOPY ,
HELSINKI , F INLAND
ARCHITECT
K2S A RCHITECTS
Originally completed in 1938, the
famous Helsinki Olympic Stadium
was built to attract the summer
Games, which eventually came
to Finland in 1952. Designed by
Yrjö Lindegen and Toivo Jäntti, the
building’s svelte Modernist lines
evoked an era of social optimism
and architectural progressiveness.
Finns are keen athletes and
the Olympic Stadium had the
distinction of appearing on the
Finnish 10 mark banknote, prior to
the country adopting the euro.
Since the late ’30s, the stadium
has undergone various stages
of modernisation which have
improved facilities and reduced
spectator numbers from 70 000
to a more manageable 40 000.
The latest phase was catalysed
by Helsinki’s hosting of the 2005
World Athletics Championship, the
most prestigious athletics meeting
outside the Olympics. Though the
city saw off rival bids from Berlin,
Rome and Moscow, among others,
the IAAF (the sport’s governing
body) insisted that the stadium
should be upgraded with an
extra roof to provide additional
covered seating. Helsinki-based
K2S Architects won a competition
with a bold proposal that
FLYING FINNS
Helsinki’s Olympic
Stadium is dignified and
enhanced by a bold new
grandstand roof.
reinterprets yet also respects the
original Modernist ethos. The new
roof extends to cover part of
the grandstand on the stadium’s
east side, where the bank of
spectator seating is at its widest.
Though a strong presence inside
the stadium, the new structure is
virtually imperceptible from the
outside, much like the existing
1930s canopy. Supported by a row
of steel columns and tied back to
the original concrete structure,
the new canopy cantilevers with
supple grace over the grandstand.
The steel roof structure is
optimised by a double sinusoidal
2
curved section. This generates a
gently undulating geometry, so
that the canopy swells and tapers
along its length. The curve of its
underside is emphasised by a skin
of thin pine strips which tempers
the huge surface both visually and
acoustically. Structural analysis of cross section through new canopy
the aerofoil roof form was backed
up by extensive wind tunnel
testing using a 1:180 scale model
made of aluminium and plexiglass.
The judges admired the elegance
and simplicity of the concept and 1
thought it a thoroughly fitting The new roof swells out
over the stadium.
addition to a heroic landmark of 2
Finnish Modernism. C. S. The grandstand in action.
1
4
Architect
5
K2S Architects, Helsinki
4
2 Project team
Kimmo Lintula, Niko Sirola,
Mikko Summanen
Photographs
1, Johan Fowelin
2, Mikko Summanen
3
1 new roof
2 existing
grandstand
3 tower
4 running track
5 pitch
stadium plan (scale approx 1:2500)
1 cross section through stadium 65 | 12
 HIGHLY COMMENDED
SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY
CENTRE , L IJIANG , C HINA
ARCHITECT
LI XIAODONG DESIGN STUDIO

With the unrivalled rate of

development in China, there is
a genuine concern (admittedly
from foreign observers) that
Chinese architects are yet to
find a coherent contemporary
architectural identity.
Traditionally, China has had a
rich architectural heritage within
which even the most elementary
architectural eye could
identify common architectural
motifs: Dougong brackets that
articulate the junction between
column and beam; sweeping
concave roofs that create
distinctive silhouettes in both
urban and wild rural contexts;
brightly painted timber; and
perhaps most fundamentally,
the systematic grouping of
buildings around courtyards,
where the now overused
Western architectural cliché
of making inside/outside space
had merit, authenticity and
appropriateness.
As last year’s Beijing Biennale
demonstrated, the most
interesting home-grown talents
were those who had chosen
to work with, rather than
against, their heritage. With this
project, Li Xiaodong is very
much part of this generation;
a generation that while not
necessarily being completely
satisfied with the resolution of
their own architectural language,
nevertheless works rigorously
to extract essence and nuance
when considering how to build.
The Yuhu Elementary School
and Community Centre,
completed last year, nestles in
the foothills of the Jade Dragon
Snow Mountain, in Lijiang, home
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
to the 280 000 or so members
of the Naxi minority nationality. Li Xiaodong revisits established architectural typologies
Providing educational space for when placing this contemporary group of buildings within
160 students and community a sensitive UNESCO World Heritage site.
activity space for up to 1300
villagers, the complex comprises
three small buildings arranged 1
in a Z-configuration. This From the south,
the school
creates two courtyards, each set courtyard is set
aside for separate school and beside a large
maple tree.
community activities. Deriving
52 | 12 significance from the Naxi
 2

HIGHLY COMMENDED
SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY
CENTRE , L IJIANG , C HINA
first floor
ARCHITECT
LI XIAODONG DESIGN STUDIO

1 museum
2 classroom
3 exhibition area
4 community courtyard
5 reflecting pool
6 school courtyard
7 staffroom

site plan ground floor (scale approx 1:500)

tenet that sees the mountains
as the backbone and water as
the soul of their culture, both
stone and water feature heavily;
as do reinterpretations of the
traditional Naxi home.
One such reinvention is
and techniques. The use of
traditional timber-frame
detailing with mortise and tenon
joints, for example, is a proven
safeguard against earthquake
collapse, with all masonry being
independently reinforced and
as a demonstration of how
local materials, technology
and spatial arrangements can
be transformed into a fresh
language. The challenge for
this generation, however,
with Li Xiaodong and many 4

the articulation of the stair,
which forms a focus to
the community courtyard.
Traditionally occupying one
corner of a Naxi house, the
stair frees up space to provide
more flexible orthogonal rooms
while celebrating the ritual of
teachers making their way to
the classrooms below. Effort
was also made to simplify the
architectural language while
54 | 12 respecting traditional details
non load-bearing. Traditional
ornamentation is also reduced
to basics, with curved ridgelines
straightened and gable end
ornament simplified to a simple
lattice framework inspired by
traditional grain racks. Sliding
and casement windows are
also abundant, bringing fresh
air, light and access when
required. The uniqueness of the
design within a very particular
context impressed the judges,
contemporaries based in cities
like Beijing, will ultimately
come when they are given the
opportunity to raise their game,
and to tackle the problems
associated with large-scale
urban developments. R. G.
Architect
Li Xiaodong Design Studio, Beijing
Project team
Li Xiaodong, Yeo Kang Shua,
Chong Keng Hua, Stanley Lee Tse Chen
Photographs
Melvin H. J. Tan
2
From within the classroom,
nature and landscape remain
dominant and distracting.
3,4,5
Within the community
courtyard, the twisted
staircase forms a focus ...
a contemporary twist, in
an otherwise traditional
context.
6
The community courtyard,
reflecting pool and Snow
Mountain beyond. 5 6

Fit-out is a curious architectural
medium. Often temporary,
materially thin, and stylistically
over-egged, it is the more muted
and restrained interiors that
usually attract recognition.
It came as somewhat of a
surprise, therefore, that this
year’s Jury decided to give this
small project, Tides Restaurant,
an honourable mention.
Little was known about the
restaurant’s genre; even less
was revealed about the spatial
layout. Quite simply, it was the
sheer ambition of the ceiling
that intrigued the Jury.
In commercial fit-outs, ceilings
often suffer great disservice
as the forgotten elevation.
Services coordination is easily
overlooked, and materials rarely
deviate from dry lining. Smoke
detectors, light-fittings and
sprinklers compete in misaligned
unresolved grids, despite the
fact that when seen through
brightly-lit shop windows, free
of merchandise, people and
clutter, the ceiling is often the
most prominent surface. Here
then, the designers invested
a great deal of time in the
consideration of the ceiling,
SHIFTING
providing an inverted acoustic
topography that helps mediate
what they considered to be an
inappropriately proportioned
space for a small intimate TIDES
restaurant. With over 120 000
bamboo skewers (cut into three The designers of this
standard lengths), perhaps the New York restaurant
only reservation was that this sought acoustic softness
idea could have been taken even
and spatial intimacy.
further. R.G.
Architect
LTL Architects, New York
Project team
Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki, David Lewis
Photographs
Michael Moran

HONOURABLE MENTION
RESTAURANT , N EW Y ORK ,
USA
ARCHITECT
LTL A RCHITECTS

1
Looking from the
kitchen toward
the street, Tides
Restaurant
features a new
type of suspended
ceiling.
 Providing services for blood collection, storage and research, Prathama
Blood Centre in Ahmedabad, regional capital of Gujarat, attracted the
jurors’ attention as an example of a large and quite complex building in
the developing world. Designed by local practice Matharoo Associates
(whose Kahnian crematorium featured in the 2003 awards cycle, AR
December 2003), the blood centre is conceived as a pioneering new
type of health building (prathama means ‘first’ in Sanskrit) that combines
sophisticated laboratory and testing facilities with an enlightened,
humanistic approach.
The centre is the outcome of a competition staged by a charitable
trust with the aim of recasting and restaging the act of blood donation
in a more inviting public domain, so mitigating the fear and repulsion
subconsciously associated with such public spiritedness. The new building
can store and process 200 000 units of blood, making it the largest blood
bank in India. Donations are entirely voluntary, and the centre’s on-site
facilities are backed up by a fleet of mobile collection units. 3
Despite the programme’s ambitions, the budget was parsimonious
($200 per sqm, including fit out and site development). Costs were kept
in check by custom designing and locally fabricating internal elements
such as doors, windows, modular furniture, partitions and work stations.
Even so, Matharoo Associates have succeeded in making a building that
has an evident decency and dignity.
A four-storey glass-clad stack of laboratories intersects roughly at 18
right angles with a hermetic concrete volume housing administration and 17 20
19
support services. Between these clearly articulated functional elements
is a more free-form atrium space, created by stretching and curving the
concrete wall. Contained within this concrete skin at ground level are
13
user-friendly enclaves for blood collection (separated from the more
clinical blocks), so that people can just wander in and make a donation.
To encourage a regular throughput of donors, there are none of the
formalities and inhibitions of a formal hospital setting. Helping to soothe
nerves, the donation suite overlooks a tranquil reflecting pool, while third floor

within the atrium there are views and glimpses through to the more
specialised laboratory spaces, communicating a sense of the building’s
gravitas and wider social purpose. C. S.

Architect
Matharoo Associates, Ahmedabad 16
15 16
Photographs
Courtesy of the architects
1

14 13

FIRST BLOOD HONOURABLE MENTION 1 entrance

2 waiting area
BLOOD CENTRE , 3 atrium
4 reception first floor
AHMEDABAD , I NDIA 5 cross matching lab
This blood collection centre, the ARCHITECT 6 blood group lab
7 virology lab
MATHAROO A SSOCIATES
largest in India, aims to demystify 8 doctor’s surgery
9 refreshment room
and humanise the process of 10 donation suite
11 examination room
blood donation. 12 pool
13 WCs
14 auditorium 7 6 5
8
15 platelets room 9 4
16 cold rooms
17 conference room 3
11
18 canteen
19 offices 10 1 13
2
20 records

12
1
The slightly
hermetic concrete
exterior.
2
A soaring atrium
unites the various
volumes and
functions.
3
Blood donation
82 | 12 suite. cross section long section 2 ground floor plan (scale approx 1:750) 83 | 12
 The judges were immediately grid of 120mm x 120mm cedar While the structure works in 1
The building sits on a
attracted to the apparently members on their inside. A 2m a simple and effective way, its man-made hill in a
free-form structural mesh that grid of light gauge steel supports design is sophisticated. Despite mountain context.

produces this small gymnasium
building in a town in Kumamoto
Prefecture whose chief industry
is forestry – the building had to
make use of timber as a symbol
of its area. On closer inspection
there was more to this building
than immediately met the eye.
The structure is in fact a hybrid
of glulam and steel; light gauge
steel columns are placed at 1m
intervals along the exterior
wall, with load transferred to a
the roof, while below, a grid of
cedar members is ‘sifted’ at a 45
degree angle, connected to form
trusses with a 22m span.
Angling the lower parts of
the trusses allowed the
designers to produce height
where required by transferring
load to trusses where a high
ceiling was not needed, ie, the
two rooms that accompany the
gymnasium itself, which house
mini-volleyball courts.
the apparent free-form nature
of the structural timber grid, in
fact each element is part of an
orthogonal grid in both plan and
elevation. However, only one out
of every four members in the
timber grid line act as trusses;
the remaining 75 per cent
simply span between the eight
main truss lines. By contrast,
the shift of the timber and
steel grids results in the steel
members working as a plane,

SPACE FRAMED
Sophisticated structural
design informed a
gymnasium building in
Tomochi, Japan, symbolising
its region.

PRIZEWINNER
FORESTRY HALL ,
TOMOCHI , J APAN
ARCHITECT
TAIRA NISHIZAWA
42 | 11 ARCHITECTS
 each stressed uniformly, and thus
minimising use of material.
The lower parts of the wall
are in cedar, but the project
is essentially a glazed box (no
concrete has been used), located
on a man-made hill planned to
accommodate a baseball field,
parking and a grass park. Of
course, the site is surrounded
by entirely natural mountains;
the architects responded to this
hybrid context with a bush-like
hybrid of their own.
PAUL FINCH

Architect
Taira Nishizawa Architects, Tokyo
Structural engineer
Arup Japan

2, 3
Intersecting grids produce
differential heights for different
spaces.

1 entrance
2 gymnasium
3 council room
4 meeting room
2
detailed wall section: grids of steel and glulam support a glazed box

PRIZEWINNER
FORESTRY HALL ,
TOMOCHI , J APAN
ARCHITECT
TAIRA NISHIZAWA
2
ARCHITECTS

1 3 4 4

ground floor plan (scale approx 1:500) upper level plan

44 | 12 site plan cross section long section 3

 The challenges of large-scale
public housing still tend to
confound most architects, so
it was encouraging to see this
assured example from young
Swiss practice Pool Architekten.
Compared with most of the
projects shown here it represents
a sizeable commission (for
over 100 apartments), and
demonstrates the skills of
designing and building on a large
scale. Jurors were impressed by
the scheme’s confident execution,
if perhaps not so entranced by its
quintessentially Swiss rigour.
Commissioned for a local
housing cooperative, the
development lies on the
edge of Zurich, where the
suburbs thin and give way to
rolling countryside. The site
slopes eastwards down from
Leimbachstrasse to the river Sihl
and forest beyond. To exploit
light and views, the two blocks
are placed along the west and
north edges of the site defining a
large communal garden. Clad in a
reptilian skin of greenish grey slate
and partly dug into the slope, the
blocks have a topographic quality
that abstracts the roll and heave
of the surrounding hills. Each
block consists of three sub-units
which are kinked slightly in plan
like a derailed train. Angular roof
profiles also break up any potential
monotony, as do the generous
balconies set at regular intervals
into slate-clad facades.
Deft internal planning juggles
and organises a range of
apartment types. Each sub-block
1 contains three to four flats per
2
floor, arranged around a central 1
Generous balconies
communal stairwell. Apartments animate the stern
slate-clad facades.
vary in size from one to four 2
bedrooms, with living rooms Edge of town context.
strategically placed to take
advantage of views. A quarter of
the apartments are maisonettes,
which interlink and overlap the
standard flats, introducing an
element of spatial diversity to
what could, on paper, be quite
a monotonous and repetitive
building type. All flats have access
to external space in the form of
balconies (enclosed by elegantly
detailed wire mesh balustrades)
or roof terraces. As might be
expected in this part of the world,
the quality of construction and
workmanship was painstaking,
adding to the project’s overall
sense of dignity and decency. C. S.
Architects
Pool Architekten, Zurich
Project team
Raphael Frei, Mischa Spoerri, Ana Prikic,
Markus Bachmann, Sybille Besson, Hannah Dean
Photographs
Arazebra, Andrea Helbling interaction of different flat types

SWISS ASSURANCE
This large-scale housing complex reinvigorates a dull building type.

typical sub block plan (lower level scale approx 1:500) typical sub block plan (upper level)

HONOURABLE MENTION
HOUSING , Z URICH ,
SWITZERLAND
ARCHITECTS
88 | 12 cross section location/site plan POOL A RCHITEKTEN 89 | 12
 HIGHLY COMMENDED
RESTAURANT , B RUFE , P ORTUGAL
ARCHITECTS
ANTÓNIO PORTUGAL & MANUEL
MARIA REIS
1 6
Graduates of Porto’s architectural
school and in practice in the city
since 1990, António Portugal
& Manuel Maria Reis are in
the vanguard of an emerging
generation of Portuguese
architects. Their modest, tactful
work epitomises what critics
and curators describe as
‘critical scarcity’, making use of
limited budgets, materials and
construction techniques in a
way that responds imaginatively
to the Portuguese condition.
Their sensitive remodelling of
the historic Casa da Cerca into a
library and archive (AR July 2004)
3 2 3 helped an antiquated structure
DINING TERRACE
This restaurant in Portugal’s rugged north
responds to and celebrates its wild setting.
1
Embedded in hillside, roof
becomes viewing plateau.
2
Rough timber cladding
alludes to farm buildings.
3,4,5
The main terrace has
breathtaking vistas.
6
The new restaurant is poised
2 |3 4 5 on granite terraces.
make the challenging transition
from decaying relic to working
public building.
There is a strongly enigmatic
and understated quality to their
approach, epitomised by this
project for a restaurant near
the village of Brufe, in Portugal’s
rugged far north. Utterly simple
in conception and execution,
the building is an almost
imperceptible horizontal blip in
the landscape, its long, low slung
volume echoing the forms of the
granite terraces on which it is
poised. Much of its bulk is, in fact,
excavated into the hillside, so
that the roof becomes part of the
long section
5
restaurant level plan (scale approx 1:500)
terrain, a grass-covered plateau
edged with a minimal upstand
to prevent mishaps. From this
vantage point, diners descend
a set of external stairs cut into
the hill to another terrace that
thrusts out from the box of the
restaurant.
Dining takes place in a large,
airy room illuminated by a long
slash of picture window glazing,
while the cooking and serving end
of things is kept well out of sight
in the buried rear of the building.
Rough horizontal planks of timber
are employed to clad both lower
terrace and box, giving it a rustic,
barn-like character that echoes
6
roof level plan
3
2
the vernacular architecture of the
surrounding farm buildings.
The judges were intrigued by
the project, whose presentation
embodied the sparse, enigmatic
quality of its architecture. They
were especially impressed by how
the building related to its setting,
deferring to the landscape but
celebrating it, and the way the
simple materials were combined
with a restrained formal language
to achieve powerful effects.
CATHERINE SLESSOR
Architects
António Portugal & Manuel Maria Reis, Porto
with Paulo Freitas
Photographs
Luís Ferreira Alves
1 terrace
2 restaurant dining room
3 servery
4 kitchen
5 external staircase
6 roof
cross section
59 | 12
 1

The evangelising premise of
the Rural Studio is now well
known, yet Sam Mockbee’s
brilliant brainchild of extending
the study and practice of
architecture into a socially
responsible context continues
to flourish, even after his death
(AR February 2002). Now under
the direction of Englishman
Andrew Freear, Mockbee’s
mission goes on. Every quarter,
groups of students from
Auburn University elect to and
site plan
live and work off campus in
the impoverished counties of
COMMENDED western Alabama. Working with
PAVILION , P ERRY COUNTY , the local Department of Human
ALABAMA , USA Resources, the students tackle
ARCHITECT small-scale projects that engage
RURAL STUDIO with the unpalatable, neglected
margins of American society. As
with all Rural Studio endeavours,
architectural involvement
goes well beyond the abstract
niceties of design into the
more challenging and uncharted
realms of hands-on building, and
sourcing materials, as well as
finance, and administration.
Here, a quartet of students
designed and built a new
pavilion for communal activities
in a neglected park in Perry
County, the most impoverished
county in Alabama. The park
was first created in the 1930s,
but was closed in 1970 and left
untouched for over 30 years,
slowly growing into a luscious,
mysterious, forgotten landscape.
Utterly simple in conception and
execution, the pavilion is tucked
in among a lush, hardwood
forest of water tupelos and
cypress trees near a former
picnic area. Shaped like a giant
megaphone, it sits boldly in its
arboreal setting. A large deck
made of local cedar forms a
datum for viewing, assembly
and performance. The deck
is raised some 18in (450mm)
off the ground (to resist the
regular local floods) and cranks
up to create benches and a
formal entrance. Set against this
main datum is a smaller, more
intimate enclave with a love seat.
The deck is sheltered by a thin,
aluminium-clad roof that soars
up to 24ft (7.3m) at its highest
point. From a distance, the
trunk-like columns blend with
the trees, so the roof appears to
hover lightly above the deck.
The Cedar Pavilion has proved
immensely popular, hosting
communal gatherings, catfish
fries and family reunions, as well
as functioning as an open-air
classroom for local schools
and colleges. Jurors admired
the clarity and economy of
the architecture and how, in
formidable social circumstances,
it helped to renew and foster a
sense of community. C. S.
Architect
Rural Studio, Auburn, USA
Project team
Jennifer Bonner, Mary Beth Maness,
Nathan Orrison, Anthony Tindill
Photographs
Courtesy of the architect

ARBOREAL ARBOUR 3
2

Deep in a forest, this pavilion helps

to reinvigorate community life.

1
Supported by arboreal
columns, the pavilion
blends into the forest.
2
A megaphone-shaped
roof encloses a platform.
3
The elevated platform
resists periodic flooding
76 | 12 from the nearby river. ground floor plan (scale approx 1:200) long section cross section 77 | 12
 Sustrans is the UK’s leading sustainable transport charity, promoting
a vision to see the world adopt methods of transport that benefit
the health of individuals and the state of the environment. To date
they have been extremely successful with award-winning initiatives,
including the National Cycle Network, Safe Routes to School, and
Bike It. In short, they are far more than a charity for weird cyclists.
Commissioning artwork has also been part of their programme,
bringing delight and spectacle to their expanding cycle network
that in itself has restored, rejuvenated and reopened previously
inaccessible parts of our landscape.
The William Cookworthy Bridge, while not pure art, is one such
component, providing a valuable link in Clay Trails: part of the
Network that includes 15km of paths over the former China Clay
works in Cornwall, linking communities and visitors, and providing
car-free access to the Eden Project (AR August 2001).
Designed by local architect David Sheppard, the bridge is
much more than the metal object that we see. It is part of larger,
integrated, sculpted landform, that makes a place within this very
specific landscape. An elevated viewing platform acts as a fulcrum
between land and bridge, turning the route through almost 90
degrees. The artificial embankment – formed from 10 000 tons
of ‘stent’ quarry waste – ascends to the pivot point, recalling
the monumental scale of earth movement and sculpting that is
characteristic of this area; a place where industry has brought a very
specific identity.
The bridge itself appealed to the Jury due to its physical and
notional straightforwardness; a quality that is evident in the 2
architect’s description: a simply supported box girder, 25m in span,
2.5m wide and 450mm deep, with a 1.4m high parapet for horses and
cyclists. It is beautifully simple, and the distinctive vertical fins, set
at 100mm centres, discourage climbing toddlers, and play with the
moiré effect, causing the bridge’s visual mass to change when seen
in motion. It is a wonderful addition within a unique landscape, and
a fitting memorial to the 300th anniversary of the man who founded
Cornwall’s China Clay industry, William Cookworthy. R. G.

SHEPPARD’S
DELIGHT
In the beautiful Cornish setting,
Sustrans’ mission to make the
landscape accessible is perfectly
served by a new bridge.

site plan

Architect
David Sheppard Architects, Devon
with Sustrans
Project team
David Sheppard, Colin Sanderson,
Simon Ballantine
Photographs
Joakim Borén

1
The Corten fins produce a
subtle moiré effect when
HIGHLY COMMENDED seen by passing cyclists,
walkers and riders.
BRIDGE , S T A USTELL , C ORNWALL , UK 2
The bridge provides an
ARCHITECT important link in the
68 | 3 DAVID SHEPPARD A RCHITECTS Sustrans 15km Clay Trails. section through earthwork and Bodmin Road 69 | 12

1
The combining of sacred
and secular in a complex
of buildings is a familiar
architectural programme, and
one that encourages a creative
combination of the functional
and the spiritual. In this instance,
the judges were impressed by
the calmness and serenity of the
oratory space, with its shades
of Tadao Ando, not to mention
Le Corbusier, in its exploitation
of concrete and varying types
of light.
The oratory element creates
what the architect describes as
the equivalent of a crescendo
in music, but one which breaks
from the remaining fabric
of a campus which also has
educational and administrative
functions. Its location and height
mark it out from the everyday
PRIZEWINNER
CHURCH COMPLEX ,
LOUISIANA , USA
ARCHITECT
TRAHAN A RCHITECTS
48 | 12
1
Site context.
2
The oratory lies at the heart
of the campus.
3
The oratory cube, seen
through the glazed cloister.
4
Refined geometry and raw
materials give the structure
an elemental power. A cast
glass door heralds entry.
buildings around, while the
rotation in plan is intended
to signify the break between
secular and sacred, and to create
a void between building types
which can be used for communal
gatherings of varying size, or for
private meditation.
The threshold between the
outside world and the oratory
is marked by a sculptural cast-
glass door, designed to gather
and refract light, which glows
brightly at the perimeter and
luminously at the centre as 2
a result of the lens-shaped
plan. The architects intended
to achieve a fusion of secular
and metaphysical experiences
through light, shadow, colour
LIGHT SPIRIT
and movement, before visitors
and congregation take their Fusing the secular and metaphysical, this oratory on
place inside. a campus is a modern response to the numinous.
3 4
 Internally, the oratory is
intended to evoke a sense of
mystery while providing a pure
space which could be described
as womb-like. Each of the six
sides is the same size, and has
the same colour and texture,
the uniformity creating a
certain lack of orientation and
sense of mystery. Variation and
stimulation is provided by light
drawn into the oratory through
irregular activities cast into the
walls, whose thickness varies. As
the images show, the effect is to
introduce brilliant light near the
ceiling and softer light near the
floor. Each aperture is inspired
by a single episode of the
paschal mystery of Christ.
No costly materials have
been used in the creation of
this complex – board-formed
concrete, plate glass and cast 5
Communing with the
glass are the key elements, numinous.
6
creating an atmosphere the Interior has an almost
architect intended to be neither Japanese asceticism.
7
opulent nor overly austere. The Light and materials convey
judges, on balance, felt that this a sense of peace and
spirituality.
had successfully been achieved,
and that a feeling of serenity
pervaded the design, doubtless
helped by the simplicity of the
plan and the cloister reference
in what is in part, at least, a
community resource. P. F.
8
7
Architect
Trahan Architects, Louisiana
Project team
5 9
9
Victor F. Trahan, Brad Davis, Kirk Edwards
Photographs
Timothy Hursley
9 6 9

PRIZEWINNER
CHURCH COMPLEX , ground floor plan of oratory (scale approx 1:250)
LOUISIANA , USA
ARCHITECT
TRAHAN A RCHITECTS

1 administration 2
2 classroom
3 religious education
4 oratory
5 altar
6 pulpit
7 presider’s chair
8 crucifix 5
9 pews

1
3

general plan of complex

50 | 12 site plan cross section 6 7

The architect’s design statement reads thus: Conceived as an interior
space for self-reflection, Dream House proposes a relationship between
an urban tree and an interactive sensitive piece, which transforms the
HANGING
natural element into an introspective human refuge. The refuge emerges
from the tree as an illuminated chrysalis, establishing a reflection on the ABOUT
relationship between man and his built and natural environment. The piece
proposes new ways of occupying and imagining space. It suggests making Portable refuge, or
use of nature as the main element in creating a dialogue between nature, portable prison? The
human beings and man-made space.
decision is yours …
Such words are unlikely to have helped or hindered the Jury’s
decision. There were no details of how or why it was made, or
indeed how you were supposed to get into the space. Any discussion
on how you might naturally be inclined to use the space, if fully
pursued, may have revealed more about the Jury than would have
been appropriate (swinging meaning different things to different
people). Needless to say, however, there is an emerging fascination in
such projects. This year a number of tree houses were submitted. The
only conclusion was that this image drew the Jury’s attention; some
finding it horrific – a torture chamber from where screams would
never be heard – others seeing it as peaceful and tranquil. Like the
structure itself, therefore, the ultimate decision was left hanging in
the balance … R. G.

Architect
ex.studio, Barcelona
Project team
Iván Juárez, Patricia Meneses
Photograph
Iván Juárez

1
Trapped or tranquil?
Or simply a nice garden
ornament?

HONOURABLE MENTION
TREE HOUSE , H UESCA , S PAIN
ARCHITECT
EX . STUDIO 87 | 3
 Even by Scandinavian standards,
the Svalbard archipelago is
challengingly remote. Over 600km
north of the Norwegian mainland,
the islands’ glacier-scored
landscape is frozen solid to a
depth of 500m and temperatures
plummet to –50 deg C in winter.
The upside of this inhospitability
are rich deposits of coal that
attracted Russian and Swedish
mining operations in the first
half of the twentieth century.
But with the decline of the coal
industry, Svalbard is now looking
to encourage a more diverse
economy of adventure tourism
and scientific research.
This centre for atmospheric
and environmental research is
in Spitzbergen, the largest island
in the archipelago (and also the
only inhabited one). Designed by
Jarmund Vigsnæs, the centre was
the outcome of a competition.
1 Having previously built an HQ for 4
the governor of Svalbard, Jarmund
Vigsnæs were familiar with the
archipelago’s formidable terrain
and climate.
Clad in a highly insulated
copper skin, the centre is a
humped, topographic presence
in the bleak landscape. Though
fashionably angular, the geometry
was modelled on flows of wind
and snow raking across the site
and helps to mitigate snow build-
up over doors and windows. To
prevent heat from the building
melting the permafrost and
causing subsidence, the centre
sits on an elevated raft with a
ventilated airspace underneath it.
As the centre’s users will be
2 3 spending a great deal of time 5 6
indoors, they need to feel at
ease with their surroundings. The

NORTHERN EXPOSURE copper skin conceals and protects

COMMENDED Architect
Jarmund Vigsnæs, Oslo
RESEARCH CENTRE , a pine-lined, humanly-scaled maze Photographs
SVALBARD , N ORWAY of internal streets, offices and Nils Petter Dale
ARCHITECT laboratories that offers spatial
In Norway’s remote north, this research centre
JARMUND V IGSNÆS incident and variety. Jurors were
responds to challenging conditions. impressed by the response to such
challenging conditions and how
the architecture was literally yet
creatively shaped by context. C. S.

1
The new research centre is
a topographic presence in
Spitzbergen’s bleak landscape.
2, 3
Angular geometry prevents the
build-up of snow.
4, 5, 6
Pine-lined internal spaces have
78 | 12 long section cross section incident and variety. ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1250) 79 | 12
 Generally dictated by function
and with an invariable physical
prominence, air traffic control
towers tend not to be the most
lyrical of structures. This new
tower at Vienna’s main Schwechat
airport is an admirable exception,
and its efforts at recasting a
fundamentally dreary building
type impressed the jurors.
Around five years ago, as the
airport authorities put forward
plans for expansion, it became
clear that a new control tower
would be required to cope
with increased air traffic. Local
partnership Zechner & Zechner
won an EU-wide competition
for the new building. At 109m
high, the new 23-storey tower
soars over the airport complex,
and its prominent location near
the main entrance provided
an opportunity to nudge the
building into more dynamic,
urban landmark territory rather
than just being a baldly functional
stump.
The tower is divided into
three parts, each with a different
architectural character, so the
overall outcome is a bit like
the Surrealist game of Exquisite
Corpses (where individual
artists envisage a different part
of a composite body, oblivious
of other efforts). The lower
six storeys house staff offices
in a sleek glass cube, together
with facilities for controllers
supervising airspace movements
who do not require direct visual
contact with planes. Those who
do, occupy a faceted turret which
has commanding views over the
runways and sharply angular
facades to reduce glare. The
intermediate shaft is unoccupied
(security restrictions prevent
the space from being used
commercially), but the concrete
structure is wrapped in a taut
membrane supported by a steel
frame. The membrane shifts and
twists as it rises between base
and turret, giving the entire
composition a sculptural quality.
The membrane adds more than
just visual variety, however. It also
acts as a backdrop for the display
of superscale images filtered COMMENDED
through three high definition AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TOWER ,
digital projectors. Backlighting VIENNA , A USTRIA
is provided by lamps attached ARCHITECT
to the tower shaft and images ZECHNER & ZECHNER
(mainly soothing visions of skies
and the natural world) can be
varied through a computer-
controlled system.
The tower thus becomes a
canvas for flights of imagination, 11
10
7
and this unconventional take
on how a large vertical surface
can be creatively appropriated
23rd floor
eventually convinced the judges,
despite some reservations
about the elegance of the 7 8 8 8
5
overall form. C. S.
3 3
Architect 6
Zechner & Zechner, Vienna 6
Project team 2
Martin Zechner, Bernhard Schunack
Photographs 19th floor
Thilo Härdtlein
1
The tower’s tripartite form
reflects its various functions.
2
Membrane support structure.
3, 4
The membrane becomes a
backdrop for light projection.

16th floor

FLIGHT OF 3 3 3

IMAGINATION 3
3

3
3
3 3 5 4
An air traffic control tower is elevated into a city
landmark through the use of light and images.
second floor 3

1 foyer
2 patio garden
3 offices
4 conference room
5 kitchen
6 computer suite
7 rest room 3
8 changing room 5
9 observation room
10 control booth 4
3
11 catwalk
2
1 3

78 | 12 cross section ground floor plan (scale approx 1:1500) 1 4

design review The modern vogue for weddings
in unusual settings is also highly
popular in Japan. Since most
Japanese are not dogmatically
religious, tending to cherry-pick
aspects of Buddhism, Shintoism
and Christianity, wedding
ceremonies are not so firmly tied
to particular places of worship.
Klein Dytham’s recently
completed Leaf Chapel in the
Yamanashi prefecture makes the
forested landscape in the foothills
of Japan’s southern alps the
appropriately inspiring setting for
the solemn rituals of matrimony.
Set in the grounds of a big
swish hotel (whose trade has
perked up markedly since the
chapel’s opening), the new
structure resembles an elongated
eyeball partly bunkered into the
ground overlooking a small
reflecting pool to the forest and
hills beyond. The intimate, cave-
like interior of the chapel is
W EDDING CHAPEL ,
Eye do
K OBUCHIZAWA , J APAN
ARCHITECT
A verdant forest landscape forms the backdrop
K LEIN D YTHAM 2 for this ingenious little Japanese wedding chapel.
screened by an ‘eyelid’, an
openable veil studded with 4700
acrylic lenses, punched into the
surface in a swirling leaf pattern.
When the eyelid is closed,
scintillating pin-pricks of light
percolate through the lenses,
creating magical luminous
patterns and effects.
The moving eyelid/veil forms
an important part of the wedding
ritual. At the end of the wedding
ceremony, when the groom lifts
the bride’s veil, the veil of the
chapel also opens, revealing the
ravishing panorama of nature
beyond. After the ceremony,
as the congregation walks out
across the pond to a drinks
area, the veil slowly closes so
that the chapel can be reset for
the next wedding. This also
cannily ensures a regular
throughput of customers (not
surprisingly, the chapel has
proved immensely popular).
Though touched with Klein
Dytham’s signature playfulness –
the transparent backrests of the
chapel pews are printed with
green lollipop trees familiar from
an earlier scheme for Tokyo
department store Laforet (AR
October 2001) – this imaginative
little structure also evokes and
connects with wider Japanese
traditions, such as setting
buildings very precisely in the
landscape in order to frame and
define particular views. The light-
percolating veil could also be
seen as a contemporary version site plan
of shoji screens. In any event, the
interaction of building and
landscape makes a memorable
beginning to the charms and
challenges of married life. 1
The chapel in use. It has proved
CATHERINE SLESSOR phenomenally popular.
2
Architect The luminous interior with the
perforated veil lifted and views of
Klein Dytham, Tokyo the framed landscape beyond.
Photographs 3
Katsuhisa Kida Building and nature as one.
ground floor plan (scale approx 1:250)
cross section 51 | 9
 1
BOUTIQUE , N EW Y ORK , USA
DESIGNER
HEATHERWICK STUDIO
Stairway to heaven
Thomas Heatherwick stuns Manhattan with his new store for Longchamp.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it all
began with a handbag. In 2003
the perpetually inventive Thomas
Heatherwick was invited by
French conglomerate Longchamp,
patrician purveyor of luxury
accessories, to design a handbag.
He duly obliged with the Zip Bag, a
typically audacious piece of lateral
fashion thinking in which a super-
long zip was wound in horizontal
concentric rings around the entire
bag, allowing it to expand and
contract like a small but extremely
stylish accordion. From this initial
coup de foudre, the Heatherwick/
Longchamp relationship has now
consolidated into a serious affair,
with the recent much hyped
74 | 8 completion of a new Longchamp
store in New York, the firm’s first
contemporary flagship.
Occupying the first floor of
an existing corner block in Soho,
Longchamp NY is, from the
outside at least, more tugboat
than flagship, with surprisingly little
pavement presence. Originally
built in the mid ’30s, the building
suffered from a bad ’80s makeover.
Enticing fretful bag ladies beyond
the unprepossessing frontage up to
a luminous haven of luxury leather
goods was Heatherwick’s principal
design challenge, and he has risen
to the occasion with characteristic
aplomb. A gorgeously theatrical
staircase oozes and cascades
languidly around a toplit circulation
core, so that legions of happy
cross section
shoppers barely register the fag
of actually having to get upstairs.
More sculpture than staircase,
the construction might best be
described as a series of ribbon-like
forms, made from very unribbon-
like one and half inch thick (38mm)
hot-rolled steel. Together the
polished metal strips gently swell
and heave to create a vague yet
intensely seductive semblance of
treads and risers.
This stairway to bag heaven is
enclosed by an impossibly ethereal
glass balustrade, that billows and 1
shimmers like transparent fabric. The focus of the
remodelling is a seductively
All too familiar with the industry cascading staircase.
standard of flat sheets of glass and 2
Ribbon-like forms are
their associated rigidity and lack of enclosed by the wispiest of
reflectivity, Heatherwick wanted gossamer glass balustrades. 2 75 | 8

first floor plan (scale approx 1:200)
BOUTIQUE , N EW Y ORK , USA
DESIGNER
HEATHERWICK STUDIO
something more tantalisingly
fluid and sparkling. A year’s
development yielded a final
design that exploits aerospace
windscreen technology to create
the requisite effect, each panel like
a warped and buckled gossamer
wing and each one unique.
The main retail floor continues
the theme of disarming undulation.
The laminated timber ceiling is
sliced open with forensic precision
and the slashed strips peeled
downwards to provide instant
display units, while also exposing
the building’s disembowelled
guts. By a similar slice ‘n’ peel
logic, the floor plane is also thus
modified, forming a handy series
of gracefully curved surfaces
76 | 8 on which to array Longchamp’s
exquisitely hand tooled produce.
A new second floor contains
the business end of things,
with offices, showroom and
a wonderfully sybaritic roof
garden. It’s all very New York, as
confirmed by the Bacchanalian
scenes at the opening party
(broadcast as part of a recent
television profile on Heatherwick’s
oeuvre), but beneath the frivolous
froth of fashion, there are some
serious points to be made
about the importance of craft,
invention and construction,
and how boundaries can, and
should, be pushed. It is, perhaps,
an architectural version of the
familiar fashion editor argument
for the innate superiority of
haute couture over prêt-à-porter.
3
section through display units at ground floor level
Longchamp could have easily
opted for the familiar comforts
of luxury blandness, but chose
instead to take a more scenic
route in the enquiring and
engaging company of Heatherwick.
Happily, their faith has been
rewarded. Toujours l’amour.
CATHERINE SLESSOR
Designer
Heatherwick Studio, London
Architect
Atmosphere Design Group LLC
Structural engineer
Building Structural Engineering Services
MEP consultant
O’Dea Lynch Abbattista & Associates 3
Lighting Designer The remodelled building in
New York’s Soho.
HDLC Architectural Lighting Design
Photographs
4
The main shop at first floor
Nikolas Koenig, 1, 2 level with ingenious slice
Adrian Wilson, 3, 4 and peel ceiling. 4 77 | 8