Archinect - News

Jacques Herzog previews the Royal Academy exhibition with Christopher Hawthorne

2023-07-11T13:42:00-04:00

Actually, the reason we curate the shows ourselves is not because we want to control how people think, but quite the opposite. I don’t want to be too defensive. I’m not a moralist. If I would to try to control everything, I would have chosen the wrong job.

Back in May, Hawthorne met with Jacques Herzog at the opening of the Venice Biennale to discuss the upcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London as well as several prevailing industry trends that have impacted his firm’s size and projects in the United States and abroad. He says that, among other project types, “neglected” hospital design offers architects the most potential. The 73-year-old Herzog then offers some insights into the firm’s reluctance to work in Russia after last year, the limits of adaptive reuse, curation, and the perception of his counterpart's role as a firm leader vis-à-vis his own.

Previously on Archinect: Herzog & de Meuron’s first London exhibition in 20 years to be hosted by the Royal Academy of Arts

“Pierre has always organized the business, going back to when we were starting out. But it’s not fair to say that Pierre is the business guy and I’m the artist,” he tells the former LA Times critic. “Ideally, we look into projects together and we di...

Qatar will receive three new museums from a trio of Pritzker Prize winners

2022-03-28T19:24:00-04:00

Three new major museum projects were announced yesterday at the 2022 Doha Forum in Qatar.

Qatar Museums Chairperson Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was on hand to premiere the new initiative, which is meant to kick off the next phase in the country’s development goals propelled by a continued investment in the cultural economy.

Al Mayassa was joined by two-thirds of the architects for the museums: Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron, who will design the Lusail Museum, and ELEMENTAL director Alejandro Aravena, whose firm will be responsible for the Art Mill. OMA’s Rem Koolhaas, who will design the new Qatar Auto Museum, was the lone holdout.

The Art Mill represents the 21-year-old ELEMENTAL’s first foray into the museum typology. Envisioned as a fusion of performances spaces, contemporary art galleries, and dedicated areas for artist residency programs, what was formerly the site of a historic flour mill will now be transformed into an anchor for various Qatari c...

Jacques Herzog previews the M+ Museum and more of HdM's upcoming projects

2021-11-02T12:48:00-04:00

Architecture is the art of facts. You do a building or you don’t, and if you do a building, do it right. We shouldn’t have a moralistic standpoint. But make things so that they work, they are sustainable and they are beautiful.

The 71-year-old architect discussed the highly-anticipated M+ Museum which finally opens this month in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District. The Guardian also talked to Herzog about an upcoming library project for the state of Israel as well as his new headquarters for drugmaker AstraZeneca.

“Architecture continues to be a great business because it’s all about life,” he told the Observer's architecture critic, Rowan Moore, saying that he spent the pandemic contemplating "actually what I can do. I’m not so young any more. What do I want to do and how helpful can my business be in that endeavour? I’m pretty happy, but I’m also somehow scared of how vulnerable the world has become.”

The new museum opens on November 12th.

MoMA receives landmark gift of nine projects by Herzog & de Meuron

2019-01-25T14:49:00-05:00

The Museum of Modern Art has received a major donation courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron, whom have gifted the New York institution with materials relating to nine of their most influential built and unbuilt works. The contribution—which holds sketches, models, and architectural fragments as well as digital drawing sets and videos—will build upon the museum's previous collection of works by the Swiss firm, and bolster MoMA's vast and diverse holdings relating to architecture and design.

Herzog & de Meuron (Basel, est. 1978). 56 Leonard Street, New York, New York, USA. 2006–2008. Floor plans. Digital drawing files. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron Kabinett. Photo © Jacques Herzog und Pierre de Meuron Kabinett, Basel.

Herzog & de Meuron (Basel, est. 1978). 1111 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach, Florida, USA. 2005–2008. Exhibition model, scale 1:90. Oak, 18 11/16 × 26 × 22 1/16″ (47.5 × 66 × 56 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of t...

Herzog & de Meuron turns 40

2018-11-05T14:41:00-05:00

Today their studio is a scant five-minute walk from the old neighborhood, and they spend much of their time at the office tinkering with models and dreaming up gee-whiz notions. But the pair now have a firm of 390 employees playing alongside them, with another 62 scattered across five satellite branches around the world. And they’re no longer dealing in idle fancies but creating some of the most challenging and startling architecture to be found anywhere.

As Herzog & De Meuron is celebrating its 40th company anniversary, WSJ.Magazine takes a look back at the beginnings of the six-decade-long friendship that unites the founding partners Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, both 68; from their childhood in 1950s Basel to winning the 2001 Pritzker Prize to designing landmark buildings around the world.

"As difficult as it is to fix an aesthetic label to the firm," Ian Volner writes in his article, "its conceptual MO is even harder to describe, and talking to the founders doesn’t necessarily clarify anything."

Jacques Herzog on how buildings can activate all the senses

2018-05-24T13:50:00-04:00

“Whenever Weiwei is involved, he offers more than just a formal solution,” Mr. Herzog said by phone from Basel. “I think that’s why we get along well. We can develop concepts together without being bound by personal taste.”

The NYT's Rebecca Schmid chats with Jacques Herzog about inspiration, curation, industrial spaces, and, of course, Ai Weiwei.

Always with a grounded, archaic element to it

2016-11-14T18:02:00-05:00

Cities are always day-to-day. There are cultural buildings, there are important business campuses, and in between there is the normal city. And there are, of course, better and worse quarters. Unfortunately, I have to say that the older quarters are normally the most beautiful. Quarters that have developed over time have more charm and class...It is important that beacons are continually established in this mush, in these newly developed areas

Ulrike Knöfel interviewed architect Jacques Herzog regarding the soon to open Elbphilharmonie. They also discuss the state of contemporary architecture, it's role in rapid gentrification and how to best ensure a building is loved/preserved for generations.

"We can't sneer at developers": Herzog & de Meuron examine London's future

2016-06-16T12:35:00-04:00

In London, though the Tate is now finished, there is other work to be done... "We can’t sneer at developers," says Herzog. "They are the ones who will increasingly dominate the shaping of our cities. But we should try to convince them to add accessibility for everyone. To ask, can we do it better?"

Now that they've completed the Tate Modern extension, what's next for Herzog & de Meuron? In this piece, trilingual biking-afocidionado Jacques Herzog speculates on the architectural future of London, and his firm's potential (developer-positive) role in it.

Herzog & de Meuron, in the news:

Herzog & de Meuron's Kabinett shares their entire estate since 1978

2015-06-18T19:14:00-04:00

Herzog and de Meuron no doubt has a wealth of archival material attached to each of their projects - all valuable pieces of information that are often rarely seen outside the architects' main HQ...The Kabinett is a charitable foundation set up in Basel to make the celebrated architects' estate accessible to the public. Establishing this initiative in their home town...has been a 'lifelong aspiration' for the duo.

Herzog and de Meuron recently issued a press statement through the Kunstmuseum Basel announcing their Kabinett project, which features categorized cabinets consisting 'all the items and materials that were produced, collected, and archived' by the firm since its founding in 1978. The estate will be available for loans to local museums and institutions, and the Kunstmuseum Basel will have exclusive access. Experts and researchers can visit the archives upon request.

Read the full statement here.

Jacques Herzog calls 2015 Milan Expo a wasted opportunity to reinvent the World's Fair

2015-04-02T20:56:00-04:00

'The content of the exhibitions should make the countries look different, not the size of their pavilions. Also we felt that this expo would be exactly the right place to start focusing on content, because it simply seems embarrassing to address this very important topic and at the same time built enormous, dramatically curved pavilions with facades in wavy plastic or with spectacular waterfalls or whatever.' - Jacques Herzog

In a recent interview with Berlin-based architecture magazine Uncube, Jacques Herzog dishes in on why he ditched the 2015 Milan Expo back in 2011, along with the rest of the masterplanning team that included Stefano Boeri, William McDonough, Ricky Burdett, and Herzog's own firm Herzog & de Meuron. In the interview, Herzog believes the Expo organizers weren't "powerful or courageous enough" to convince their own organization to support their "radically new" content-focused master plan in an attempt to redesign the world exhibition, as opposed to the traditional model of showcasing national pavilions. With the Milan Expo coming up in May, Herzog expects it to be yet another "vanity fair".

You can find some of the Milan Expo pavilion proposals here.

h/t constructionweekonline

Video from Jacque Herzog's Columbia Lecture

2013-09-16T13:41:00-04:00

I think it is a compliment that our very best architects make people seem stupid.

An interview with Jacques Herzog

2012-02-09T11:14:00-05:00

In this uniformity, I see a tendency among architects to respect and maintain the status quo, and a consensus about what architecture is and can do for our society. That’s the expression of a decorative understanding of architecture, even if it expresses itself in a subtle, modernist language. (Jacques Herzog)

On Places, Jacques Herzog discusses the recent work of Herzog & de Meuron and the challenges of maintaining a creatively vital practice, in an interview with Hubertus Adam and J. Christoph Burkle.