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H & DeM Vitra Hotel

Becker

Hey guys. news recently came out that sanaa and H and DeM are building on the vitra campus near basel. i was recently in basel, and strolled passed the herzog office. in the window i saw a model of the hotel they are building. i was shocked, i knew they were slidsing in terms of asttention per project, but they better have some good theory for what looked like a stack of logs. if you take the generic house silhouette, eg square and triangle, extrude it to make a long log-stick, then make multiples, and chuck them in a pile. this is the vitra hotel. i went on the vitra tour and asked the tour guide about the project, she hadnt heard much about it, but said the rooms will be full of fancy vitra furniture and the reason people will stay there is because germany is cheaper than switzerland.

if anyone works for h and de m could they post some info on it. i am dissapointed by them.

 
Nov 13, 06 5:40 am
cj w.

hi mhollenstein
wow must have been an experience for you to peep and see 'em work!
i would also actually love to work in their office... anyway i think this is the one you are referring to... just stumbled upon it the other day



anyway i do agree that some of their projects are turning out to be disappointing (at least at first glance)...

Nov 13, 06 12:06 pm  · 
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not_here

do these guys have a website?

Nov 13, 06 5:06 pm  · 
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brookmeier

No, they don't.

Nov 13, 06 5:21 pm  · 
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meow

cj w, where did you get that rendering?

Nov 13, 06 11:23 pm  · 
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cj w.

hi meow

i forgot where i got it, must have been one of the links that i just click cos its got the H&de M brand with it. but it was just very recent. i just save all fotos, thats why. let me recall...

Nov 13, 06 11:30 pm  · 
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cj w.

found it...

http://www.baunetz.de/db/news/?news_id=82966

but its in german. last time i saw the site they had that small foto. now they have big ones!

Nov 13, 06 11:35 pm  · 
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simples

their project renderings always dissappoint me...their built work, always amaze me...will have to wait and see, but i fail to see, from the one image, any conceptual merit...(but then again, it's too soon)

Nov 14, 06 1:42 pm  · 
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silverlake

hmm, i'm skeptical. i recently saw the de young and was blown away, but i just don't get where they're going these days.

Nov 14, 06 3:55 pm  · 
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holz.box

wow. that took all of 5 minutes to model -
[rotate]
[copy]
[move]

i feel they (h + dm, along with their progeny) have already beaten that typology to death.

at least we have the tate modern addition to look forward to (er-it's not the same form rotated, copied, and moved)

Nov 14, 06 4:04 pm  · 
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zahand

that won't work like this.
it's:
[copy]
[rotate]
[move]

Nov 14, 06 4:11 pm  · 
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Becker

i saw one of their museums in basel, i forget the name, but its the big brick with a whole in it, and another little brick, shapes like a house. it was disgusting. i got off the tram, and thought, what the beep!! it is just stupid toy making. i love their old stuff.

Nov 24, 06 3:17 pm  · 
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cj w.

i think you are referring to the schaulager in basel? why is it disgusting in your opinion?

when they won the pritzker they were commended "for approaching every project like it was their first" . this actually made me like them for their process.with this statement and from observation of their past works they do come up with ingenious solutions and details to every work...

lately though i have seen a lot of rehashing of their designs... prada aoyama relived in st jakob park tower... roche tower and gazprom proposal... tate extension and this hotel... hmmm.... is something going awry?/ or are they succumbing to the commercialism of this field of architecture in this time and age?

Nov 24, 06 3:31 pm  · 
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pettydesign

well....people seem to think every herzog project is supposed to astound the ages but they really dont. they do have many buildings which are quite amazing but i spent 4 days in basel over the summer and MANY of the buildings i saw by herzog were very dissapointing. but then again....if they didn't have those boreing projects funding thier ideas its not so likely they could have pulled off some of thier greater projets.

Nov 26, 06 1:13 am  · 
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haha, you guys make me laugh. slagging off HdeM projects which i am for sure you actually would be pretty damn happy to have worked on given half the chance.
IMO, i think most of their projects are still very good, its just that they have now done so many, we are all suffering a slight HdeM oversaturation.

Nov 26, 06 12:51 pm  · 
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pettydesign

i agree. i think most people have excelled them to such a level to not expecting anything but the best work from thier office. where as if they were unknown releasing what many people feel are lacking projects they would probably be praised for it.

Nov 26, 06 12:54 pm  · 
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cj w.

hi p2an

i aint slagging off their projects, in fact you said it right, i would really really love to be working with them and with their experience.

its just that yeah, maybe they have really reached a point wherein the expectations of supremacy in design are there and anything below it is gauged as ugly...

Nov 26, 06 1:44 pm  · 
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Becker

they will be the new skidmore owings and merril soon =) just kidding.

the shaulager does not respond at all to its context, it is not welcoming, its materiality feels very artificial, sure i havent seen anything like it before, but just being new doesnt make something good.

Nov 28, 06 5:40 am  · 
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Ludwig

the schaulager is surrounded by warehouses, hypermarkets, an office park, parking lots and a roadside mc Donald's. What context? although you can read it as a depot for art in that initial level.
In any case if from one side of the building you only see a wall from the other you are sucked in and I think that in its own "we are Herzog & deMeuron and we are the best so you better listen" kind of way, it has a monumentality which is meant to stand up for culture in such a suburban environment.
Going back to Vitra,...I think that it looks like a mini tate modern extension and here is the brilliance of HdM, rather than copying themselves literally like ghery or libeskind, calatrava... they can borrow and move the same original idea forwards in so many different directions.

Nov 28, 06 6:19 am  · 
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Becker

warehouses is a context. the reason why it is there is becuase the migros supermarket corporation invests 1 in every 100 dollars of revenue into cultural projects. the land the shaulager is on is part of a giant migros. i would not be surprised if the intent was to create a giant venturi style duck, to attract people to the supermarket.

i suppose what i disliked about the building was how unwelcoming, and inhuman it was.

Nov 29, 06 10:04 am  · 
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