Heatherwick Studio has made public details of a new project in Bogotá, Colombia, for a client in the higher education industry. The studio’s first South American design will be realized as a seven-story academic building and makerspace with a uniquely colorful facade composed of setbacks, free columns, planting, and small circular outdoor terraces.
The client is Bogotá’s Universidad Ean Design School, a 56-year-old private institution founded to provide "comprehensive training of people and stimulate their entrepreneurial aptitude so that its action contributes to the economic and social development of people."
Traditional Werregue basket-making practices serve as the inspirations for the design, tipping off Heatherwick’s war on blandness and desire to elevate craft into a primary role in his building practice.
This homage to Colombia's Wounaan Indigenous community will serve as the new centerpiece of the campus, complementing the architecture of the surrounding academic buildings while providing rare public space for students and residents of the city alike.
"Creativity is intrinsic to the city of Bogotá. You see it everywhere. We want students to feel proud of their campus before they even enter the building, arriving through a public square that offers passers-by a welcoming communal oasis amidst the hard urban surroundings," Eliot Postma, group leader and partner at Heatherwick Studio, said in the project announcement
Construction is expected to begin in 2025.
The studio was recently named for an adaptive reuse of the iconic BT Tower in London after inaugurating the new Azabudai Hills mixed-use development in Tokyo and will begin work soon on its first public library design in Howard County, Maryland.
18 Comments
I give it two Groucho's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Traditional Werregue basket-making practices serve as the inspirations for the design, tipping off Heatherwick’s war on blandness and desire to elevate craft into a primary role in his building practice.
Compare with this stacked collection of actual Werregue baskets:
These are made by indigenous contemporary crafts people, using natural materials, locally sourced, following traditional themes and techniques. They do use colors, but they are muted and earth-toned.
While the refugees wish to return to their ancestral homeland, the strife in the area has made it impossible to do so. Faced with the enduring hardships of trying to make a life in the urban landscape of Bogota, the Wounaan people use their weaving techniques to maintain the strength of their heritage and support themselves in these difficult circumstances. Weaving represents a potent and unique connection to their past and to the homes they left behind, to be passed on to their children just as it has been for generations.
From, and more info and examples here:
https://ifamstories.org/artists/wounaan-craft-group/
To labor the obvious point, something subtle, authentic, and expressive has been turned by Heatherwick into a design that is monstrous, artificial, and silly.
Wut.
so a very ordinary building with some dr seuss inspired lipstick in the form of balconies.
I'd say this guy could sue him for plagiarizing his designs, look it up, freddy mamani, bolivian architect.
https://fb.watch/qZmhggKyA3/
Heatherwick probably spent all of 48 hours in Bogata.
This is the outcome of a fancy architect coming into a place foreign to them and designing an offensive parody of the local architecture/culture. It happens pretty much every time Robert A.M. Stern gets a project in outside of NYC.
elevating kitsch to new heights.
Another werregue basket, by Crucelina Chocho Opua, a member of the Wounaan Indigenous group.
Each of these intricately woven baskets contains geometric patterning and motifs unique to the Wounaan people for thousands of years. Due to their meticulous construction and inherent complexity, Opua’s larger baskets can take several months to make.
https://ifamstories.org/artists/crucelina-chocho-opua/
There's a point to be made about craft and design, lost on Heatherwick. I know nothing about the traditions of long ago, yet this still speaks to us and is compelling and fresh today.
This site is worth some browsing.
If we need an example of (good) architects engaging in a dialogue with traditional textile weaving, there's this: https://www.sarasotaartmuseum....
And another (classic) template for how to abstract from traditional forms in a respectful way: https://www.archdaily.com/6006...
you mean that made in france project? It's great, but lets not kid ourselves that it is indigenous. It raises lots of good questions. When is it ok to copy indigenous concepts, what is the line that an architect can cross, and how much can inspiration be allowed to wander into interpretation? Are there rules? Which ones does Heatherwick break, exactly?
Based on the comments above the problem is that the inspiration comes from the wrong indigenous baskets. It is absolutely valid to call out Heatherwick on all kinds of nonsense. His recent book, for instance, is in the end a bit vapid and shallow (I really tried to like it, but its filled with a lot of the same bias for a singular understanding of the world that modernists have).
That said, he is pushing the field forwards (or at least sideways), and that is worth taking seriously. We have absolutely become too cradled and comfortable with modernism as the beginning of so many conversations that any other point of view is smothered without much thought. It is at least a serious project.
The buildings in the area are also pretty bleak. Whether this is the right way to overcome the blah of modernity is a good question, but it will at the very least speak both to place and culture, and it will also be a place people can gather to. That is not a small thing.
What I find annoying is that there is no list of the team members for the project, as if it all comes from Heatherwick alone. That doesnt speak well for the office culture...
Interesting take. In my view it has nothing to do with which indigenous baskets are the inspiration but that it is done in a respectful way. I'm not sure why or how the Piano project manages that, but I think it us probably the same as any architect who chose to work with that kind of direct inspiration.
That is a good way to frame it. On the face of it its hard to say how much Heatherwick actually engaged with the local community. There is no mention of a local partner, for instance, (though that doesnt mean anything for sure, except that there is an ego running the shop). Piano seems to be more genuine, because the level of engagement is technical and serious and not at all whimsical. On the other hand all the technology was imported from Europe so its not like it was really embedded in local know-how, or even benefited the local economy. The Lo-Fi work of MASS Design group offers a contrasting way of working in other countries that is all about being local. In the end, I find it too easy/simplistic to decide there is only one way to work internationally. And the addition of color in Columbia does not seem out of context exactly...
Not respect but appreciation, arch. The Wounaan designs are genuinely engaging, greatly superior to this Heatherwick mash. Heatherwick doesn't appear to be grounded in anything—the modernist traditions, past traditions, his culture or any other—beyond himself and his desire to be "interesting."
It’s the Daniel Libeskind approach to culturally offensive and superficial design.
Visit the country for a couple of hours. Ask the taxi driver to slow down so you can grab a couple of cell phone pictures of the site. Visit a souvenir shop in the airport departure lounge to grab a local trinket or craft item. Write some glib but disingenuous and wholly patronizing blurb about responding to the local indigenous culture and history that you pretend to admire. Done.
For example:
Central Library, UNAM, Mexico City. This simple modernist design does what it needs to do, highlight the murals and what they represent. And the library fits in with, engages, and charges the whole campus, itself simple but perfectly adequate modernist. The Heatherwick literally repulses me: I turn away. I could stand and stare at the murals on the library all day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Library_(UNAM)#
I love tops and am trying to like the building which would be ok for a season-long art installation.
It reminds me of Hundertwasser Haus, which from me is a compliment.
I like Will’s comment above that maybe Heatherwick isn’t pushing architecture forward but at least sideways.
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