Dresden-born architect Günter Behnisch, one of the pioneers of the deconstructivist movement, passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Behnisch Architekten, the firm he founded, has offices in Stuttgart, Munich, Boston, and Venice, California.
Dresden-born architect Günter Behnisch, one of the pioneers of the deconstructivist movement, passed away yesterday at the age of 88. Behnisch Architekten, the firm he founded, has offices in Stuttgart, Munich, Boston, and Venice, California. Spiegel (in German)
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I worked for Gunther Behnisch in 1990 and 1991. He was a thoughtful, kind, intelligent and inspiring man. His work - and his approach to it - was rooted in a deeply felt rejection of any sort of authoritarianism, political or formal. His office was a place where young architects straight out of school were encouraged to make serious creative contributions. The last thing he wanted to do was to repeat what he or anyone else had done before, no matter how successfully. That many of his buildings included collisions of different components and spaces was never an aesthetic choice, but a reflection of the democratic design process in the office, and of his belief in allowing this to be expressed in order to generate a less autocratic sense of place, appropriate for the thinking, creative, humanist society he championed. While Behnisch had many clear and strongly held ideas, he never wanted them to become doctrine, lest they inhibit further creativity. He was similarly averse to the search for "neat" solutions, preferring the open-ended messiness of democracy to the spatial and social constriction required to create "perfect" architectural objects. If the thousands of students and architects to whom Behnisch was either teacher or boss over the decades each gleaned a little bit of what made him tick and what makes his buildings such good human places, we can be sure of his lasting and positive impact.
great post simoneis. As a student I always admired his work... one of the few architects works I turned to for inspiration and reassurance from time to time; when it seemed like I was out in left-field compared to other students in my studio it was nice to know that someone was actually doing it which was all the merit I needed to press through another late night.
I had always hoped to work in his office and see firsthand the design process that went into his work, so I appreciate hearing about it from someone well acquainted with the office, Behnisch and his work... or I guess I should say the collective work of his staff.
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