Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
The Elbphilharmonie, a massive building complex by Herzog & De Meuron, will open in early January 2017. Set on the banks of the Elbe River in Hamburg, the complex contains three concert halls, a hotel, 45 private apartments, and "the Plaza," a public viewing area.The main attraction of the... View full entry
What does it take for a project to transcend from merely eye-catching architecture to a lasting, inspirational, nationally acclaimed building? The RIBA Stirling Prize, which awards the UK's best new building each year, has narrowed 2016's contenders down to a shortlist of six (two of which, the... View full entry
When we first visited Bankside Power Station for the original Tate Modern competition in 1994, it seemed like the castle in Sleeping Beauty – an enormous urban mountain that was completely overgrown, surrounded by barbed wire and prickly roses, as if protecting the hidden beauty inside. It seemed dangerous. It is totally unimaginable now, but this was a huge chunk of the city that was totally excluded from public life, set back behind high walls. — theguardian.com
Read more on the Tate Modern:A look around the new Tate Modern extension"We can't sneer at developers": Herzog & de Meuron examine London's futureFirst look inside Tate Modern's new Extension View full entry
The original Tate Modern redevelopment was started in 1995 and since opening in 2000 has become the most popular gallery in the world. It made sense then for Herzog and De Meuron to return and finish the job. Their architectural evolution and legacy is now embedded in the London skyline, as is... View full entry
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?"
— Telegraph UK
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... View full entry
Julia Ingalls wrote about architectural solutions, four major U.S. cities have used, to address homelessness. no_form quipped "Giving homeless people housing solves homelessness. Wow, fucking brilliant. Took long enough to recognize the obvious." Plus, Nicholas Korody previewed Anupama... View full entry
Hidden for decades until today, the extensive collection of Vitra—one of the most influential names in modern furniture design—is now on public display in a brand new building designed by Herzog & de Meuron: Schaudepot.As the latest addition to the Vitra campus, Schaudepot’s front yard... View full entry
As Herzog explains, piling some refined Swiss biscuits on the table in front of him to illustrate his point, an earlier design envisaged stacked-up glass cubes, but the material was too similar to the developers’ stuff. “We realised that in order to survive we have to strengthen it,” he says [..]
Yet the precedent of the original Tate Modern – also severe on the outside, lively inside – shows that a building doesn’t have to gurn and wheedle to be popular.
— The Guardian
"In this and other works, Herzog and De Meuron like to present a protestant moment of denial before pleasure, to forbid before welcoming, to be severe before generous. It is part of their worldview, different from most architects’, in which delight and beauty co-exist with more troubling or... View full entry
Many local architects complain that these high-end follies are not serious architecture, but gimmicky flash. In many cases they are right. But that’s O.K. Form, as any architect will learn, follows function. In this case it’s selling a name and a mystique. — NYT
Sam Lubell visited Tokyo for some "architectural shopping", taking in the works of many architecture stars (including Herzog and De Meuron, Toyo Ito, Sanaa and MVRDV), for global luxury brands. Thus the requisite trips to sites in Omotesando and Ginza.If you were looking for "spectacular, game... View full entry
Laura Amaya interviewed Giancarlo Mazzanti, founder and principal of El Equipo de Mazzanti. The two discussed "architecture for social inclusion...from a political point of view", play or leisure, and "an architecture made of parts...or open work". Meanwhile the latest editions of Deans List... View full entry
After beating out KPMB Architects, SANAA, Tod Williams Billie Tsien and DS+R to win the project back in April of 2014, Herzog & de Meuron have now released the first look at their design for the new Vancouver Art Gallery, a significant update on the Gallery's old neoclassical building and... View full entry
Herzog & de Meuron have the widest approach to architecture varying their style for each job. In this sense they epitomise the global search for an architecture of pluralism, one flexible enough for very different cultures...The high quality of the work is as notable as the wit; the amount of production as much as its personality. -RIBA President Stephen Hodder — architecture.com
Herzog & de Meuron, whose works include the recently approved yet controversial Tour Triangle in Paris and the redevelopment of Berlin's Tacheles cultural center, received the 2015 RIBA Jencks Award for being a practice "that has recently made a major contribution internationally to... View full entry
The neighborhood — a central district that was dismantled by the Nazis, battered by Allied bombs and radically reconfigured by postwar architects — has foiled urban planners, exasperated patrons of the arts and demoralized generations of Berliners intent on seeing their city made once more into a cohesive whole. [...]
Many are hoping that all that strife is in the past now that a new museum of modern art will be built in the much-maligned arts quarter.
— nytimes.com
In recent Berlin news on Archinect: Berlin's world-class museums struggle to build up excitementBerlin lists communist-era towers of Alexanderplatz as historical monuments; Gehry high-rise still happeningHerzog & de Meuron to redevelop Berlin’s infamous Tacheles cultural center; locals fear... View full entry
Our episode this week revolves around Paris – city of lights, riots, artists and cheese-shaped skyscrapers (or at least, those are the bits were talking about). As part of a nationwide strike against UberPop, the cheapest Uber-affiliate in France, taxi drivers in Paris launched a riotous... View full entry
The stadium will be wrapped in a cage of slender concrete and brick columns that will rise to a zig-zagging profile, before folding over to form the roof – as if the architects’ tangle of struts in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium had been straightened out and neatened up. — theguardian.com
Herzog & de Meuron's design for the Football Club stadium in Chelsea takes fandom to the level or religious zealotry, borrowing dramatic gothic elements from Westminster Abbey – the structure that formerly stood on the same site. The design's heavy masonry, brick and railway-style vaults... View full entry
