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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
[Paris] has not built a modern skyscraper since the 1970s, when the 231-metre tall Tour Montparnasse sprung up – much to the horror of the locals, many of whom still consider it an eyesore. — The Independent
In a narrow vote, the city of lights approved Herzog & de Meuron's Tour Triangle, a 42-story skyscraper that will be the tallest building to be built in Paris since the 1970s. In 2010, the city voted to remove its multi-decade-long height restrictions of 36 meters on new buildings, which were... View full entry
Herzog & de Meuron, the Basel-based architecture studio that designed London’s Tate Modern, is due to redevelop Berlin’s famous art squat Tacheles. The massive warehouse, in the now fashionable Mitte district, was occupied by artists after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A symbol of the city’s subculture, Tacheles became a major tourist attraction. In 2012, the authorities closed the art centre amid widespread protests by artists and anti-gentrification campaigners. — theartnewspaper.com
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. — Wallpaper
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... View full entry
'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 — uncubemagazine.com
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... View full entry
Alexandre Gady, conservationist, historian of French architecture and professor of modern architecture at the Sorbonne, argues that changing or “renewing” Paris diverts from its real need to look outwards. Paris, he says, is a “finished” city that does not need improving or anything more doing to it. “It’s not that we should be doing this or that – we should not be doing anything in central Paris ... any plan is a diversion from the need of the city to grow outwards,” [...] — theguardian.com
Previously: Paris row after HdM's Triangle skyscraper rejected View full entry