rem koolhaas peter zumthor herzog & de meuron daniel libeskind zaha hadid
edited by olena bilyk
rem koolhaas peter zumthor herzog & de meuron daniel libeskind zaha hadid
edited by olena bilyk
table of contents introduction 05 rem koolhaas 10 seattle public library china central television center
12 22
peter zumthor shelters for roman archaeological site the therme vals
28 30 40
herzog & de meuron
46 messe basel exhibition hall vitra house
48 56
daniel libeskind
60 jewish museum berlin 62 royal ontario museum 72
zaha hadid maxxi national museum heydar aliyev centre in azerbaijan
index & references
95
80 86
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introduction
A
rchitecture has always been a very important part of any cultural or historical time period, following and fitting within the framework of each century or decade. Today we live in a world that both has become much globalized, but yet has adopted such multiplicity of directions that one has yet to comprehend the framework of our period. It is an incredibly interesting time for architecture to
manifest itself and it is fascinating to follow the variety of architectural expression that can be seen around the world. The merging cultures and evolution of technology allows for form-making that is based solely on design, performance, social needs, or all at once.
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A
s buildings are some of the chief marks of cultural, social, technological, and political state of the world, it is important to notice the evolving architectural landscape and sense the messages that are being communicated with each new form. Within the multitude of emerging forms in the role of architecture, some of the most important and influential architects are taking the expression
of architecture in very different directions, symbolizing the diversity of architectural understanding in today’s society. Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Herzog and de Meuron, and Peter Zumthor are some of the “star-chitects� of our time, producing some of the most outspoken pieces of architecture in a long time. The diverse, but yet formal architecture of such, speaks of many different issues and yields to many different responses from the public inhabiting it.
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The political, programmatic, and social synthesis of Koolhaas is embodied in very blunt shapes across the world, chiefly directing the current discourse on the identity and role of architecture. Zaha Hadid has won the stage with her strong futuristic forms, providing architecture of awe and surprise. Daniel Libeskind has produced a number of deconstructed, broken-like, buildings, whose main purpose has been to yield a strong emotional response of those located within or around, while communicating important historical and social messages. The importance of architectural texture expressed within the facade or even building as a whole has been a tool of Herzog & de Meuron, architectural wizards, who are not afraid to give each building a unique character and sensibility.
Beyond the qualities of “loud� architecture discussed above, exists the poetic world of Peter Zumthor, who focuses on the soul of architecture expressed in buildings whose character is derived from the ground they stand on, the context, and the spatial qualities that are primal to all architecture. The collection of such masters paints an architectural landscape that spans vastly and shows how diverse the world has become, where the possibilities, opportunities, and choices are limitless and one’s taste is not forced to fit within a defined frame of view.
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rem koolhaas
R
em Koolhaas (born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Koolhaas studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London
and at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He is the founding partner of OMA, and of its research-oriented counterpart AMO based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. In 2005, Rem Koolhaas co-founded Volume Magazine together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman. In 2000, Rem Koolhaas won the Pritzker Prize. In 2008, Time put him in their top 100 of The World’s Most Influential People.
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seattle public library
The Seattle Central Library redefines the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store where all potent forms of media — new and old — are presented equally and legibly. In an age where information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and, more importantly, the curatorship of their content that will make the library vital. Designed with growth in mind, the 11-story Central Library has the capacity for more than 1.5 million books and materials (compared to 900,000 in the old building). It also has moved into the digital age with more than 400 computers for public use (compared to 75 previously) as well as wireless Internet access. Following extensive research, the design is a direct expression of the modern library’s program and the functional requirements of its users. The total program area is over 40 percent bigger with 362,987 square feet, and an additional 49,000 square feet of underground parking. Collections, administration and staff, information and public space functions are arranged to optimize daylight and city views.
Inbetweens diagram
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“
The thing is that I have a really intense, almost compulsive need to record. But it doesn’t end there, because what I record is somehow transformed into a creative thing. There is a continuity. Recording is the beginning of a conceptual production. I am somehow collapsing the two — recording and producing — into a single event.
— rem koolhaas
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structure Entrances on Fourth and Fifth Avenues include a variety of public spaces and collections, an auditorium and a cafe. Other special elements are the “mixing chamber,” where subject specialist librarians, reference materials and electronic resources are all available at a central reference area, a 3–1/2-story book spiral and a book sorter. The sorter resembles an airport’s luggage conveyor belt. The system takes books from the return bin, and using radio chips embedded in each book automatically sorts them to the correct bin or branch truck. The building’s exterior consists of diagonal steel and I-beam structural systems that form diamond shapes overlaid with a skin of glass and an aluminum sun-screening element. Following extensive research, the design is a direct expression of the modern library’s program and the functional requirements of its users. The total program area is over 40 percent bigger with 362,987 square feet, and an additional 49,000 square feet of underground parking. Collections, administration and staff, information and public space functions are arranged to optimize daylight and city views.
The heat island effect of dark and hard landscape surfaces is reduced by locating all parking below grade and designing site landscaping with over forty drought tolerant trees to provide shade around the building. A high reflectance/high emissivity EPA Energy Star roof system was installed. A transparent building design that maximizes the use of natural light and allow views both into and out of the library.
the varying lense of architecture
Koolhaas loves bright colors. The stairs and entrances to public meeting areas are painted in red and lime yellow. Inside the metal structure is painted baby blue.
Koolhaas is known for its creative and economical
The problem of traditional library organization is
use of mundane materials. Each of the 11 floors
flatness. Departments are organized according to
deserve a detailed study. There are aluminum
floor plans. Each floor is discreet; the unpredictable
floors pay homage to Carl Andre minimalist grid
fits of growth and contraction in certain sections
floors. The recycled wood pieces from the ends
are, theoretically, contained within a single floor.
chipped and stained in a variety of solid colors. Most carpets are made with metal wires directly to clean them with water. Then there are the homes in which concrete is poured covered with thick layers of colored polyurethane.
The Book Spiral implies a reclamation of the muchcompromised Dewey Decimal System. By arranging the collection in a continuous ribbon — running from 000 to 999 — the subjects form a coexistence that approaches the organic; each evolves relative to the
The spaces in between the platforms function
others, occupying more or less space on the ribbon,
as trading floors where librarians inform and
but never forcing a rupture.
stimulate, where the interface between the different platforms is organized — spaces for work, interaction, and play. By genetically modifying the superposition of floors in the typical American high rise, a building emerges that is at the same time sensitive (the geometry provides shade or unusual quantities of daylight where desirable), contextual (each side reacts differently to specific urban conditions or desired views), iconic.
Book spiral diagram
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china central television building The new headquarters of China Central Television (CCTV) is a 234m tall building with a highly unusual shape, described as a ‘three-dimensional cranked loop’. The building is formed by two leaning towers, bent 90° at the top and bottom to form a continuous tube. The building’s primary support is achieved through the irregular grid on its surface, a visible expression of the forces travelling through the tube structure; the smaller the diagonal pattern, the stronger the load and the greater the support. The braced tube structure also gives the building the required robustness to withstand the likely seismic activity in the area and therefore provides an extra level of safety.
the varying lense of architecture
Before the two towers were linked, they were prone to independent movement from wind, and surface temperature variations because of direct sunlight. Construction issues were therefore a key consideration of the design process and it was crucial to analyse the way the structure behaved in its partiallyconstructed form. The building combines administrative functions with news, broadcasting, studios and programme production. It enables the state-run television broadcaster to reach a new level of global broadcasting, expanding its current operation of 13 channels to over 200 on completion.
CCTV defies the skyscraper’s typical quest for ultimate height. Rising from a common platform, two towers lean towards each other and eventually merge in a perpendicular, 75-metre cantilever. The design combines the entire process of TVmaking — formerly scattered in various locations across the city — into a loop of interconnected activities. The structure of the CCTV Headquarters, and the forces at work within it, is visible on its façade: a web of diagonals that becomes dense in areas of greater stress, looser and more open in areas requiring less support. The façade itself becomes a visual manifestation of the building’s structure. A diagrid ‘exoskeleton’ system was adopted on the external faces of the building to give a tube structure that resists gravity and other lateral forces. The positioning of the columns
Section BB
and diagonal tubes reflects the distribution of forces in the surface skin of the building. The columns of the diagrid have the same exposed width, but the depth varies according to the load, while the diagonals are all 1m × 60cm plate girders, with only the steel thickness varying. A butterfly plate links perimeter columns, braces and beams. The irregular geometry of steel structure facade gives it stability to cope with different load conditions.
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peter zumthor
P
eter Zumthor (born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize and 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal. Working out of a wooden barn in the Swiss Alps, Peter Zumthor has completed only a handful of buildings, none of them in the United States, yet at 58 he is something of a cult figure in architectural circles. Zumthor has taught at Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles (1988), the Technical University of Munich (1989), Tulane University (1992), and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1999). Since 1996, he is professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio.
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shelters for roman archaeological site
In 15BC the Roman Empire conquered the village and designated Chur (Curia Raetorum) to be the capital of their new funded Roman province of Curia – hence the name Chur. In modern days archaeological excavations uncovered a complete Roman quarter. The authorities decided to preserve the excavations and to open them for public exhibition. Swiss architect Peter Zumthor was chosen as responsible for the design. In 1985–86 he built the protective pavilion to cover the remains of two Roman buildings.
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Zumthor came up with a design of wooden pavilions that functions not only as a protective cover but a museum and a veritable architectural jewel. The timber lamella shelters allow visitors to comprehend the original extent of the Roman buildings, providing a visible and physical form to distinguish the ancient remains in sharp contrast to the modern city. The protective lightweight wooden enclosures follow the outer walls of two of the original adjacent buildings as well as a third building of which only a corner was excavated and visible. By following the original perimeter, Peter Zumthor conceived these “cases� as an abstract volumetric reconstruction of the Roman buildings. But only in footprint, not in height. An original wall painting was found in fairly good condition lying on the floor of the first and larger building. After being restored, it was returned to its original position giving the impression of the probable real height of the single-storey houses.
The outside display window constructions found along the Seilerbahnweg street facade point out the former house entrances allowing potential visitors to take a peak from the outside. But in Peter Zumthors design this is no longer a point of entering. Zumthor’s design has no ordinary windows, but the timber lamella walls admit light and air into the structure, filtering warm light and allowing for the position of the sun to shine through the structure. Zenithal colored metal skylights provide some extra light into the interiors.
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axonometric development
interior view
The orginal Roman foundation walls are backed with
Walking around inside these protective shelters, in the
black clothing. The charred remains of a wooden floor
presence of exhibited ancient Roman remains, one gets
at the back of the larger building is well preserved
the impression that time is a bit more relative than usual.
from the Roman times, as well as some of the items
Magically, rather than in the late eighties, it feels that
found and carefully displayed for public exhibition.
Peter Zumthor’s intervention was designed today.
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“
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I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a specific richness‌ I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use.
— peter zumthor
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the therme vals Built over the only thermal springs in the Graubunden Canton in Switzerland, The Therme Vals is a hotel and spa in one which combines a complete sensory experience. Peter Zumthor designed the spa/baths which opened in 1996 to pre date the existing hotel complex. The idea was to create a form of cave or quarry like structure. Working with the natural surroundings the bath rooms lay below a grass roof structure half buried into the hillside. The Therme Vals is built from layer upon layer of locally quarried Valser Quarzite slabs. This stone became the driving inspiration for the design, and is used with great dignity and respect. This space was designed for visitors to luxuriate and rediscover the ancient benefits of bathing. The combinations of light and shade, open and enclosed spaces and linear elements make for a highly sensuous and restorative experience. The underlying informal layout of the internal space is a carefully modelled path of circulation which leads bathers to certain predetermined points but lets them explore other areas for themselves. The perspective is always controlled. It either ensures or denies a view.
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The fascination for the mystic qualities of a world of stone within the mountain, for darkness and light, for light reflections on the water or in the steam saturated air, pleasure in the unique acoustics of the bubbling water in a world of stone, a feeling of warm stones and naked skin, the ritual of bathing – these notions guided the architect. Their intention to work with these elements, to implement them consciously and to lend them to a special form was there from the outset. The stone rooms were designed not to compete with the body, but to flatter the human form (young or old) and give it space‌room in which to be.
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H
erzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd., is a Swiss architecture firm with its head office in Basel, Switzerland. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (born 19 April 1950) and Pierre de Meuron (born 8 May 1950) closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Z端rich.
herzog & de meuron They are perhaps best known for their conversion of the giant Bankside Power Station in London to the new home of Tate Modern. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been visiting professors at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 1994 and professors at ETH Z端rich since 1999.
the varying lense of architecture
messe basel exhibition hall
The architects have stacked three ten-metre-high halls on top of one another, creating a 2500-person events space on the ground floor and two additional exhibition rooms above.
The Messe Basel, which hosts Art Basel each June,
Each hall features a wide-spanning construction to
is undergoing a development programme to relocate
reduce the number of columns, while zig-zagging
exhibition areas around the neighbouring Messeplatz
elevators provide a link between each of the levels.
public square, so Herzog & de Meuron was asked to replace two of the existing halls with a new extension.
A ground-floor lobby connects the extension with the existing exhibition halls and a series of shops,
Glazing surrounds the space and leads into a ground-
bars and restaurants. Glazing surrounds the facade
floor lobby filled with shops, bars and restaurants.
to attract as many visitors inside as possible. The two upper exhibition levels are offset from each other as separate volumes allowing them to respond and shift to specific urban conditions. From each point of view, the new hall offers a different perception and thus avoids the repetitive monotony typical of exhibition halls. This constant architectural variation is reinforced by applying a homogeneous material (aluminum) over all exterior surfaces.
Brushed aluminium clads the exterior of the building and has a textured surface to create the impression of a basket weave.
the varying lense of architecture
The facade of articulated twisting bands strategically modulates and reduces the scale of the halls large volumes to its surroundings. This is not simply a decorative element but a practical means to regulate the fall of natural light on adjacent properties and to provide views in to the new hall’s social spaces and out towards specific views of the city of Basel. With the addition of the New Hall, current activities on the Messeplatz will continue, but they will take place in a space with different proportions. What was once an elongated rectangle that more or less ran into Clarastrasse without noticeable demarcation is now almost a square with clearer urban definition.
Part of the extension bridges across the Messeplatz and creates a sheltered area that has been dubbed the “City Lounge�. A large circular skylight punctures the roof above the space, framing the main entrance into the building.
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“
There are many architects who aren’t really aware of their own patterns, just like most people don’t know their patterns in private. We find that a really exciting theme because architecture and psychology suddenly become very close.
— jacques herzog
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vitra house The individual “houses,” which have the general characteristics of a display space, are conceived as abstract elements. Stacked into a total of five stories and cantilevered up to fifteen meters in some places, the twelve houses, whose floor slabs intersect the underlying gables, create a three-dimensional assemblage – a pile of houses that, at first glance, has an almost chaotic appearance. The charcoal color of the exterior stucco skin unifies the structure, “earthes” it and connects it to the surrounding landscape. The concept of the VitraHaus connects two themes that appear repeatedly in the oeuvre of Herzog & de Meuron: the theme of the archetypal house and the theme of stacked volumes. In Weil am Rhein, Germany, it was especially appropriate to return to the idea of the ur-house, since the primary purpose of the five-story building is to present furnishings and objects for the home.
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Designed to display the furniture brand’s Home Col-
design the VitraHaus. Thanks to its exposed location
lection, the five-storey building consists of stacked
and striking appearance, it not only enhances the
volumes with pitched roofs covered in charcoal stucco.
already outstanding ensemble of Vitra architecture,
In January 2004, Vitra launched its Home Collection, which includes design classics as well as re-editions and products by contemporary designers. As a company whose previous activity was primarily focused on office furnishings and business clients, Vitra created the Home Collection with a new target group in mind: individual customers with an interest in design.
but assumes the important role of marking the Vitra Campus. Standing on the northern side of the grounds in front of the fenced perimeter, the VitraHaus joins two other buildings in this area, the Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry (1989) and the Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando (1993). The ample size of the plot made it possible to position the new structure a good distance away from the
Since no interior space was available for the presen-
Vitra Design Museum and adjacent gatehouse,
tation of the Home Collection on the Vitra Campus in
making room for an extension of the orchard mea-
Weil am Rhein, the company commissioned Basel-
dow in front of the buildings, a typical feature
based architects Herzog & de Meuron in 2006 to
of the local landscape.
The concept of the VitraHaus connects two themes that appear
‘houses’, which have the general characteristics of a display
repeatedly in the oeuvre of Herzog & de Meuron: the theme of
space, are conceived as abstract elements. With just a few
the archetypal house and the theme of stacked volumes. In Weil
exceptions, only the gable ends are glazed, and the structu-
am Rhein, it was especially appropriate to return to the idea
ral volumes seem to have been shaped with an extrusion
of the ur-house, since the primary purpose of the five-storey
press. Stacked into a total of five storeys and breathtakingly
building is to present furnishings and objects for the home.
cantilevered up to fifteen metres in some places, the twelve
Due to the proportions and dimensions of the interior spaces —
houses, whose floor slabs intersect the underlying gables,
the architects use the term ‘domestic scale’ — the showrooms
create a three-dimensional assemblage – a pile of houses
are reminiscent of familiar residential settings. The individual
that, at first glance, has an almost chaotic appearance.
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D
aniel Libeskind (born May 12, 1946) is a Polish-American architect, artist, professor and set designer of Polish Jewish descent. Libeskind began his career as an architectural theorist and professor, holding positions at various institutions around the world.
daniel libeskind
The Studio Daniel Libeskind was founded in 1989. Libeskind’s work has been exhibited in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Bauhaus Archives, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Centre Pompidou. On February 27, 2003, Libeskind won the competition to be the master plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.
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jewish museum, berlin The original Jewish Museum in Berlin was established in 1933, but it wasn’t open very long before it was closed during Nazi rule in 1938. Unfortunately, the museum remained vacant until 1975 when a Jewish cultural group vowed to reopen the museum attempting to bring a Jewish presence back to Berlin. It wouldn’t be until 2001 when Libeskind’s addition to the Jewish Museum finally opened (completed in 1999) that the museum would finally establish a Jewish presence embedded culturally and socially in Berlin. For Libeskind, the extension to the Jewish Museum was much more than a competition/commission; it was about establishing and securing an identity within Berlin, which was lost during WWII. Conceptually, Libeskind wanted to express feelings of absence, emptiness, and invisibility – expressions of disappearance of the Jewish Culture. It was the act of using architecture as a means of narrative and emotion providing visitors with an experience of the effects of the Holocaust on both the Jewish culture and the city of Berlin. The project begins to take its form from an abstracted Jewish Star of David that is stretched around the site and its context. The form is established through a process of connecting lines between locations of historical events that provide structure for the building resulting in a literal extrusion of those lines into a “zig-zag” building form.
the varying lense of architecture
interior
From the exterior, the interior looks as if it will be similar to the exterior perimeter; however, the interior spaces are extremely complex. Libeskind’s formulated promenade leads people through galleries, empty spaces, and dead ends. A significant portion of the extension is void of windows and difference in materiality. The interior is composed of reinforced concrete which reinforces the moments of the empty spaces and dead ends where only a sliver of light is entering the space. It is a symbolic gesture by Libeskind for visitors to experience what the Jewish people during WWII felt, such that even in the darkest moments where you feel like you will never escape, a small trace of light restores hope. One of the most emotional and powerful spaces in the building is a 66’ tall void that runs through the entire building. The concrete walls add a cold, overwhelming atmosphere to the space where the only light emanates from a small slit at the top of the space. The ground is covered in 10,000 coarse iron faces. A symbol of those lost during the Holo caust; the building is less of a museum but an experience depicting what most cannot understand.
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garden
Libeskind’s extension leads out into the Garden of Exile where once again the visitors feel lost among 49 tall concrete pillars that are covered with plants. The overbearing pillars make one lost and confused, but once looking up to an open sky there is a moment of exaltation. Libeskind’s Jewish Museum is an emotional journey through history. The architecture and the experience are a true testament to Daniel Libeskind’s ability to translate human experience into an architectural composition. A plantation of concrete columns from which Russian olive trees cascade, the Garden of Exile denies the relaxation that is expect of a garden. From the street the concrete trees look wildly crooked, but in the wildly crooked Garden of Exile they grow straight. Nothing is as it should be here. The ground won’t stay still and the sky itself appears displaced. People wander this disconcerting garden a long time, uneasy and reflective.
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“
The Jewish Museum is conceived as an emblem in which the Invisible and the Visible are the structural features which have been gathered in this space of Berlin and laid bare in an architecture where the unnamed remains the name which keeps still.
— daniel libeskind
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royal ontario museum Instead of constructing new museums in which to hold these conditions, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada decided to expand to better accommodate more history within its walls. Designed by Studio Daniel Libeskind, the extension is known as the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal and was officially opened in June of 2007. With this extension the museum gained 100,000 square feet of new exhibition space, a new entrance and lobby, a street level retail shop, and three new restaurants. Studio Daniel Libeskind also renovated ten galleries in the existing historical building as part of this project. The Michael Lee-Chin Crystal derives its name from the building’s five intersecting volumes, which are reminiscent of crystals. Two of these crystals dedicated for gallery space intersect to create the void known as the Spirit House. The Spirit House consists of a large atrium rising from below ground level to the fourth floor and is broken up by bridges crossing it at various levels. This space is mainly intended to be a space of reflections for the visitors and providing a break from the exhibitions.
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One of the crystals contains what is known as the Stair of Wonders which is dedicated to vertical circulation but also features exhibition vitrines at the landings, and the fifth crystal houses a restaurant. The building was made using a steel structure with aluminum cladding and glass windows. Although the exterior is chaotic, the intersection of spaces made by the crystal-like form creates multiple atriums at different levels of the museum offering a wide variety of unique views into galleries and to the progressing world outside. The new addition for the Royal Ontario Museum appears to dominate the historic existing building. Studio Daniel Libeskind obviously had no problem forcing their new modern architecture onto the traditional brick building of the original museum, doing nothing to create a more graceful transition from one form to another. Even though it appears as though not much attention and consideration was paid in regards to the existing structure, one large atrium, known as the Gloria Hyacinth Chen Court, which separates the new construction from the heritage building, provides a nearly complete view of the restored heritage faรงades.
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zaha hadid
Z
aha Hadid (born 31 October 1950) is an Iraqi-British architect. She received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004 — the first woman to do so — and the Stirling Prize in 2010 and 2011.
She is currently professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria. Dame Zaha Hadid has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was the Kenzo Tange Professorship and the Sullivan Chair at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School of Architecture. She also served as guest professor at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, the Masters Studio at Columbia University, and the Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture.
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maxxi national museum On former military grounds on the northern side of Rome, near Pierluigi Nervi’s Palazzetto dello Sport and Renzo Piano’s Parco della Musica, MAXXI, Italy’s national museum of 21st century art and architecture, opened in 2010. The time had come for Rome to grapple — both in terms of a building and of its content — with cultural innovation. Interwoven building tangents, which begin at the front building, extend to embrace the old barracks, integrating them in the design; the supple building massing takes cues from the main directions of the urban grid encompassing the L-shaped site. Thus, the concrete sculpture, moderate in height, has become astonishingly well integrated in its context.
The interior of the building presents visitors with a glimpse of numerous views and openings that cross the structure: on the one hand protecting its contents between its solid walls, on the other inviting visitors to enter through its large glazed surfaces on the ground floor.
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The design concept’s key element becomes apparent inside in the gallery spaces: walls and light are the elements that define a museum. Concrete walls, which function as 30 m long free-span longitudinal beams, give definition to the design’s grid. An interior facing layer provides a neutral background for the artwork, and accommodates and conceals all of the technology necessary to operate the museum. The ceilings are kept free for the painstakingly articulated skylights replete with fins running the length of the space that can be used to suspend artwork or partition walls. Because the load-bearing structure is restricted to walls, the museum is free of columns. This idealized standard section serves as the basis for extruding the sinuous gallery areas. These tangents are crossed and overlapped – like bridges. The main idea behind the project is directly related to the objective of creating a building for the presentation of the visual arts. The site is “furrowed” by exhibition spaces, the walls that cross its spaces, their intersections defining interior and exterior space. This system works on three levels, the second of which is the most complex and richest, with it various bridges that connect the building and the galleries. Visitors are invited to dive into a dense, continuous space instead of confronting the compact volume of an isolated building.
The spatial sequences culminate at the highest point in a large
the outdoor spaces designed by Zaha Hadid – in the future possibly
gallery. It terminates in a window extending the entire width of
also an extension emerging in a second phase that will constitute
the space and affording a view to the surroundings, including
the sequel to the principles of parametric design.
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heydar aliyev centre in azerbaijan As part of the former Soviet Union, the urbanism and architecture of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan on the Western coast of the Caspian Sea, was heavily influenced by the planning of that era. Since its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has invested heavily in modernising and developing Baku’s infrastructure and architecture, departing from its legacy of normative Soviet Modernism. Zaha Hadid Architects was appointed as design architects of the Heydar Aliyev Center following a competition in 2007. The Center, designed to become the primary building for the nation’s cultural programs, breaks from the rigid and often monumental Soviet architecture that is so prevalent in Baku, aspiring instead to express the sensibilities of Azeri culture and the optimism of a nation that looks to the future.
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The cultural centre, which rises from the landscape in the Azerbaijani capital, is also the first architecture project to be lauded.
The 57,000 square-metre building was designed as a fluid volume that folds up from the landscape to form a single continuous surface. Glazed openings between folds offer entrances, leading into the library, museum and conference centre contained inside. The centre is set in a public plaza, the ground of which rises up to form the building’s wave-like shell. The building was designed to host exhibitions, concerts and other cultural activities beneath the folds of glass-fibre-reinforced concrete panels. The Heydar Aliyev Center is the first architecture project to have won the overall title of Design of the Year in the Design Museum’s annual awards.
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“
Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people’s lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.
— zaha hadid
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index
references
page 4
rem koolhaas
jewish museum berlin, germany (daniel libeskind, 2001)
▪▪ Spotlight: Rem Koolhaas, ArchDaily, www.archdaily.com
page 5 contemporary jewish museum, san francisco, usa (daniel libeskind, 2005)
page 7 shelters for roman archaeological site, graubünden, switzerland (peter zumthor, 1986)
page 8 contemporary jewish museum, san francisco, usa (daniel libeskind, 2005)
▪▪ Biography: Ram Koolhaas, www.pritzkerprize.com/2000/bio ▪▪ Rem Koolhaas. Dutch Architect. Encyclopedia Britannica Online, www.britannica.com/EBchecked/ topic/321987/Rem-Koolhaas ▪▪ OMA – Partners, www.oma.eu/partners ▪▪ Why Is Rem Koolhaas the World’s Most Controversial Architect?, Smithsonian, www.smithsonianmag.com
page 9 kunsthaus bregenz, austria (peter zumthor, 1997)
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peter zumthor
daniel libeskind
▪▪ Peter Zumthor, www.pritzkerprize.com/2009/jury
▪▪ Architecture Archives – Libeskind, libeskind.com/works/architecture/
▪▪ Shelters for Roman Archaeological Site – Atelier Peter Zumthor, www.arcspace.com/features/ atelier-peter-zumthor/shelters-for-romanarchaeological-site/ ▪▪ Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor’s Intriguing Work. Vanity Fair, www.vanityfair.com/culture/2001/07/ peter-zumthor-architect-buildings ▪▪ The Therme Vals / Peter Zumthor. ArchDaily, www.archdaily.com/13358/the-therme-vals
▪▪ AD Classics: Jewish Museum, Berlin / Daniel Libeskind, ArchDaily, www.archdaily.com/91273/ad-classics-jewishmuseum-berlin-daniel-libeskind/ ▪▪ The Liberation of Daniel Libeskind, nymag.com/arts/architecture/features/38356/ ▪▪ Images For Deconstructivism Daniel Libeskind, imgkid.com/deconstructivism-daniel-libeskind.shtml
herzog & de meuron
zaha hadid
▪▪ Jacques Herzog and Pierre De Meuron, www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2001
▪▪ Zaha Hadid, www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/2004
▪▪ Herzog & De Meuron, www.herzogdemeuron.com ▪▪ Herzog De Meuron News, Architecture and Interviews | Dezeen, www.dezeen.com/tag/herzog-de-meuron ▪▪ Swissmade-architecture Herzog & De Meuron Photosite, www.swissmade-architecture.com
▪▪ Zaha Hadid Architects, www.zaha-hadid.com ▪▪ Zaha Hadid News, Architecture and Interviews, Dezeen, www.dezeen.com/tag/zaha-hadid ▪▪ Zaha Hadid, ArchDaily, www.archdaily.com/tag/zaha-hadid/ ▪▪ Zaha Hadid: Queen of the Curve, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/08/ zaha-hadid-serpentine-sackler-profile
Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Herzog & de Meuron, and Peter Zumthor are some of the “star-chitects� of our time, producing some of the most outspoken pieces of architecture in a long time. The diverse, but yet formal architecture of such, speaks of many different issues and yields to many different responses from the public inhabiting it.