描述
Part of the multi-volume work Herzog & de Meuron
Herzog & de Meuron are among the most important international architects of our time. The latest order for the new Tate Gallery in London has signaled this to a wider audience, as has major exhibitions in Tokyo, New York and Paris. The complete edition by Birkhäuser Verlag für Architektur takes this outstanding value into account and presents the work in its context. After Volume 2 last year, Volume 1 now documents the first eleven years of Herzog & de Meuron.
During this period from 1978-88 a methodological basis was developed on which the major projects of the following years could build. While buildings like the “blue house” near Basel were characterized by a nature-related imagery, Herzog & de Meuron emerged almost simultaneously with designs that were so condensed that appearance, function and structure coincided. The warehouse for the Ricola company in Laufen, with its shell made of layered Eternit panels, is an example of this.
Another central theme of the first decade of work is the fundamental re-evaluation of materials. A house in a garden near Basel was made entirely of different plywood inside and out, the outer walls of a residential building in the Ligurian Tavole are made of broken stones. A glass envelope was planned for a laboratory building in Basel, which is partially detached from the structure; a house with a gallery space lives from the diverse uses of concrete. A pronounced interest in the design of the facade can already be seen in the early works. The examination of overarching urban planning aspects manifested itself clearly for the first time in the Pilotengasse housing estate on the outskirts of Vienna, which Herzog & de Meuron designed and realized together with Adolf Krischanitz and Otto Steidle from 1987-92.
The pragmatic thinking for a specific place and purpose in the rapidly changing present, which characterizes the architectural discourse of Herzog & de Meuron in a special way, is supported by various theoretical contributions in the book. As in Volume 2, which has already been published, the central projects are also presented in detail in Volume 1. The appendix contains a chronology of all 47 work numbers from 1978-1988 with precise technical and bibliographical information.
