When we spotted the news on ArchRecordof a major delay for the Elbe Philharmonic, our hearts sank a little. We’ve been covering the building extensively during its construction period and have anxiously been awaiting its completion (a date that was pushed from 2010 to 2012, and, now, is uncertain). Yet, technical difficulties pertaining to the saddle roof structure are creating a tangle between the German contractor Hochtief and the Elbe Philharmonic, leading Hochtief to stop work on the glass facade, the steel roof support structure, the 82m-long escalator and the building services.
More about the halted construction after the break.
Earlier this week one of Europe’s great ethnographic museums, the Museum der Kulturen Basel, reopened its doors. Two years of reconstruction, refurbishment and expansion including a Herzog & de Meuron design for the historical walls was among the updates that it received. Their design is described as a ‘stunning crown for the historical walls: the beautiful rooftop of irregular folds fits harmoniously into the rooftops surrounding the cathedral’.
Director Anna Schmid commented, “Our innovative approach to life’s cultural dimensions makes them more accessible. We want to be a place for new encounters and inspiration.”
VINCI-FAYAT consortium has been selected as preferred bidder for the ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’ which includes designs by Herzog & de Meuron and landscape design by Michel Desvigne. Slated for completion in 2015 the ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’ will be located within the city’s existing green belt district. The design provides a natural sense of fluidity, with easy approachability beginning with the multiple staircases at all points of the stadium. Never loosing site of the stadiums location a large focus of the concept incorporates the surrounding environment blending with the building, as reflected in the concave roof which is supported by a series of spindly white columns, appearing like a forest of birch trees. Home field to the FC Girondins de Bordeaux, the ‘Grand Stade de Bordeaux’ will also host a variety of cultural events.
Additional renderings and a video can be found following the break. Be sure to take a look.
This week, with the help of our readers, our Architecture City Guide is headed to Barcelona. We recently featured an engaging video where Wiel Arets half jokingly said Barcelona is fantastic but boring. He continued to say as soon as Sagrada Família is finished Barcelona is done; there is nothing left to do there (10:50). Arets can say what he wants about Barcelona supposedly being boring, but our city guide doesn’t reflect this. Barcelona is filled with fantastically expressive architecture that springs from its proud Catalan culture. It was impossible to feature all our readers suggestions in the first go around, and we did not even come close to including some of the most iconic building such as Casa Milà. Thus we are looking to add to our list of 24 in the near future. Further more there are so many fabulous buildings on the drawing board or under construction, i.e. the projects in the @22 district, we’ll most likely be updating this city guide for quite awhile, regardless of Sagrada Família’s completion.
Take a look at our list with the knowledge it is far complete and add to it in the comment section below.
This week we are taking our Architecture City Guide to South Beach. Miami’s architectural styles range from austere corporate architecture, as it has the largest concentration of international banks in the United States, to colorful and playful architecture that reflects its beach and Latin American culture. Architecture lovers can’t miss Miami Beach’s Art Deco District or its old Spanish heritage. We have put together a list of 12 contemporary buildings that range from a small park pavilion to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. There is plenty more to see in Miami so please add your “must not miss” in the comment section below.
Architecture City Guide: Miami list and corresponding map after the break!
https://www.archdaily.com/134012/architecture-city-guide-miamiChristopher Henry
This week our Architecture City Guide is headed to the city stars fall on. With a few notable exceptions, one can hardly be called a starchitect if s/he hasn’t designed something in Minneapolis. Since 2005 the starchitects that have fallen on this “City of Lakes” include Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Mueron, César Pelli, Michael Graves, Steven Holl, and Frank Gehry. This is a surprising number for a city just north of 380,000 people. Few cities of this size could boast as much. What’s more our list of 12 is far from complete. There are many wonderful historic and contemporary buildings mixed in with the explosion of starchitecture. Please leave comments of buildings one should not miss when visiting Minneapolis.
Architecture City Guide: Minneapolis list and corresponding map after the break!
https://www.archdaily.com/127516/architecture-city-guide-minneapolisChristopher Henry
The 590ft (180m) proposed Herzog de Meuron design labeled ‘Triangle Tower’, has been in the spotlight over recent weeks after the cross-party council approved the tower’s protocol agreement. Opposing the recent approval, Green party members are eager to share their thoughts commenting that the “colossal” project is “yet another office block” according to party member Yves Contassot.
The controversy over the 40-story steel and glass building surely was anticipated; the French capital has had a 30+ year drought of buildings over 121ft. In 1977 a ban was put into place, shortly after the completion of the 689ft Tour Montparnasse, because Parisians feared that the city center would lose its existing urban fabric to skyscrapers similar to the Montparnasse.
To most Parisians the Montparnasse’s over exaggerated proportions and lack of character have left an uneasy feeling for future skyscraper development. Many citizens are not opposed to high-rise development, such as Olivier de Rohan Chabot member of Safeguard of French Art, however he has concerns, “Look at the Montparnasse Tower; it has crushed the hotel des Invalides (housing Napoleon’s tomb). The monument was built to be grandiose. But what has it become? A dwarf. The tower ridicules it. In this sense, it’s a veritable attack on the beauty of the capital” (as stated Le Figaro newspaper).
Today, the design for the Broad Museum has been released. Situated adjacent to Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall and Arata Isozaki’s Museum of Contemporary Art, the museum has become a key part of the Grand Avenue redevelopment project that has been losing steam.
This week we are featuring San Francisco for our Architecture City Guide series. Thank you to all of our readers for adding their can’t miss buildings last week. We hope to see your comments below this week too.
Follow the break for our San Francisco list and a corresponding map!
“How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now” is a brand new exhibit at the San Francisco Modern Museum of Art. Co-created and designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the exhibit was organized by Henry Urbach, SFMOMA’s Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design. Bringing attention to the wine industry and its integration with the latest artists, designers and architects the exhibit will be on display at SFMOMA until April. A main part of the exhibit is featuring the architectural spaces that house the wine making process, tastings, museums, etc. Some big name architects who have developed designs for cutting-edge wineries include: Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Herzog and de Meuron, Renzo Piano and Alvaro Siza.
Continuing our coverage of Herzog and de Meuron’s Elbe Philharmonic Hall, we just found some interesting news regarding the construction site. Currently around 80 meters high, the music hall still has a few years of construction left. As huge cranes rise high above the building, Michael Batz, a scenographer, has taken advantage of the cranes and turned an ordinary construction site into a tourist attraction. Usually, people come to see a finished building – yet Batz’s idea of covering the cranes with blue LEDs creates a new kind of attraction.
Check out more images of the blue cranes, and a close up shot of the skin after the break.
Earlier this year we featured Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Now, we share with you this amazing video by Pedro Kok, a brazilian architectural photographer whose incredible photos can be seen in our Flickr pool.
In my opinion, Herzog & de Meuron has been one of the few practices pushing new forms on architecture. They always start with something vernacular, extracting its inner essence and materializing it into something new that you will immediately understand by looking at the building (or the renders). A dialog between art and the current state of our society, embodied on industrial facilities, residential projects, mixed use complexes.
The internationally acclaimed Herzog & De Meuron unveiled their re-conceptualized design for the Parrish Art Museum on the 14-acre Hampton site. The new design replaces the firm’s original idea which featured a villagelike cluster of pavilions scattered throughout the site. When the museum could not seem to raise the $80 million necessary to realize the project, they approached Herzog & de Mueron for a more modest proposal. The architects took the challenge and created a new building for less than a third of the original budget. The new museum’s long profile, which measures 94 feet wide and 634 feet long, houses galleries arranged in two long rows along a central corridor. The temporary walls allow the room sizes to be adjusted to account for the changing sizes of the temporary exhibits.
Yesterday, I was visiting the Skyscraper Museum in New York, and I saw an incredible aerial photo that shows the evolution of downtown Manhattan during the last century, from the water reclamation to the black towers to the new skyline without the twin towers. Undoubtedly, this city changes its shape very often.
And as of now, new residential buildings are bringing new forms to this skyline. First, we have OMA on the 23rd street with its structural facade and cantilevered volume, and now the 56 Leonard Street building by Herzog & de Meuron, which entered the construction phase.
This 57-story residential in the Tribeca area will house 145 residences, each one with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space. This typology makes the building look like a stack of houses, away from the traditional skyscraper form. I wonder how the concrete structure works on this building, which was done by consultant firm WSP Cantor Seinuk (who also worked on the Freedom Tower).
is a must.
