Search results for ""edition axel menges""

Book & CD. Husain Lehri, the director of Super Book House, approached Yashwant Pitkar, teaching at the Sir J J College of Architecture in Mumbai, to bring out a book on a contemporary Indian architect whose approach is different from the run of the mill. Pitkar had no hesitation in choosing Shirish Beri who in a career spanning almost forty years has built works ranging from private residences to educational complexes and large public projects across India. As it turned out, this book is the result of an extensive collaboration between Lehri, Piktar and Beri -- Pitkar describes the process of making the book as one of slow and deep unfolding. What is most interesting about this book is its structure. Interspersed with the projects are Beri's written and sketched expressions. Each set of two projects is bookended by his illustrated essays and poetry. The essays are more like collections of rambling thoughts, posers and anecdotes -- seeking connections between nature, art, architecture, and life. There is a seamless rhythm set up in the book that constantly keeps the reader acquainted with the architect's outer manifestations in form of his buildings and his inner thought processes, integral to that creation. The opening essay, "Working with Wature ... Towards Sustainability" sets a tone towards not just architecture but life in general. Beri asks whether man's relationship with nature could become a universal archetype for a sustainable future. He advocates an approach towards architecture that grows out from the place and its spirit rather than imposed technocratic solutions. The book features about a dozen projects in greater detail, well illustrated with clear drawings, evocative sketches and excellent photographs accompanied by the architect's own analysis of the design process and governing concerns in each project. The opening section of the book contains a note by B V Doshi and a foreword by Christopher Charles Benninger who was Beri's mentor when he was a student at the CEPT in Ahmedabad. The Hirwai Farmhouse in Nathawade for himself, one of his earliest projects, is perhaps the best example of his avowed philosophy: spaces inspired by nature. The Sanjeevan Primary School and the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species at Hyderabad display Beri's playful and unconventional approach towards space organisation which is at once in harmony with the site's topography and natural features. Projects such as the Dharwad Engineering College or the Computational Mathematics Laboratory in Pune display a nuanced sense of structure, construction and meticulousness towards detail. In the closing section of the book there is an exhaustive list of projects with thumbnails giving a good idea of the full range of the architect's work. Accompanying the book is a CD titled "The Unfolding White: Shirish Beri's search for wholeness.

Read more less

The ongoing paradigm change in regard to the use of energy, its efficient usage and the consumption of resources is giving rise to new light systems and lighting appliances. This development might also lead to the use of light as a building material in its own right, comparable to traditional building materials, making it possible to create light space productions something that did not seem feasible up to now due to the high cost of energy and of light systems. The goal of this book is to develop temporary light spaces that re-interpret the existing urban environment on a seasonal basis or over a cycle of several years. As a result, the city will literally appear in a new light. Strollers in the city streets will experience their familiar environment in a new way. Illuminated planes interlacing with planes made by linear fields of light beams will create immaterial material space experiences: still lifes of light within which one can move about and light choreographies that move barely noticeably, creating still lifes in motion. Current research aims at exploring, imagining and inventing stand-alone spatial structures of light, adding on to and transforming existing spaces, creating a new spatial awareness that may enable people to experience urban space in a different way. Similar to the process of architectural design, where haptic built volumes create interspaces, the light spaces that are presently being designed make these interspaces visible and allow urban dwellers to experience unexpected spatial constellations. The discourse in this book starts with essays introducing aspects of light spaces, including the following: Christian Bartenbach on the perception of light as something that creates space; Niels Gutschow on the ritual dimension of light, an element in the history of creation; Samuel Widmer on light in near-death experiences; Aldous Huxley on light as the messenger from a world we perceive on an unconscious level; Jun'ichiro Tanizaki on the world of the shadow and Tadashi Endo on movement as a relation between time and space in Butoh, the Japanese dance of darkness. The discourse concludes with documents on light spaces by Wolfgang Rang collected over a period of 30 years showing how these light spaces were regarded in the writings of con-temporaries, including Max Bächer on the dawn of a new era; Hans-Peter Schwarz on the deconstruction of space by light; Jürgen Hasse on light as a discourse fragment of public space; Manuel Cuadra on red luminescence; and Antonio de Campos on shadow as an expression of light.

Read more less

Book & DVD. Text in English & German. Friedrich Christoph Wagner spent the years between 1965 and 2002 with few interruptions lecturing students of architecture on the basics of design. In this book he spreads out a summation of his teachings. Thereby he presents an insight into his working methods, a definition of the position of the basics of design, a practical didactic system for creativity, perception and aesthetics as well as a large number of examples of his students' work. A first block about creative training is followed by a broad selection of sculptural themes by means of study pieces based upon "body space" and "the logic of the form". Then the author is moving along with studies of the phenomenon of space with its basic topological and geometrical patterns as well as the primal images and primal acts in architecture. This is followed by a discussion of the surface and of surface structures as well as of the line, with the concomitant topics of sequences and proportions. Under 'Elements of architecture' the author presents students' projects and findings, with an emphasis on proxemics, locations, situations, the ways in which people behave and the corresponding forms in architecture. In connection with this, a number of excursions were undertaken to the island of Sifnos in the Cyclades, where students assisted in making measurements and conducting research at the Kato Petali site. The book contains a DVD with sound samples and films concerned with 'space and light'.

Read more less

Text in English & German. When at the end of the 1960s Michael Nether set out for Berlin, that city held enormous attraction for young intellectuals and artists, just as it had done in the Roaring Twenties. There were demonstrations and happenings, there was Kommune 1 with Rainer Langhans and Uschi Obermeier, and everywhere people held endless discussions that continued throughout the night. Scandalous theatrical performances and legendary concerts with musicians such as Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Leonard Cohen and George Moustaki gave expression to a new sensibility. And then there was Klaus Kinski, in his unforgettable performance of Jesus Christ and other one-man shows. Nether photographed what he saw face to face -- 'on stage' -- including stars of international cinema like Claudia Cardinale, Roman Polanski, Peter Ustinov or Pier Paolo Pasolini. One of his first photos was the scene of a 1969 student demonstration at the Berlin Gedächtniskirche. Crowds of people throng the streets observed by countless curious passersby, and the police are there with their vans. The composition of the picture can hardly have happened by chance. Cars and the façades of buildings are points of reference past which people wind like a huge serpent. At the centre top of the picture there is a bright light. The photo sums up the atmosphere of departure and the state of mind of an entire generation. Here Nether demonstrates that he is an articulate documentary photographer. Towards the end of the 1970s, Nether returned to his home region of Swabia. Here he went into business with a partner, worked for advertising agencies -- for instance, taking photographs for Porsche in the company's research and development centre in Weissach -- but he also gradually made a name for himself as a photographic artist, with his own gallery in Bietigheim-Bissingen; particularly noteworthy were his pictures of prominent celebrities such as Wolf Biermann, Martin Walser, Woody Allen or Helmut Newton, as well as numerous photos of performances by the Stuttgart Ballet, but also of "street people". He succeeds in subtly communicating with the latter in these photos and making this dialogue visible. Today his main interest focuses on photographing portraits and nudes. In 2009 the International Center of Photography in New York purchased 100 photographs by Nether.

Read more less

Text in English & German. The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field. Rob Krier is an exception. Since the beginning of his career in construction, he has always seen his love of art as a vocation -- one which he nurtures parallel to his work. Fine art should stand in dialogue with architecture and it is Krier's ambition to have iconographic themes brought into the latter, so that they might speak equally to both the occupants of a building and to bystanders, moving them to thoughtful reflection. In his Pictorial Journal 19541971, Rob Krier describes how his twin passion for fine art and architecture emerged. Born into a household of gifted artists and craftsmen, he came into contact with art and architecture as a very young boy and took his own first steps in painting and sculpture in his early years. His enthusiasm for the architecture of Rome cemented his determination to become an architect. Krier tells of his grammar-school years in Echternach and his university studies in Munich in words just as enthralling as his first taste of professional life with Oswald Mathias Ungers and Frei Otto. His autobiographical notes are accompanied by numerous sketches, drawings and sculptures, which were produced during this period and in which the author's multifaceted experiences find artistic manifestation. Born and raised in Luxembourg, Krier moved to Vienna after having studied in Munich and worked for Oswald Mathias Ungers and Frei Otto. After teaching posts in Stuttgart and Lausanne, he was a professor at the Technische Universität in Vienna from 1976 to 1998 and, in 1986, held a guest professorship at Yale University in New Haven, Mass. Krier has developed urban-design concepts for Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, Amiens, Montpellier, Leeds, Gothenburg, Lodz, Amsterdam, Den Haag and many other cities. Projects with which he was first able to translate his vision of a spatial concept, such as Rauchstrasse in Berlin, Breitenfurterstrasse in Vienna or Ritterstrasse with Schinkelplatz in Berlin, repeatedly found their place in international publications.

Read more less

Text in English & German. Apple Inc, the Californian computer company, has been marked by unparalleled success over the past three and a half decades. Like no other company, it has succeeded in shifting the focus of use from utility to coveted possessions when it comes to computers and electronic entertainment devices such as the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. In addition, each of the products in the i-family have changed their product genres technologically and ergonomically to such an extent that not only have all competitors adopted these new 'user guidances', but hundreds of complementary products have been created around these products as well, from a wide range of accessories to docking stations (ie: veritable radios with external speakers for the iPods and iPhones) that allow users to experience the stored music without headphones. The iPhone has compelled all manufacturers of mobile phones to add smart phones with touch sensitive screens, the touch phones, to their programs. And the iPad will fundamentally transform the handling of video and news as well. Since the introduction of the iPhone, over 200,000 special application programs, the so-called apps, have been made available for these i-devices. In their product genres, these devices have each caused a paradigm shift: they are both leading and cult products, and they represent a development that has leveraged the mobile Internet and delocalised the act of surfing from the home to almost anywhere. The book comments upon this process of 'disruptive technologies', which has taken place only very rarely in the history of technology and design. They leaf through the preconditions and position these innovative devices in product-historical, social, and psychological contexts.

Read more less

Text in English & German. Rob Krier, perhaps the only urban-planning artist among Germany's architects, has, for the first time in 30 years, completed a major urban project in his home country of Luxembourg. With regard to its authorship, this is a true "family project". With the significant contribution of his brother Léon to the masterplan for the site, which is situated opposite his parental home, Krier has, in his own words, fulfilled a "youthful dream". Krier's son-in-law and office partner, Christoph Kohl was involved in the execution, as was his distant relation and Luxembourgian contact architect, Jean Herr. The concept reaches far beyond Luxembourg's borders in its significance, as Krier's crew has formulated something of a manifesto for classical European urban architecture. Rather than a further high-rise for this European city, an entire quarter has been created with public roads, lanes and squares in which the various judicial departments are distributed across eight buildings. The plot structure, small-sized units and traditional plasterwork façades with their three-dimensional sculpted details all enhance the quarter's vitality, as does the masterful treatment of spatial divisions. This new approach is decisive in solving an ever more complex construction problem in contemporary urban planning: the integration of major administration complexes into the existing make-up of the city. In Luxembourg, the Kriers have succeeded in providing model evidence that, even today, this task can be achieved by means of top-quality architecture, without having to forfeit anything in terms of the modernity of equipment, the parsimony of economical execution, the reduction of energy consumption, or in the basic demands of public proximity. With this publication, Rob Krier has created a novelty in architectural literature. It is the first volume in sketchbook format of a series which document the design process from the first hand-drawn sketches, right through to realisation. Here, the entire spectrum of the creative process and its irrepressible joy for variation are revealed.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Gunter Rambow (b.1938) is one of the most prominent designers in the area of visual communication and cultural advertising. He produced numerous photo books and outstanding posters at the Rambow & Lienemeyer graphic design studio (1961-86), and is now carrying on his work at the Rambow, van de Sand studio. Particularly with his posters for the Schauspiel Frankfurt under the direction of Peter Palitzsch, Rambow succeeded in creating symbols for theatre's claim to political involvement and effectively introducing them into the urban environment. From 1974 to 2003 Gunter Rambow taught at the Universität Kassel and the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe as a professor of visual communication. In 2007, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt is following the example of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Shanghai Art Museum and many other institutions and dedicating a major solo exhibition to his work. The show is an encounter between more than one hundred posters by Gunter Rambow -- dating from 1962 to the present -- and Richard Meier's museum architecture. The publication appearing in conjunction with this exhibition documents the dialogue between Rambow's poster art and Meier's museum building. Authors Eva Linhart, Anita Kühnel and Volker Fischer acquaint readers with Rambow's poster oeuvre -- far beyond the limited number on exhibit -- and his aesthetic strategies. Not only is light shed on the latter from the art-historical perspective, but a sense is conveyed of Rambow's innovative achievement in using the medium of the poster to create unmistakable corporate designs for a spectrum of widely differing institutions. The catalogue moreover provides an analytical appraisal of Rambow's ability to trigger insights about the environment and human relationships in those who view his posters.

Read more less

Rome is where the history of European architecture was written. The foundations were laid in ancient Roman times when the first attempts were made to design interiors which could be experienced as something physical. Ancient Roman architects also started to develop building types that are still valid today, thus creating the cornerstone of later Western architecture. This guide has been arranged chronologically. Every epoch is preceded by an introduction that identifies its key features. This produces a continuous, lavishly illustrated history of the architecture of Rome, indeed, the whole of the West. The book includes an alphabetical index and detailed maps, whose information does not just immediately illustrate the historical picture, but also makes it possible to choose a personal route through history. In order to clarify the historical development, the key buildings of each period and other major works are emphasised both in the text and on the maps.

Read more less

Text in German & English. Dahlem has developed in two different ways since the early years of the 20th century. An important scientific centre emerged on the site of this former royal territory south-west of Berlin, alongside a suburban villa colony. Elite research institutes were established in Dahlem, with the intention of creating a "German Oxford", including the first institutes for the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft, founded in 1911. Then Dahlem was chosen as the location for the Freie Universität Berlin after the Second World War. The Max-Planck-Gesellschaft commissioned a new building in these surroundings in order to provide the Institute for the History of Science, dating from 1994, with accommodation appropriate to its needs. The building was erected in 2004/5 to a competition design by the Stuttgart architects Marion Dietrich-Schake, Hans-Jürgen Dietrich and Thomas Tafel (who left the team after drawing up the planning application). The buildings adjacent to the plot, which is bordered by streets on three sides, date mainly from the 1930s. Alongside the institutional buildings detached homes determine the local character. The Max-Planck-Institut reflects the dimensions and structure of its surroundings. Its height relates to the two-storey homes; the building masses were structured as eight connected, pavilion-like sections, which means that, despite its size, the institute is reticent in its impact on the urban space. The symmetrical complex is built around a spacious courtyard with old chestnut trees. The library is the key element of the building, and so was arranged around all four sides of the inner courtyard. Extensively glazed internal and external walls afford a wide range of views into the library rooms. This ensures a constant presence for the institute's most important set of working tools, and at the same time makes it accessible over very short distances from various parts of the building.

Read more less

In their sculptural works, artists have always broken out of the workshop or studio and into open-air spaces. After all, the place where sculptures are best able to show their three-dimensionalquality is in an open space not enclosed by walls and ceiling, in which all flows of power and movement can have free rein. However, because public spaces offer only very limited possibilitiesfor sculpture development, sculpture parks have been developed almost everywhere in the world where invited artists can work without restrictive conditions. During his search for a place in France where he could present his large sculptures, Erich Engelbrecht discovered in 2000 the open, meadow-like land, with the château tucked into a piece of forest behind it. This open space, picturesquely framed by groups of trees, was precisely what he had imagined. And the fact that a château was waiting for its new owner at the end of this tract of land made this discovery a stroke of luck rarely experienced by anyone in general, and almost never by artists in particular. His monumental sculptures that dominate the landscape have given Erich Engelbrecht a place in the history of modern sculpture. His method of drawing images plastically in the space, and of using these drawings transformed into solid bodies to occupy whole landscapes, is unparalleled. The enigma balanced between representationality and the abstract, the multiplicity of meaning, which invites freely poetic titles, is essential to the unique charm of Erich Engelbrecht's visual work. In the park of Château des Fougis, 29 of these artworks, at once plainly revealing and mystifying, communicate with each other in such a relaxed way that visitors are prompted to think and to enjoy. One strolls through a garden of poetic artworks, through a park of beautiful riddles and silent secrets. There has been nothing comparable to this in Europe since the Mannerist gardens, conceived by poets andequipped with creatures of the imagination by inspired sculptors.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Heinz Tesar has carefully preserved the existing Bode Museum building on the Museum Island in Berlin, and provided it with highly unusual additional sections for the anticipated hordes of visitors. His work proved its extraordinary qualities even at the opening. There is scarcely anywhere else in the world where the contrasting styles arising from a museum's various building periods come together to form such an individual whole, at best comparable in its density with the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa's museum designs. The essential basis for this successful symbiosis of heterogeneous stylistic elements is the variable historical architecture that museum director Wilhelm Bode invited architect Ernst Eberhard von Ihne to develop around 1900 for the collections, which were very disparate in both style and genre. When the museum opened in 1904, the magnificent architecture still had a political message to proclaim. It was called the 'Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum' at first, and there was a definite programme behind this: invoking the name of the art-minded earlier emperor and erecting ostentatious equestrian statues of figures from Prussian history was intended as a powerful pictorial display to anchor the Prussian dynasty in German history and European culture. But as Ihne eschewed any sense of regional identification, the museum could have carried his name after the abolition of the monarchy. But it was renamed Bode-Museum after its inventor Wilhelm von Bode in the GDR years, which indicates the significance of the stylistic spaces Bode created for the development of exhibition techniques. The text in the book provides a reminder of museum's first collection, a mixed one consisting of paintings, sculpture and furniture. The pictorial section then records the present content of the restored galleries, shaped by Heinz Tesar and using objects from the sculpture collection, the Byzantine museum and the numismatic collection. Tesar carried out some architectural interventions of considerable sculptural quality in the new basement under the small dome, in other words in the rotunda where the planned underground passage from the Pergamon-Museum will come in, and in the new stairwell added as a slim section in one of the courtyards.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Albrecht Ade's 'photages', created with special light techniques, have nothing in common with the 'photocollages' or 'photomontages' of the 20th century. When artists as different as El Lissitzky, John Heartfield, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Raoul Hausmann or Hannah Höch constructed futuristically bold, surreal or satirical images from photographic materials as a response to quotations from reality cut out and then stuck into Cubist 'papiers collés' by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, they worked mainly with someone else's material, with trouvailles. In contrast, Ade uses only his own material for his combination images, and his method for mounting images, for 'editing them into each other', does not need of scissors and paste either. He cultivates the usually involuntary effect of double exposure, a hazard from the days of analogue photography. He controls the chances of pictorial superimposition and confusion, artfully and purposefully arranging his own, deliberately positioned images among and on top of each other, using a technically elaborate matching and omission process. Ade, as well as teaching at the Stuttgart Akademie der Bildenden Künste, has intensively promoted cinematic animation techniques in his years as director of the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film, and since 1990, as founder-director of the Filmakademie in Ludwigsburg, has allowed animated film and camera arts to develop in the greatest possible breadth, in fact has helped to win the Ludwigsburg model the highest artistic respect in the film world. This all suggests how inventively and ingeniously his creative output mingles artistically creative and elaborately echnical ideas and fascinations. Photography as a creative method for fine art -- something the pioneers of photography dreamed of in the 19th century -- becomes reality in Albrecht Ade's 'photages'.

Read more less

Text in English and German. This monograph describes the construction of reality through the cognitive subject, and, associated with this, potential ways for producing space. The book studies methods for exposing, through indeterminacy, the definition of space to a larger field of possibility within personal interpretation, and thus virtually de-bordering space. Against a historical background of past attempts to de-border space visually, new possible ways of indeterminately defining space through the modulation of light are shown. The analysis of various modulation phenomena is illustrated with references to works of art, and the phenomena are studied with a view to integrating them in the actual production of space. The modulation of light has the potential of creating diffuse and ambivalent characteristics on space-defining surfaces. This fuzziness offers an opportunity for a freer interpretation of spatial definition and thus also for de-bordering space due to the process of perception. New materials and technologies can be used to create spatial worlds that open up genuine, hitherto unknown realms of cognition and experience. Based on multilayered, ambiguous spatial situations, according to the author, new open spaces of perception are possible and thus an expansion of human consciousness as well with respect to the world around us.

Read more less

Text in German & English. In Cologne's narrowest building, which is also one of the best known examples of modern architecture in the city, special installations have been staged during the International Furniture Fair for several years. Well-known designers are invited to implement a design on a particular topic in this unusual environment for the week's duration of the trade fair.

Read more less

A yawning gap between two 1960s buildings is not at all unusual in Cologne. A gap scarcely wide enough to park a few bicycles has been used as an office by the Rendel and Spitz Advertising Agency since 1999.

Read more less

Text in English and German. The architect and photographer Rolf Reiner Maria Borchard, who is professor of design principles at the Muthesius-Hochschule in Kiel, has chosen seven of the most beautiful gardens and photographed them during several trips, always in spring, in other words at a time when the garden architecture has not yet been overwhelmed by the vegetation, and so can make the best possible impact in the image. His trained eye for the way architecture is embedded in the landscape means that he has found striking and convincing images, steeped in the harmony of the gardens.

Read more less

Text in English and German. A yawning gap between two 1960s buildings. Not at all unusual in Cologne. A gap between two buildings, 2,56 m wide and 33 m long. Scarcely wide enough to park a few bicycles. This gap has been used as an office by the rendel & spitz advertising agency since early 1999. The architects b&k+ hooked a few concrete floors into the walls of the adjacent buildings, made sure there were stairs and a bit of infrastructure, suspended a glass facade at the front and back -- finished. To give any curious or interested parties an impression of the building, it was cleared out for a week and used by three selected European designers for a comprehensive development on the theme of 'braving the gap'. The traditional disciplines of product, furniture and lighting design were complemented with contributions addressing the other senses: music and perfume. Johanna Grawunder (Milan) devised a light installation leading from a cold area by the entrance to a warm and comfortable rest area at the end of the space. Konstantin Grcic (Munich) filled the whole volume of the space with a pink ball that fitted into it exactly.Visitors had to show that they were prepared to brave the gap by squeezing between this 'puff ball' and the wall to get to the other side of the room. They were rewarded at the end by reaching the stainless steel fireplace by Timo Salli (Helsinki). The Dusseldorf firm aerome enhanced the installation with a variety of fragrances. Finally, the Hamburg photographer Uli Mattes recorded the whole project and provided his own interpretation of the work.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Hans Dieter Schaal worked on opera with Ruth Berghaus for ten years, he also created unforgettable stage architecture for the operas of Heinz Werner Henze. Almost all the important European opera houses, for example those in Berlin, Brussels, Stuttgart, Paris, Vienna and Zurich, served as vehicles for his extraordinarily expressive artistic powers, which he used to captivate the public.

Read more less

Text in English and German. What links film and architecture? Above all it is 'Metropolis', the film that Fritz Lang made in the Babelsberg studios in 1925/26. Its extravagance created enormous financial difficulties for Ufa, the biggest German film concern, but it had a brilliant premiere in Berlin in January 1927, went on to enjoy unparalleled success world-wide -- and then came to symbolise (film) architectural design for the future. 'Metropolis', internationally renowned as a major piece of German film culture, represents film art in the Weimar Republic in an artistically unique and yet unusually popular way, but it also contains one of the first fully-formulated 20th-century city fantasies. Fritz Lang, stimulated by a journey to New York, had his architect Erich Kettelhut build a city of the future in the Babelsberg Studios outside Berlin, which, as a vision, went far beyond the real skyscraper silhouette. Luis Bunuel wrote the following about 'Metropolis' as early as 1927: Henceforth and for ever more the scenic designer has been replaced by the architect. The cinema will serve as a faithful interpreter of the architect's boldest dreams. The Tower of Babel from 'Metropolis' has been a piece of urban fantasy that has inspired architects of every colour right down to the present day. American urban visions in films of the 80s and 90s, like for instance the cult film 'Blade Runner', would be inconceivable without Lang's 'Metropolis'. Now as then the Metropolis designs are considered to be highly-developed examples of a Modernist laboratory for film and architecture. All the surviving scenic architectural designs, over 200 working, factory and set photographs as well as numerous other documents, including the film architect's hitherto unpublished memoirs and working reports had been placed at the authors' disposal. In addition, other photographs from the Cinematheque Francaise and a bundle of over 300 hitherto unpublished photographs from the estate of a German emigrant to Australia have been included.

Read more less

Text in English and German. An urban quarter with an identity of its own has come into being by the Bavariapark in Munich. It is based on an urban-development design by Steidle+Partner and involved various architects. Otto Steidle interpreted the Munich town-planning motto 'compact -- urban -- green' by logically taking up the grid of the Westend area in the northern part of the quarter: the city is to continue to be built as a metropolis here. The 'esplanade', on a surprising large scale for this part of the city, along Ganghofer-Straße fulfils two functions: with its large office buildings flanking the block periphery it forms the urban spine of the new quarter, and at the same time creates a connection with the surrounding 1920s and 1930s housing. The architects have realised a paradox in the internal park of the Munich exhibition centre, which used to be only partly accessible: they create a sense of spaciousness by extreme compression. The point buildings, exposed on all sides, stand at the edge of the park in two rows; views through dominate the scene, with glimpses of the old trees and the three old, listed halls which are becoming the new cultural centre of Munich's west end because the transport museum is moving in.

Read more less

"This book is an attempt at architectural criticism" that is how Robert Venturi opened the discussion on Post-Modernism in architecture in Complexity and Contradiction in Architecturea generation ago. And this was a typical beginning. Criticism of the Modern movement by architects like Le Corbusier Mies van der Rohe and to extent Frank Lloyd Wright as well that had preceded it was central to Post-Modernism. Soon the architectural historians joined in with the architects, particularly Charles Jencks in the English-speaking world and Heinrich Klotz in Germany. Here too Post-Modern-ism was the start, with three fundamental critical points about Modernism: fundamental emptiness of its architecture, its lack of relation to its surroundings and its overemphasis of functionalism against decoration. And so, even if one does not use pamphlets like Tom Wolfe's or Jencks' early work as a yardstick, the image of the buildings by what are still the best-known architects of our century is strongly overshadowed. The truth is that the International Style reflects the basic forces that architecture can express extraordinarily impressively and al-ways with decided interplay, and thus also with a pronounced unity of effect; and additionally it develops these formal values especially intensively from content. Traditionally such things are called classical. What followed this, the whole spectrum of styles from late Modernism via High-Tech and Deconstructivism to Post-Modernism is all a reaction to the unity of the International Style: either one point in terms of form or content is taken out, exaggerated and thus made into its opposite, or such a point is consciously negated. Until now this phenomenon has been known as Mannerism to art historians. What is characteristic of Baroque as the period after High Renaissance Classicism and Mannerism is less clear; in any case, entirely positive aspects of both found their way into Baroque, and undoubtedly the latter is closer to High Re-naissance Classicism in spirit than to Mannerism. Cannot similar things be seen in the last bare decade of architectural develop-ment? The foundations for this book were laid during a good year's re-search at the University of California in Berkeley. The author now holds a chair at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

Read more less

Text in English and German. The building has been totally restored for the 125th anniversary of the Museum's opening in 1876. Merz's basic idea was to reveal the various historic layers of this building.

Read more less

Test in German and English. The Embassies of the Nordic Countries in Berlin are political architecture of a particular kind, political architecture that does not assert a claim to power, but that is a self-portrait in the best sense of the word. The vision, which is already a reality on the level of architecture and design, aims to combine individual interests within a greater whole: the ancient democratic ideal that has perhaps never been expressed in a more beautiful and convincing gesture than in this combination of five countries, six buildings and six teams of architects, chosen in a European competition for the central design concept and in five national competitions for the individual buildings. It is certainly no coincidence that such convincing symbolism of joint responsibility and action is not a success due to one of the European mammoth institutions but to the comparatively small Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Perhaps it is not even a coincidence that the concept of the individual sections that form an individual whole and while doing so preserve their individual quality as well as the unity comes from a young Viennese architectural practice whose principal protagonists, the Austrian Alfred Berger and the Finn Tiina Parkkinen, think and work across boundaries. A crucial factor was the location in Berlin, because it was only here that the new buildings for all five embassies could be commissioned at once. Berger+ Parkkinen's architecture risks striking breaches of boundaries, not just between the countries involved but also between urban development and architecture, and technology and art. Urban space is an integral part of the embassy complex, to the same extent as nature. Materials and furniture indicate different cultures. And yet the composition, for all its openness and transparency, works to exact spatial sequences and precise external lines for the building, within the 226 metres long and 15 metres high band of meandering copper. The idea that the work of Alvar Aalto is being unexpectedly continued here comes involuntarily to mind.

Read more less

Text in English and German. In autumn 1997 the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) moved into the production hall of a former munitions factory in Karlsruhe, built by Stuttgart architect Philipp Jakob Manz in 1914-18. Hamburg architects Schweger plus Partner were commissioned to convert this industrial structure, over 300 m long and with 10 atria, after Rem Koolhaas' project of a new building for the ZKM immediately adjacent to the main station in Karlsruhe had been rejected in favour of refurbishing and converting the imposing old building. There is no doubt that the thinking that led to the decision to retain an industrial monument dating from the turn of the century and to bring it back to life for different purposes, rather than putting up a new building, was essentially practical in nature. And yet the result is unique, as a dialogue of a quality that could scarcely be matched anywhere in the world was initiated between the four-storey hall with it's extensive atria and its new users, the ZKM institutes, the Staatliche Hochschule fur Gestaltung and several museums -- Medienmuseum, Museum fur Neue Kunst and Stadtische Galerie.The architects were experienced in handling large industrial and office buildings, but also ambitious museum projects -- among others they designed the Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum -, and they succeeded not only in showing the historical building substance and it's spatial potential to the best advantage, and in complementing this brilliantly inside and out; but they also combined the real architectural space and the imaginative space of modern pictorial worlds in an exciting way.

Read more less

When the Forth Bridge opened on 4 March 1890, it was the longest railway bridge in the world and the first large structure made of steel. Crossing the wide Firth of Forth west of Edinburgh in Scotland, it represents one of the greatest engineering triumphs of Victorian Britain, man's victory over the intractable topography of land and water. Not surprisingly, such a vigorous rebuff of the natural order was condemned at the time by those late Victorians who resisted the march of technology, and William Morris described the Bridge as the "supremest specimen of all ugliness". In response, Benjamin Baker insisted that its beauty lay in its functional elegance. Contrasting the bridge with the only comparable structure of the period, the Eiffel Tower, he concluded: "The Eiffel Tower is a foolish piece of work, ugly, ill-proportioned and of no real use to anyone." But the beauty and fascination of the Forth Bridge lies not simply in its functional performance, but in its scale and power. Over a mile long and higher than the dome of St. Peter's in Rome, it rivals the natural phenomena that the philosophers of the 18th century identified as sources of sublime beauty. Immanuel Kant pointed to hurricanes, boundless oceans and high waterfalls as objects of sublime contemplation, "because they raise the forces of the soul above the heights of the vulgar commonplace, and discover within us a power of resistance of quite another kind, which gives us courage to be able to measure ourselves against the seeming omnipotence of nature". In the 19th century the awe-inspiring feats of nature were rivalled by the inventions of the engineers, and the thrill of the waterfall or the lightning flash was eclipsed by the sight of the roaring locomotive dashing across the majestic span of the Forth Bridge.

Read more less

What all these buildings have in common is that with the available material, wood, and the most modest means, places of worship, centres in the villages, were built with much feeling and love. The constructions in wood were derived in an old tradition from the dwellings and farm buildings of the peasant population. Their architecture, the typological forms probably penetrated into this seclusion as an idea. "The idea of a church as a building", brought with them by clergymen and wandering master craftsmen from the more fertile plains and the rich, large mining and trading towns.The oldest churches were built as early as in the 15th century, most of those still standing were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, and quite a few are still being built today. Many were destroyed in the two world wars, many fell victim to ethnic cleansing after 1945. Many were destroyed in the two world wars, many fell victim to ethnic cleansing after 1945, some fell into disrepair during the Soviet era, others were burnt down by lightning or short circuits, and quite a few simply gave way to the more "representative" stone churches as early as the 19th century. But a large number are still standing, consecrated, and believers gather in them. In fact, almost all of them in the various Carpathian countries are protected monuments, and many have been lovingly restored in recent times.More than the architectural-historical value, the question arises here of the aesthetic assessment of these small buildings. It is not a refined canon of forms of great architecture that can be derived and proven from the history of architecture that inspires us so much. Basically, they are not overly sophisticated constructions in terms of craftsmanship, they are safe and beautiful in their simplicity. Their aesthetic appeal, however, also includes the surface-weathered material, deformed structures, colour improvisations, recently ornamented sheet metal, inside wall paintings, altar and iconostasis furnishings derived from Renaissance and Baroque periods, but above all their location in the village, mostly isolated, often elevated, surrounded by old trees, enclosures and graves without cemetery order.

Read more less

Spread over a hill that climbs up from the plain, Himeji Castle with its white walls shimmering in the sunlight like the feathers of a fantastic bird seems to be rising into the blue sky like a great heron. This impression has given it the name "Castle of the White Heron". The castle, which has nothing martial about it, on the contrary, it is extraordinarily elegant, is undoubtedly one of Japans most impressive fortresses. It was built between 1601 and 1609, when the period of war was almost over, and was used primarily for administration and residence, with defence as a secondary role. Thus its aesthetic impact was as important when it was built as its actual purpose as a fortification. The main building in the castle is the Tenshu or Tenshu-kaku in the northem part of the complex, a wooden structure about 46 m high. Its complicated intermediate roofs make it look more like a skyscraper than a tower. Himeji Castle represents an architectural type that probably does not occur in other areas of the world. Large parts of the building were classified as "Kokuho State Treasure" as early as 1951, and others as "Important Cultural Property". The building was placed on the World Cultural Heritage list in 1993. Art historian Irmtraud Schaarschmidt-Richter specialized in classical and modern Japanese art and architecture at an early stage, as is shown by numerous publications. Her book on the Japanese garden has long been a standard work. Most recently she was involved in publications on architects Kazuo Shinohara and Toyo Ito. Photographer Mo Nishikawa, a pupil of Ken Domon, one of the most important photographers of our century, sees his work as a spiritual and intellectual contemplation of art. His photographs of the Katsura Palace, the Himeji Castle and the Ise Shrine are among the great masterpieces of contemporary photography.

Read more less

The condition of "fake" and "real" in architecture is rarely publicly discussed nor has it encountered broad journalistic or scholarly attention. This book explores the realm of truth, authenticity and fakery in architecture, providing a timely collection of analytical essays and projects. Photographers, writers and architects share their understanding and speculations about a broad range of spaces and concepts all searching for common ground between real and imagined, function and story. The authors challenge our perception of "authenticity " through the examination of built and simulated environments, architectural fiction, theatric illusions and mannerist trickery. They examine the notion that the principle of Sullivans "form follows function" contains a paradox caused by the ambiguity and complexity of architectural expression. Buildings are perceived through an individuals personal experiences while also being interpreted along broader cultural values. The works shown reveal that under scrutiny, any built environment harbors both, reveals moments of truth, deception and ambiguity all of it partially in the eye of the beholder.The diverse contributions shed light on unexpected identities in architecture inviting criticalthought about our built environment analog and digital. The goal of this publication goes beyond unmasking deception in architecture, it aims at unfolding time-lines and revealing the layerednature of people and places. The images and essays reveal our contemporary condition and let collective and individual narratives unfold, a range of truths in themselves. Expanding from the discussion about truthful materiality and tectonics, this book provides an understanding ofreal, authentic, and fake in urbanism and architecture. Anne-Catrin Schultz studied architecture inStuttgart and Florence. Following post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technoloyin Boston, she worked for several years with Turnbull Griffin Haesloop and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in San Francisco. While developing her own practice, she has taught at the University of California in Berkeley, the California College of the Arts and the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco. In 2013 she joined the Department of Architecture at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Erich Engelbrecht (19282011) called his pictures "introspective". He remarked on this: "The introspective image inspects the arena of the soul, the field of operation of archetypes, which constitute the fundamental pattern of our behaviour." We are indebted to C.G. Jung for providing especially deep insights into the nature of archetypes. According to him, they constitute, in their totality, the collective human unconsciousness, and determine our actions. These archetypesbecome visible only in symbolic images. For Werner Haftmann such images are the works of symbol-forming artists of all times. The works of Erich Engelbrecht, whether graphics, oil pictures, gobelins, or wooden and steel figures, appear planimetric and abstract. In his steel figures, for instance, the third dimension exists only in the thickness of the steel plates. This makes his artworks akin to folk tales. In his book The European Folktale, Max Lüthi describes the style of the folk tale as "planimetric and abstract", with projecting all happenings on the level of plot. When the sister cuts her little finger off and uses it to open the door to the glass castle to free herimprisoned brothers in the folk tale The Seven Ravens, no blood flows and we hear no cry of pain.Both the folk tale and the "introspective image" tell a story and use primal images in order to do it. This mode of action of creating a coherence of meaning through a narrative of archetypalimages such as forest, cavern, or sea that rests upon primal human experience is described by C. G. Jung as an "archetypal programme ", a primal behaviour pattern that all human beings follow,regardless of race, culture, or epoch. With the introspective image, as with the folk tale, the creative process must be intuitive and meditative, an immersion in the unconscious. Erich Engelbrecht had no plan or idea for an artwork, merely an empty sheet of paper or canvas in front of him; he made himself receptive, waited, and allowed himself to be guided by the images, a process that he experienced very much as an ordeal and even as a threat to his existence. He did, however, have a sense for when his process of searching was at an end, albeit without understanding the meaning of a picture created in this way. His wife Waltraud Engelbrecht would then try to "read" these images and to derive a coherence of meaning from correspondences of form and colour.

Read more less

Text in English & German. The architect is at all times also an artist. How otherwise would he be able to tame the three-dimensionality of space and subdue the urges of physics and structural mechanics with the creations of his fantasy? This creativity is however mostly restricted purely to its own field. Rob Krier, is an exception. Since the beginning of his career in construction, he has always seen his love of art as a vocation -- one which he nurtures parallel to his work. Fine art should stand in dialogue with architecture and it is Krier's ambition to have iconographic themes brought into the latter, so that they might speak equally to both the occupants of a building and to bystanders, moving them to thoughtful reflection. In his Pictorial Journal 19541971, Rob Krier describes in compelling words and pictures how he came to have a twin passion for fine art and architecture and told of his grammar school years in Echternach, his studies in Munich and his first taste of professional life with Oswald Mathias Ungers and Frei Otto. In his Pictorial Journal 19541971, which covers the period of Krier's work as a lecturer and assistant to Prof. Johannes Uhl at Stuttgart University, the text is restricted to a minimum. The pictures are less colourful, more composed. The 'daily scribbles' dominate -- mainly sketches and drawings of people and animals, buildings, landscapes, objects and also fantasies. The volume is rounded off with a detailed résumé. Born and raised in Luxembourg, Krier moved to Vienna after having studied in Munich and worked for Oswald Mathias Ungers and Frei Otto. After teaching posts in Stuttgart and Lausanne, he was a professor at the Technische Universität in Vienna from 1976 to 1998 and, in 1986, held a guest professorship at Yale University in New Haven, Mass. Krier has developed urban-design concepts for Stuttgart, Vienna, Berlin, Amiens, Montpellier, Leeds, Gothenburg, Lodz, Amsterdam, Den Haag and many other cities. Projects with which he was first able to translate his vision of a spatial concept, such as Rauchstrasse in Berlin, Breitenfurterstrasse in Vienna or Ritterstrasse with Schinkelplatz in Berlin, repeatedly found their place in international publications.

Read more less

Text in English and German. The distinguished architect and Pritzker laureate Richard Meier has attracted public attention mainly with his museum and cultural buildings including the Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Stadthaus in Ulm and the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. The book accompanies the exhibition of the same name at the Museum for Applied Arts in Frankfurt, which has recently been relaunched with differently conceived museum facilities and new service areas; these are addressed in detail in an appendix to the book.

Read more less

Text in German. Paul Stohrer was born in Stuttgart in 1909 and died there in 1975; from the 1950s to the 1970s he was among that city's most eminent and successful architects. He took advantage of rebuilding phase after 1945 for his professional development, and the boost given by the years of the economic miracle led to a peak in his architectural creativity. Today his name has largely disappeared from public memory in his field, and it is not well known that many of his buildings made a considerable contribution to Stuttgart's appearance. As he built several theatres and cinemas he was familiar with the glamorous world of theatre and cinema, and he created exclusive family homes for clients on the scene at the time. In addition to this, his commissioned repertoire included mainly commercial, office and factory buildings, as well as interiors for restaurants and shops. One of his best-known works is his house for the psychiatrist, filmmaker and collector of contemporary art Ottomar Do

Read more less

The pioneering character and continuing success of Schaal's scenic compositions for stage sets and exhibitions is significantly due to this field allowing him to take full advantage of his multiple talents. He succeeds equally in the thinking and practical skills of an architect, a painter, a sculptor, a landscape designer, an urban visionary, cineast, and a man of literature, and this allows him to discover, through his space-embracing scenographic installations, unique three-dimensional equivalents for his paper-drawn 'thought spaces' and 'path spaces' or 'thought buildings' from the 1970s. His renowned compendium entitled Architektonische Situationen, published in 1980 and containing, the essence of his early spatial studies, in fact contains within it the seeds of all his later stage set and exhibition configurations. The symbiotic relationship between legendary director Ruth Berghaus and spatial visionary Schaal first began producing history-making stage sets in the early 1980s. Working with Berghaus, Schaal created elementary spatial compositions possessed of great suggestive power for Les Troyens (1983), Wozzeck (1984), Orpheus (1986), Elektra (1986), Moses und Aron (1987), Tristan und Isolde (1988), Lulu (1988), Fierrabras (1988), Ariane et Barbe-Bleue (1991) and Nachtwache (1993), and also working with other directors to do the same for countless other operas and theatre pieces. In creating his installations and their powerful images, Schaal has never solely been concerned with creating suitable illustrations for scene-related plot action. Instead, he always adds something more, as it were, in the form of a boldly independent interpretation. The same is true of his concepts for temporary or permanent ex-hibitions. Before undertaking any of the individual projects on his long list of exhibition projects, Schaal has always researched archive material, historic background, and repercussions, but also the emotional and psychoanalytical implications of the exhibitions' theme and the exhibits concerned, with the meticulousness of a scientific specialist. In works such as his installations for Berlin Berlin (1987) or Prometheus (1998), for the Filmmuseum Berlin (2000), and for the memorials of the former concentration camps Mittelbau-Dora (2006), Bergen-Belsen (2007) or Esterwegen (2011), he always presents his own view of the world, his own view of things. Frank R. Werner studied painting, architecture and architectural history in Mainz, Hanover and Stuttgart. From 1990 to 1994 he was professor of history and theory of architecture at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart, from 1994 until his retirement in 2011 he was director of the Institut für Architekturgeschichte und Architekturtheorie at the Bergische Universität in Wuppertal.

Read more less

The term Europe has not always been understood in the same way. Depending on the period and influenced by the dominant interpreting elites at the time, it was always different features that were emphasised, "new" traditions that were discovered and created, and different values -- specific to the period -- that were claimed as European. Europe is a construct. That is as true today as in the period before 1945. This monograph focuses on 'Sachbücher' (non-fiction books), travelogues and literary-political writings by eight authors who played a key role in the discourse on Europe in the Third Reich and also partly in the early German Federal Republic. One of them is Walter Kiaulehn. In World War II, in the periodical Signal, Kiaulehn draws up a European family tree of a somewhat different, totalitarian kind -- naturally excluding semi-Asiatic Russia as well as England, a refugee from Europe. England has "swum off" in the direction of the USA. For Ernst Wilhelm Eschmann, Great Britain and France belong to the "margins of Europe" anyway, while the central powers, Germany and Italy, constitute the actual core of the continent. Europe evolves from the centre, and it is characteristically medial, balanced, mediating between tradition and progress. It is the others who are radical and have no appreciation for the middle course: the Americans with their skyscraper fantasies and the Bolsheviks with their anti-cultural tabula-rasa mentality. The New Europe", on the other hand, is the continent where in accordance with a golden mean that has developed historically, a moderate Modernism takes shape. An instance of this is the New Bari, the "favourite city of Fascism" that Gustav R. Hocke visits in 1937 and in which, instead of giant high-rises, he encounters much smaller, six-storey buildings along the new waterfront promenade. The term The New Europe became generally accepted in Germany during the 1930s, and by the beginning of World War II it was an integral part of the German discourse on Europe. Last but not least, this book would like to encourage the reader to critically question the provisionally last 'great narrative' of the Occident -- the narrative according to which Europe evolved from liberal humanist traditions and, based on democratic values, gradually came to have its present form in several intermediate stages beginning in classical antiquity.

Read more less

The global resources situation and the climate crisis are amongst the biggest challenges faced by mankind today. In the years to come, these issues will no doubt have an influence on societal evolution, on urban and rural land development, and how we define our cultural identities. These and related issues will be reflected in the world of architecture. In recent years many countries with high energy consumption have made the energy-related requirements for buildings more stringent; the new rules apply to the resources used for construction as well as to those used in the operation of buildings. In the future, these new requirements will have a major impact on the design of buildings. It will not be sufficient merely to increase the insulation thickness or to make the building envelope more airtight. Solutions of this type have an adverse impact on the architectural design, on the construction practices, on the indoor environment and on options for making buildings flexible so that they can be adapted for diverse uses over time. Equally important in terms of its impact on architectural quality is the challenge posed by the continuous growth of industrialisation. The move from craft-based construction methods to computer-controlled production processes now used in industrialised manufacturing has resulted in strict standards, established at design level, being imposed on the process as it takes place on the building site, creating an "assembly architecture" that no longer depends on the locally available materials, on local cultural traditions or on the specific physical context. In this book, ideas, design principles and practices that relate to tectonics in architecture are explored, and a series of themes are discussed in relation to various concepts of ecology. Ecology is, in this case, defined in its widest sense, which includes the cycling of resources, systems of social organisation and the environmental context. Tectonics a concept with a long tradition in architecture and architectural theory is comparable to ecology. It relates to the de-sign and assembly of structural elements, and implies a holistic approach to materials, to construction technology and to the design of structures. It is more than merely an instrumental strategy: it extends into the poetic, which elevates it to the status of a cultural practice. This book is part of a research project conducted by leading academics associated with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, the Aarhus School of Architecture and the Danish Building Research Institute. With contributions from a wider network of academic experts and from practicing architects, it provides the first comprehensive representation of contemporary tectonic thought and practices in architecture.

Read more less

In the 18th century the idea of the landscape garden, which had originated in England, spread all over Europe. The geometry of the Baroque park was abandoned in favour of a 'natural' design. At the same time the garden became "The land of illusion": Chinese pagodas, Egyptian tombs, and Turkish mosques, along with Gothic stables and Greek and Roman temples, formed a miniature world in which distance mingled with the past. The keen interest in a fairy-tale China, which was manifested not only in the gardens but also in the chinoiseries of the Rococo, abated in the 19th century. The increasing expansion of the European colonial powers was reflected in new exotic fashions. While in England it was primarily the conquest of the Indian subcontinent that captured the imagination, for France the occupation of Algiers triggered an Orient-inspired fashion that spread from Paris to encompass the entire Continent, and found its expression in paintings, novels, operas, and buildings. This 'Orient', which could not be clearly defined geographically, was characterised by Islamic culture: It extended around the Mediterranean Sea from Constantinople to Granada. There, it was the Alhambra that fascinated writers and architects. The Islamic styles seemed especially appropriate for "buildings of a secular and cheerful character". In contrast to ancient Egyptian building forms, which, being severe and monumental, were preferably used for cemetery buildings, prisons or libraries, they promised earthly sensuous pleasures. The promise of happiness associated with an Orient staged by architectural means was intended to guarantee the commercial success of coffee houses and music halls, amusement parks, and steam baths. But even extravagant summer residences and middle-class villas were often built in faux-Oriental styles: In Brighton, the Prince Regent George (George IV after 1820) built himself an Indian palace; in Bad Cannstatt near Stuttgart, a 'Moorish' refuge was erected for Württemberg's King Wilhelm I; and the French town of Tourcoing was the site of the Palais du Congo, a bombastic villa in the Indian Moghul style that belonged to a wealthy perfume and soap manufacturer.

Read more less

Text in German & English. Schinkel's Look towards India discusses a subject to which little attention has been paid to date: Schinkel's interest in Indian architecture and culture. This interest was first aroused by the English traveller to India William Hodges, who proposed the thesis that Greek and Indian architecture were of equal value. Later, the English landscape painters Thomas and William Daniell were to become even more important for Schinkel. Oriental Scenery, the book that described their travels, left its mark on Europe's image of India for decades and inspired longing for that country, which was considered almost magical. The cultural elite of Prussia were also caught up in this fascination. At the royal court of Prussia, Lalla Rookh, based on Thomas Moore's romance, was celebrated in 1821 as an oriental festival. In 1822 the Indian-themed pageant Nurmahalwas performed at the opera. For both productions Schinkel created enchantingly beautiful stage sets. His interest in exotic architecture was lifelong. The sketches he based on the work of the Daniells were preliminary studies for a huge round panorama that was to show the buildings of various periods and nations in their particular setting. His unrealised project for the summer palace Orianda on the Crimea, at the geographical interface of eastern and western culture, was Schinkel's convincing and timeless memorial to his dream of the unity of world cultures. The style of the exterior is classical, while that of the interior is Indian and Islamic. The work is character-ized by the hall of caryatids that lies in front of the building, with a view of the Black Sea, and the museum of Caucasian antiquities, its counterpart in the interior of the palace. Schinkel found the idea for the museum in Oriental Scenery, in the drawings of the legendary 1000-Pillar Hall in Madurai, in southern India, which the Daniells had toured full of admiration and included in their book.

Read more less

Text in English & German. Johannes Peter Hölzinger studied architecture at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main from 1954 to 1957. After a residency fellowship at the Deutsche Akademie Villa Massimo in Rome he founded a "planning association for new forms of the environment" in 1965 together with Zero artist Hermann Goepfert, who has since died. One of the most successful results of his work with Goepfert was a new design for the Schloßpark in Karlsruhe on the occasion of the Bundesgartenschau in 1967, which won a major German architectural prize, the Hugo-Häring-Preis. From 1991 until his retirement in 2002 Hölzinger directed the art and public-space course at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Nuremberg. Individualistic and oppositional in comparison to other post-World War II architectural achievements, the design of Hölzinger's buildings is very distinctive. The playful elements of Postmodernism are as alien to his work as the functionalism of New Building. Because of his association with Hermann Goepfert, Hölzinger is much more closely connected with the art scene of his time. The integration of art and architecture is a unique feature of his buildings. If we try to assign a category to this "object architecture" (a term he coined himself), we will find less overlap with architecture than with fine art. From the very beginning Hölzinger saw architecture as an artistic discipline. Light kinetics offered him important new perspectives. Lighting design and the resulting colour changes of white walls play a vital role in his work.

Read more less

As a civil engineer with leading German construction companies, Horst Barow has built highways and bridges in many parts of the world. He was aware of the importance infrastructure has for the development of a region, and he knew how important efficient administration is to achieve public works. During vacations he and his wife liked to visit the Mediterranean countries, and they were amazed by the vestiges of the Roman Empire, not the least of them being roads and bridges. In many cases they still carry modern traffic after 2000 years. Thus Barow decided to make the study of Roman roads and bridges his special interest, and through many years he systematically collected material and surveyed bridges on the spot. Having retired, he studied history, with emphasis on the Roman period. His untimely death in 2010 left his wife with a great work in progress, and it is thanks to the publisher that this book has been realised. Friedrich Ragette, an architect who taught history of architecture and engineering for many years, was entrusted with editing the material and translating it from German into English. The book covers all aspects of road and bridge construction in the Roman Empire, from commissioning, planning and design to contracting and execution. Technical details include surveying, materials, tools, and implements. The Roman road network is shown with Latin place names; principles and types of construction are explained. The core of the work deals with bridge construction: design criteria, structural systems, foundations and abutments are dealt with in detail. Particularly attractive are five dozens of case studies, presenting individual bridges, which were reviewed by the author on site. Countless illustrations, mostly in colour, enliven the book. Bibliography and glossary complete the work.

Read more less

Text in English & German. The way we sit simultaneously defines privileges, social status, power, and taboos. Parallel to the presentation of China as the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2009, the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt presents a panorama of Chinese sitting culture through a period of five centuries. Exclusive, noble Ming chairs stand side by side with chairs of the 18th and 19th century used by the middle class of that time. Limited sitting sculptures by renowned artist designers such as Shao Fan, Freeman Lau, Kenneth Cobonpue, XYZ-Design and Ji Liwei, who is also in charge of the interior design of the Chinese pavilion at the book fair, are confronted with the bourgeois sofas and sitting of the Chinese middle class of today. The "Bastard Chairs" of migrant workers and the homeless, day-to-day seats improvised out of pure need and made of trash and leftover materials, are commented in the sitting contexts of celebrities: emperors and courtesans, politicians and pop stars, athletes and students of product design show how sitting was done formerly and is done today. It ranges from a man of letters from the Ming era to the Qianglong emperor on the throne to Mao and Nixon in characteristic armchairs in Mao's best room. The most famous contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, will also be represented with an excerpt of his grandiose chair performance at the Dokumenta XII. Of course, product piracy, which -- as the typical Chinese dipping figure "Shanzhai" -- has mean-while adopted characteristics that define society, is also dealt with.

Read more less

Rob Krier is a unique voice in today's architectural discourse through his commitment to developing a relevant and pragmatic theory of architecture based on his own experience and observations of architectural practice and opposed to the easy, abstract theorising so common in contemporary architectural writing. Together with his brother Leon, he has perfected a form of presentation in which the potency of his thinking finds its perfect counterpoint in detailed drawings and sketches which argue his case visually through the power of example. Following the success of his widely acclaimed "Urban Space", a work which looked at the problems of our cities from a historical, theoretical and practical standpoint, Krier now applies his particular, highly influential mode of didactic criticism to contemporary architecture in continuing search for fundamental architectural truths. Architectural Composition is both a theoretical and visual analysis which clearly illustrates the creative process which informs Krier's vision and praxis. The culmination of a lifetime's thought and experience by one of Europe's most important architectural theorists, it is without doubt a major achievement and is a standard work of reference for both students and practising architects. The book, published for the first time in 1988 by Academy Editions in London, has been supported by funds from the Fond zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung der Republik Österreich, and it was carried out at Krier's former Institut für Gestaltungslehre at the Technische Universität in Vienna.

Read more less

Text in English & German. Hollywood is not only the secret world capital of dreams and the fictions of the subconscious, but also the capital of architecture. Hollywood is the Rome and the Versailles of the 20th and 21st centuries. A new awareness of space spanning the entire world was created here. These backgrounds, stage sets and filmic spaces are indelibly fixed in every spectator's mind. It may be in the cinema that the first time you saw the desert, the Rocky Mountain cliffs, Greenland's glacier mountains and California's sandy beaches. You saw here the Western saloons and Al Capone's dark rooms, the poor Mexicans' huts and the Kennedys' penthouse apartments; you saw here also the jazz clubs of New Orleans and the dream houses in Los Angeles. There was and is scarcely a corner of the earth that the Hollywood film has not dreamed its way into. Every cinema-goer in the world sees the same plot, the same images, the same faces, the same rooms, buildings, towns and streets. Film's power to bring people together can scarcely be overestimated. Film architecture is world architecture. All other architecture -- your own town, your own street, your own house, your own flat -- remains small and parochial in the face of this, restricted to affecting a very tiny sphere. The architecture of the future will develop in the field of tension between these two aspects -- small and parochial, large and spanning the entire world. The real architecture of houses and cities could be enriched in its language by including film architecture, and real architecture could be jolted out of its banality by including the studio world. Films and their images can teach us that the architecture of houses, streets and towns is not just a problem of order, function and economic viability, but that psychology, atmosphere and images are being built here as well.

Read more less

Text in English and German. Perhaps the fascination of American landscapes, particularly the deserts is their featurelessness. In Germany, Brandenburg for example, the much plainer landscape lives on in its history. This where the Great Elector won his victory and Napoleon lost a battle. Actual nature unaffected by human beings is hidden under the woodland and heath. The American desert landscape is dominated by grandiose nature with out human intervention. Here the history of the earth is to the fore exercising a particular fascination and anyone who reads it enjoys a double gift. The author travelled around the country photographing the mountains and valleys, the coastline and nature reserves. He also encountered people and writes about American friendliness.

Read more less

Text in German & English. Fossils are the petrified remains of former living organisms. Their systematics and their former living conditions are studied and described in palaeontology. In contrast to this, this book attempts to show the character of these life forms as signs and to pursue the question of whether fossils and representations of fossils can be considered "beautiful". For this reason, the pictures' sequence is not based on a palaeontological system of classification, but instead progresses from realistic representations of, for instance, a coral's body in its entirety through ever smaller sectors of the image and details divorced from context to almost abstract images. In an introductory text, Hillert Ibbeken explains the concept and the methodology of the work. The ambiguous expression "design" is used deliberately -- not in the sense of a purposive undertaking by a creating subject, but in the sense of nature making a mark, guided by mutation and selection. Katja Schoene writes about fossils' reception in the early modern age. The plants and animals enclosed in stone appeared too fantastical for anyone to consider them as anything other than "freaks of nature" (lusus naturae). Explanations of their origin were as multifarious as their different manifestations. "Rudolf zur Lippe deals with the forms of petrified life in relation to philosophical perspectives, pursuing the question of what "beauty" means and indicating, among other things, that the expression "beauty" cannot be unequivocally defined; that, for instance, different cultures may have entirely different ideals of beauty. The illustrated section is followed by a glossary by Helmut Keupp with a synopsis of life's development on Earth and a table of the Earth's history. Hillert Ibbeken was professor of geology at the Freie Universität Berlin. He has had a lifelong interest in photography.

Read more less

All the world's knowledge is stored and collected here. The place serves as an assembly point and information centre and is all things in one: laboratory, workshop, building site, university, theatre, opera house and museum. The shape of the building should be like a sphere with a silver-grey surface gleaming in the sunlight. It stands in a shallow pool of water. Broad walkways lead to the entrance. Extensive gardens in gentle geometric patterns invite visitors to rest, play, chat and look.

Read more less

Text in English and German. The prize-winning design, of which all can be seen from the outside is a glass cube making an impact over a distance and defining the urban situation, solved the enormous space problem of a collection of contemporary art including 15000 works.

Read more less

Text in English & German. Three places mark the chequered history of the provost church of St Trinitatis Leipzig. Not far from the site of the present new building was the historic church built in 1847 that was largely destroyed in World War Two. It took almost three decades for this church finally to be replaced in 1982. At the insistence of the East-German authorities, however, this building had to be erected in a suburb. Because of its inconvenient location and also because the building had structural damage from the very beginning, the congregation decided in 2008 to take a chance on a new start in the city centre. The third church of St Trinitatis, consecrated in 2015, is the largest Catholic church to be built in East Germany since the political turnover of 1989/90. The new church is located not only in the centre of town, but at a place that could not be more prominent: facing the large complex of the Neues Rathaus. In 2009 a competition held for the new church building with the adjacent parish centre was won by the Leipzig architects Ansgar and Benedikt Schulz. Their clever use of the triangular site particularly impressed the selection committee; at the same time, with the compact body of the church on the east and the tower on the west, they created two striking urban landmarks. Between the tower and the church is the spacious courtyard, which is open on two sides towards the surrounding area, emphasising the congregations programmatic 'openness'. The complex owes its homogenous appearance to the fact that all parts of the buildings are clad with local porphyry, an igneous rock that shimmers in delicate shades of red. While outwardly the church looks quite hermetic, the interior, with an inside height of 14.5 m, surprises the visitor by its vibrant luminosity. The decisive factor here is the skylight on the east side at a height of 22 m. From a source that is invisible to the worshippers, zenith light falls on the entire back wall behind the altar. In its disposition the church interior follows the decisions of the Second Vatican Council: separation between the priests space and the congregations space is abolished, the high altar is replaced by a peoples altar, and the faithful gather of the believers in communio around the liturgical centre. In addition to his main activity as an architecture publicist Wolf-gang Jean Stock was head of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für christ-liche Kunst and its gallery in Munich for nine years. Considering his rigorous artistic attitude, instinctively reminiscent of the work of Hilla and Bernd Becher, there is a certain consistency about the fact that the photographer Stefan Müller congenially creates images of the buildings of Owald Mathias Ungers, Max Dudler, Kleihues + Kleihues or Schulz und Schulz.

Read more less