statement nr.1 2009

StatementM A G A Z I N E O N R E A L E S T A T E D E V E L O P M E N T

CHRISTIAN BIECHER: ‘I USE FORM AS A KIND OF PROVOCATION’

PROFILE:DANIEL LIBESKIND’SARCHITECTUREOF MEANING

CURATOR FABRICE

BOUSTEAU:

Spr ing 2009 # 17

Statement2

00

9 # 1

7

‘ Architecture and design are art’s driving forces’

Statement-ENG_0109.indd 1Statement-ENG_0109.indd 1 13-02-2009 12:13:4413-02-2009 12:13:44

S T A T E M E N T

Statement Magazine is published on behalf of ING Real Estate Development. The magazine is distributed to ING Real Estate’s international business relations.

PUBL ISHER ING Real Estate Development, Schenkkade 65 2595 AS THE HAGUE the Netherlands [email protected]

EDITORIAL BOARD ING Real Estate Development, Scripta Media BV

EDITOR IN CHIEF Sylvia van Wezel [email protected]

PRODUCTION Scripta Media BV Amsterdam, Loes van Dokkum, Aafke Jochems, Kasper Marinus, Peter van Vuuren ARTDIRECTION & DESIGN Freddy Vermeulen Amsterdam, Ineke Huibregtse, assistant

L ITHOGRAPHY Grafimedia Amsterdam

PRINT Zwaan Printmedia

TRANSLATION Anne Thistleton

COVER PHOTO Philippe Provily/De Beeldredaktie

© 2009 ING Real Estate Development/Scripta Media

MORE INFORMATION If you have any feature ideas or comments on the content of this issue, or if you would like to receive additional information, please contact us. For a subscription, please mail your contact information to: [email protected] www.ingrealestate.com

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Statement

Arch

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ARCHITECTURE AFFECTS EVERYBODY’S LIFE. IT DEALS WITH THE environment of real people and refl ects the values of society. It’s wonderful when people proudly show their house to their guests or when they describe their work-place as a place where they like to be. A developer creates new buildings and en-vironments. While this is a privilege, it is also a big responsibility: if we don’t get it right, we might get places where people feel unsafe, as if they have been left out of the equation or even treated disrespectfully.

For us the challenge is to understand the dreams of our clients and to create places where people like to go to and keep going back to for years. Archi-tects and designers are crucial partners in this process. They challenge our ideas and take them to another level and fi nal-ly deliver the design for a new building. While the current economic down-turn undeniably infl u -ences our lives in many dif-ferent ways, the demand for architectural quality remains unchanged.

In this issue of Statement we’d like to introduce you to some of the latest developments in the world of archi-tecture and design, ranging from BMW designer Adrian van Hooydonk and three young international architectural offi ces, to French architect, designer and artist Christian Biecher, whose creations span the entire spectrum from chair design to area development. Dutch architecture critic Bernard Hulsman refl ects on iconic architecture, a subject developers are no strangers to and one that is much debated in the world of architecture.

We hope you’ll enjoy this spring issue of Statement and may you continue to chal-lenge and inspire each other. <<<

S T A T E M E N T

MENNO MAAS, CEO DEVELOPMENT, ING REAL ESTATE

02Statement-ENG_0109.indd 2Statement-ENG_0109.indd 2 16-02-2009 11:19:0516-02-2009 11:19:05

16 4 Design: global trends in

architecture

12 The interview: Christian Biecher

16 Arup’s spectacular software

20 Zooming in on materials

23, 31, 43, 49 Design & architecture

24 Expert opinion: Jacques Marseille

and Paul Koch

28 Branding: icons

32 The architect: Daniel Libeskind

38, 39, 48 Items

40 The user: Lawrence Scarpa

44 A new generation of architects

50 Work in progress:

New York Times Building

55 Column: Winy Maas

1232

40

50

contents 4


S T A T E M E N T04

Global trends DESIGN OF THE CENTURY

The Museum of Middle Eastern Modern Art in Dubai is a perfect example of neo-expressionism.


With the fi rst decade of the 21st century drawing to a close, it is time to take stock and look ahead. Sustainability and iconic architecture ap-pear to be the most important architectural trends in the world, thanks to globalisation.

BY BERNARD HULSMAN PHOTOGRAPHY: ARUP, FOSTER +

PARTNERS, MICK PALARCZYK, FRANK P. PALMER, SCAGLIOLA/BRAKKEE

ROTTERDAM, UNSTUDIO, NIGEL YOUNG

T R E N D S

in architecture


S T A T E M E N T06

SUSTAINABILITY IS IN FASHION, ALSO IN ARCHITEC-ture. Ask any architectural fi rm for a presentation brochure and chances are that sustainable building is cited as a signifi cant factor

in its work. Look at a design for a building anywhere in the world and it is likely to have sustainable elements. This is hardly surprising, of course. If there is any hu-man activity where gains can be made, it is building. Building devours energy and materials, and even after it is completed, cooling and heating cost a lot of energy as well.

EFFICIENCY AND PRECISIONSustainability has a long history in architecture. The

functionalism of the 1920s already had a sustainable aspect. With the adage ‘form follows function’ it dictated that designers had to gear the forms of their buildings as precisely as possible to the func-tions they had to fulfi l. Functionalism meant frugality. Functional-ist architects thought fl at roofs were better because less material

Oversize allows for flexible use and allows buildings to be

easily adapted to future and as yet unknown requirements

Masdar in the United Arab Emirates will be the world’s fi rst zero waste and zero carbon city.


near Abu Dhabi, work will soon begin on the building of Masdar. The world’s fi rst zero waste and zero carbon city covering an area of six million square metres was designed by Foster + Partners. Sir Norman Foster, incidentally, was one of the few world-renowned architects to show an early interest in sustainable building. Already in the 1990s he designed a new head offi ce bursting with the latest sustainable building technology for the Commerzbank in Frank-furt. Elsewhere in the UAE plans are underway for the Ras Al Khaimah Eco City, wholly powered by solar energy. Rem Koolhaas’ Offi ce for Metropolitan Architecture designed the competitor of Masdar.

SOCIALLY ENGAGEDThat even architects like Rem Koolhaas, who have hitherto shown no sign of interest in sustainable building, are now designing eco cities is not entirely because it’s in fashion. Since Al Gore’s fi lm and book An Inconvenient Truth many architects have become genu-inely concerned about the future of planet Earth and are showing a new engagement, something they avoided since the rise of post-modernism in the 1980s. Young architects – and in architecture young means those under 40 – are even more engaged with the environment and sustain-ability: at the 2008 International Architecture Exhibition in Venice dozens of young Western architects showed designs that were not only sustainable, but also had to counter the loss of public space and the increasing segregation of population groups in Western cit-ies. In most cases they are paper projects that will probably never be built. But they showed a social engagement unseen in international architecture since the 1920s, when modernist architects thought they could change the world with their designs.

NEO-EXPRESSIONISMOddly enough, the global breakthrough of sustainable architecture and urban planning is not coupled with a return to the plainness of functionalism. On the contrary, the fi rst decade of the 21st century saw the global spread of a sculptural architecture best described as

was needed to build them and they also took up less space. Embel-lishments were out of the question because they were useless and therefore uneconomic. Paradoxically, though, that frugal functionalism has resulted in remarkably non-sustainable building. In the West, as well as in former communist countries like East Germany, buildings designed according to functionalist principles are now being demolished en masse. And, as we know, demolition is the building sector’s least sustainable activity. Precisely because of their high degree of effi ciency they no longer meet the new, different living requirements of the early 21st century’s globalised world. What is more, their industrialised con-struction method makes them extremely diffi cult to adapt. So the minimal homes geared to the nuclear family of 50 years ago in plac-es like Amsterdam’s Westelijke Tuinsteden (Western Garden Cities) – the Mecca of modernistic urban planning – are now giving way to new, more spacious and fl exible housing.

OVERSIZEGiven the bankruptcy of functionalism, it would be logical to infer that the sustainable buildings are precisely the more spacious ones with what architects call oversize. Oversize allows for fl exible use and allows buildings to be easily adapted to future and as yet un-known requirements. So Frank Bijdendijk, director of Stadsgoed, an Amsterdam housing association, acted accordingly. Stadsgoed is currently building so-called ‘solids’ in Amsterdam, buildings with heavy shells of large dimensions suitable for various uses. Although large, heavy and spacious construction may well be the most sustain able form of building, few have followed Bijdendijk’s example as yet. In architecture as a whole sustainability is still con-fi ned to smart, often technological solutions to save energy and raw and manufactured materials, and reduce carbon emissions. The usual energy- and material-saving sustainability gained ascendancy during the 1970s oil crises. Still known at the time as environmentally-aware or green building, sustainability was prac-tised by a small group of enthusiastic architects whose work was associated with cranky vegetarianism by many of their colleagues. But during the 1990s green building became more widespread in the West and the adjec-tive green was replaced by sustainable. Ten years later, sustainable building has become a worldwide phenomenon. Even in China, which has never allowed the West to dictate to it about carbon emissions, for example, sustainable building is gaining ground.

ECO CITIESNear Shanghai, building is starting on the Dongtan Eco City, a sus-tainable city designed by the German architect Albert Speer Jr. It is just one of the many sustainable projects in the pipeline in China, many of them designed by star architects from the West. Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country that showed little remorse until recently about having the world’s biggest ecological footprint, has taken to sustainable building. There, in the middle of the desert

Even in China, which has never let the West dictate to it aboutcarbon emissions,sustainable building is gaining ground

The sustainable Dongtan Eco City, near Shanghai.


S T A T E M E N T08

neo-expressionism. Neo, because the sculptural stations, bridges, museums, theatres, cultural centres and offi ce buildings, by archi-tects like the Spaniard Santiago Calatrava, the Iraqi Zaha Hadid and the American Frank O. Gehry, evoke the exuberant expressionism of nearly a century ago of designers such as the Amsterdam School architect Michel de Klerk. Roughly speaking, neo-expressionism has two variants. The fi rst one, with its complex forms full of curves and bends, is popu-lar with architects like Ben van Berkel, who believed that the advent of the computer would bring fundamental changes in architecture. A good example is Van Berkel’s design for the Museum of Middle

Eastern Modern Art, to be built in Dubai. The second type of expressionism features lumpy sculptures, often consisting of adaptations of architectural archetypes like the box, made ac-cording to the following recipe: Take a box, make indentations in it, or even a hole, add bulges to taste and behold: a neo-expressionist building. The Dutch fi rm Neutelings Riedijk, responsible for the large, nearly completed Stadsmuseum in

Antwerp, pioneered this variant.

ICONIC ARCHITECTURENeo-expressionism is a style pre-eminently suitable for making icons, the colossal, spectacular landmarks which have appeared in recent years around the globe, particularly in the Middle East and China. The current boom in this ‘iconic architecture’ started in 1997 with Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Ever since this rundown industrial city in northern Spain became a tourist attrac-tion, thanks to Gehry’s curvy, gleaming sculpture, every European, American and Asian city has wanted a similar building. Other cli-ents, such as large companies, oil sheiks in the Middle East and Chi-nese public institutions, also want an architectural tour de force for their logo – a fi ne example is London’s giant steel and glass gherkin-like Swiss Re Tower built for the reinsurer in 2005. There are now so many icons in the world, with even more in the pipeline, that some critics and architects think enough is enough. So last year Koolhaas’ OMA offi ce built an anti-icon in Dubai’s Ras al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary in the shape of a simple narrow box lying on its side. Although Koolhaas himself has given Beijing a colossal icon, the loop-shaped building designed for the Chinese television network CCTV, he lashed out against iconic ar-chitecture at the presentation of his design. Dubai faced a choice, asserted Koolhaas: it could join other cities in the ‘crazy and mind-less race’ for spectacular buildings, or it could build anti-icons and so ‘become the 21st century’s fi rst credible city in the architectural sphere’. He even used the word ‘renaissance’: Dubai had a chance to make a fresh start in architecture.

GOTHIC CATHEDRALSWhile Koolhaas has started many architectural fashions and trends, there is no chance of him being a trendsetter this time. For there is nothing new about iconic architecture; people have always built icons. On its opening in 1973 the Opera House in Sydney, an early

‘Building an anti-icon can

make Dubai the 21st century’s most credible city,

architecturally speaking’

Masdar.

The remarkable loop-shaped CCTV building in Beijing.


neo-expressionist creation by the Danish architect Jorn Ut-zon, instantly became the city icon. And Gothic cathedrals in many medieval European cities,

as well as the much older Parthenon in Athens, are icons pure and simple, though they were not called such until recently. The same goes for the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which roused vociferous protest 120 years ago. Already in 1887, 300 French art-ists including the writer Alexandre Dumas and the architect Charles Garnier, protested in Le Temps newspaper against building the ‘monstrous and useless Eiffel Tower’ for the 1889 World Fair. Their criticism sounds familiar: what Koolhaas says about Dubai is much the same as what the French artists said then about Paris. ‘Will Paris be irreparably damaged and dishonoured?’ they asked the readers. ‘Will Paris be associated with a mechanical engineer’s grotesque and mercantile image and be irreparably damaged and dishonoured in the process?’

Architects are only toohappy to fulfill the global

demand for icons

The glass and steel Swiss Re Tower in London is truly a modern icon.


10S T A T E M E N T

SPECTACLE SOCIETYThe only difference – the staggering number of icons currently being built – is clearly due to one thing: globalisation. It’s not just the West, the explosively expanding cities in Asia and the oil sheiks in the Middle East also want their own icons and have the money to pay for them as well. Architects are only too happy to fulfi l the glob al demand for icons. After all, iconic architecture makes them famous. They know that respectable but inconspicuous boxes won’t get them into the magazines, but spectacle architecture will. That way everybody, clients and providers, profi ts from icons: the ‘spec-tacle society’ demands, and gets, ‘spectacle architecture’ in abun-dance. The credit crisis, which is turning into an economic crisis, may well slow down the rate at which icons appear. And there’s a possibility that the crisis may last so long that the icons will change – the abstract sculptures now so popular could be replaced with neo-classical colossi, for example.

VISIONSNeo-expressionism has also caught on in the Netherlands. Archi-tectural fi rms like Mecanoo and Claus en Kaan, which started out some 20 years ago as neo-modernists, no longer recoil from the idea of sculptural buildings. Sometimes, like Jeanne Dekkers with her dark brick Training Institute for Care and Welfare in Amsterdam, they literally refer to buildings of the Amsterdam School. It is tempting to note the similarities between the era of ex-pressionism and that of neo-expressionism. Expressionism sprang up during the fi rst globalisation and the Second World War; neo-expressionism appeared during the second globalisation and the War on Terror. And as the impact of the First World War made people pessimistic about the future of Europe, yet optimistic about the New World that could be built from the ruins of war, so is the second globalisation coupled with visions of the decline of the West and prophecies about the wonderful new world the digital age will bring.

RETRO-ARCHITECTURENeo-expressionism appeared in the Nether-lands before neo-traditionalism, the posh term for the retro-architecture now ubiquitous in the Netherlands. Ten years ago when the fi rst size-able neo-traditionalist projects appeared in the Netherlands – like The Hague’s De Resident dis-

trict, with an urban plan by the Luxembourger Rob Krier – many were thoroughly shocked. After all, at that time the Netherlands was known as the ‘most modern architecture country in the world’ thanks among others to OMA and MVRDV. It was pre-eminently the country of ‘supermodernism’, a term coined by the critic Hans Ibelings for the global, anonymous architecture without context that looks the same from Amsterdam’s Zuidas to Shanghai. Super-modernism, according to Ibelings, was the architecture of the glob-alisation era and signalled the end once and for all of 1970s post-modernism – a style that had largely bypassed the Netherlands. But just when postmodernism was pronounced dead, it broke through in the Netherlands in the form of neo-traditionalism.

The abstract sculptures now so popular could be replaced with

neo-classical colossi

The Hague’s De Resident district is one of the fi rst neo-traditionalist projects in the Netherlands.


MARKET-ORIENTEDInitially, neo-traditionalist buildings were nearly all the work of foreign architects – after all, postmodernism was taboo for most Dutch architects – but the more popular neo-traditionalism became, the more they took to it. In 2009 neo-traditionalism is now by far the most popular style, particularly in Dutch house-building. Dutch neo-traditionalist architects are increasingly going back to old-Dutch or even regional architecture. In the Nether-lands, neo-traditionalist houses generally have brick exterior walls. But for the past two years, more and more Dutch architectural fi rms, such as Onix, have started to use wood as the principal build-ing material. Wood is also being used in response to the demand for sustainable architecture – it is regarded as a sustainable and natural material. As a result, Dutch neo-traditionalism is showing a closer resemblance to the regionalism that is emerging in Scandinavia, the Baltic states and other Eastern European countries in particular. Here too, young architects especially are going back to old regional architecture, often executed in wood, the traditional building mate-rial in these countries. The remarkable success of both the Dutch neo-traditional-ism and the Eastern-European regionalism is easy to understand. Besides ensuring that the same supermodernistic airports and offi ce buildings appear all over the world, globalisation arouses in many

people both in and outside the Netherlands a longing for the calm, orderly world of their grandparents. Neo-traditionalistic housing satisfi es this desire: the houses with dark brick façades and black or red tiled roofs give their oc-cupants the reassuring feeling that not everything in the globalised world is governed by change. The huge scale at which this desire is being satisfi ed in the Netherlands is rooted in the privatisation in the early 1990s of the housing associations and housing corporations. Since then, it is no longer the housing associations, under the umbrella of the central government, that build most of the houses, but the real estate developers and commercial builders. And they give their ear to the market. Dutch architecture in the fi rst decade of the 21st century is thus more in step with the rest of the world. For in countries like the United States, where the market has always dominated the housing sector, most housing has never been anything but traditional. <<<

Globalisation causes a deep longing for the orderly world of our grandparents

The Training Institute for Care and Welfare in Amsterdam refers to the buildings of the Amsterdam School.


12

‘Designersconcentrate on the object, I look primarily at howthat object affects a space’

Specialist ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER CHRISTIAN BIECHER:

S T A T E M E N T


Form gives structure to ideas, says the French architect and designer Christian Biecher. From small utensils to complete urban areas, in his extensive and varied oeuvre form is paramount.

in space BY RUUD SL IER INGS PHOTOGRAPHY: CBA, PHIL IPPE PROVILY/

DE BEELDREDAKTIE

I N T E R V I E W

BIECHER IS A ‘GLUTTON’ IN THE DESIGN WORLD. AC-tive in the United States, Asia and Europe in particular, he designs areas, buildings, interiors and products, from hospitals to mobile phones, to libraries and lighting, furniture and cutlery. There is lit-tle Biecher has not gone into. As an architect, a designer or, some say, even as an artist. He fi nds that amusing: ‘I’m certainly not an artist, if I were I wouldn’t be concerned about the context I work in, with all its constraints. And that certainly does engage me. I am primarily an architect, an architect who designs buildings, interiors and objects, all with the same level of respect. Because I work in various disciplines, I force myself to shift from the one scale to the other. That’s instructive and keeps me on my toes.’

RUSSIAN DOLLSThough Biecher dislikes pigeonholing things, he realises there is an obvious difference between architects and designers: designers are often unassuming, whereas architects often behave as if they rule over their creation. But that is just outward show. And there are differences at the production level: ‘The logic is different. You don’t duplicate a building, but that’s precisely what you do with a piece of furniture or mobile phone. So in design, aspects like reduction and compression also play a role when it comes to keeping produc-tion costs manageable.’ But, says Biecher, the crux of the matter is that architects are not predestined to design buildings all their life, just as a designer does not have to stick to creating objects: ‘Take those Russian dolls. The smallest doll fi ts in a bigger one, which in turn fi ts in another one that’s a little bigger, and so on. I see it this way: someone sits on


‘The evolution of the world with all its surprises

and constraints is my field’

After graduating in 1988 from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-Belleville, Christian Biecher worked as assistant to the French-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi. In 1997 Biecher founded his own firm: CBA / Christian Biecher & As-sociés. Since then he has great number of diversified works to his name, from restaurants, hospitals and office buildings to furniture, fabrics, lighting and other products, many of them put into production by top brands like Christofle, Lancôme, Bac-carat and Bernhardt Design.

C H R I S T I A N B I E C H E R

sion: ‘Designers concentrate on the object itself, my main concern is how that object affects the space. I think my architectural training has something to do with it. My starting point is always the space.’ A good illustration of Biecher’s thinking and approach is to be found in the Fauchon Restaurants, a global restaurant chain for which he did the interior design. The chair he designed for them is not so much a designer chair as a piece of furniture made specifi cally for that place. Biecher certainly did not intend the chair to become a worldwide hit afterwards: ‘It really is a piece of architect-furniture, suitable for Fauchon. I couldn’t possibly design a chair a month just like that, I wouldn’t know how to. I designed the Fauchon chair for a certain moment in a certain space, for the comfort of the people who experience that particular moment. Only after that did it be-come an icon.’

URBAN ACUPUNCTUREYou might regard his fascination for products from the human liv-ing environment as a kind of zooming-in. But Biecher also zooms out. For an extension to La Grande Motte, a town built in the 1970s on the south coast of France, he has gone into area development: ‘There, as the leader of a team of landscape designers and urban planners, I can put my experience as an architect and designer to good use. I fi nd that combination important in such a situation: I see the buildings before me as well things like street lighting or waste bins. For an area developer it is even more important to create opportunities for events and encounters. Look at it as a sort of urban acupuncture: you stimulate activity at a great number of points and all those activities together make up your physical envi-ronment. My background as architect and designer is helpful here. One of my obsessions is creating possibilities for social interaction. Not in a virtual world like Facebook, but physically, in the built

environment. In the real world you can touch something or someone, you see the light refl ect-ed, you drive past buildings, things are tangible. That really blows my mind.’

In that respect Biecher also saddles him-self with a certain responsibility; as area devel-oper he is the one who can create context: ‘That feels like a huge responsibility! If I say things

a chair, works in an offi ce, that offi ce is located in an environment and that environment fi ts in an even larger whole, the neighbour-hood, the city or the world. Each element is part of one large space and all are related to one another.’

SHAPE AND FORMAccording to Biecher, form is the essence of the tangible, visible world around us: ‘It all starts with form. Shape is the physical ex-pression of form. While form is also physical, it is primarily the intellectual basis of shape. Form gives structure to an idea.’ During his architectural training in Paris form was taboo. For Biecher that was almost like a red rag to a bull, he has, as he says, been into form ever since: ‘I also use form as a kind of provocation. When I was a student it was a sin to think in terms of form. It all had to be conceptual. I don’t believe in that. When I fi rst became an architect I won a prize with my design for a library in the South of France. After that I simply had to do something different. I went into ceramics, because I needed to be able to put my hands into clay. I needed that in order to “extend” myself in physical forms. Not as a therapy, but to get a balance. Form is also a constant thing. Even if human beings become extinct or if all the languages disappear, form will still be there.’

HOLISTIC VIEWBiecher bridges the gap between architecture and industrial design, he combines construction and innovation, technology and imple-mentation. You could even call him a total designer. As developers graduate from buildings to areas, so Biecher is increasingly with aspects of the living environment. Given his holistic view of archi-tecture and design, one would expect his mindset to be far broader than that of architects or designers who stick to their chosen profes-

S T A T E M E N T14


‘It all starts with form’

must be physical, then I also have to make sure they work. That is a heavy burden, but it’s a great honour as well.’

ZOOMING OUTYet Biecher is content in a role that allows him, along with his spe-cifi c design work, to get an almost ‘helicopter view’ of projects: ‘I don’t know what I’ll be doing in fi ve years’ time, but I do know that the evolution of the world with all its surprises and constraints is my area of expertise. I am working on increasingly large projects, in terms of area and time. I like that, because it usually means I have more time and space to refl ect on them.’ In a sense, Biecher is following an unconventional path.

While many of his colleagues specialise in specifi c areas, he wants to take an increasingly bigger and broader approach to things. One of his favourite models is the British architect David Chipperfi eld: ‘He makes huge projects, employs hundreds of people, has offi ces in different countries, but he hasn’t forgotten how he got there. He spent years designing small shops, nothing special. But that gave him the kind of modesty you need when you look at large urban projects. After that he was ready for the large scale. That really appeals to me, looking from the small to the large, zooming out ever further. Modesty is a precondition for being able to get close to the psychology of projects, and therefore of people in particular.’ <<<

From left to right: Chaumon chair for Drucker; Trois Roses crystal vase for Baccarat; Fauchon Casablanca; Drop cutlery for Christofl e; Starship in Prague.


16S T A T E M E N T

Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Rem Koolhaas are regular visitors to the UK engineering consultancy Arup, whose engi-neers use CAD software to defy gravity again and again. With their digital wizardry buildings become marvels to behold.

Wrestling with ARUP’S SPECTACULAR SOFTWARE

BY JACO BOER, PHOTOGRAPHY: ARUP, BEN MCMILLAN,

CHRIS CLOAG/DE BEELDREDAKTIE

The bubbles of the Watercube light up at night.


gravity Computer images of the Watercube’s structure.

Tristram Carfrae (left) and J Parrish


18S T A T E M E N T

A R U PThe UK engineering consultancy Arup is best-known for its designs for high-profile buildings by star architects. The mixed-use project Zlote Tarasy in the heart of Warsaw was recently completed. The undulating canopy of the atrium soon became a landmark in Poland’s capital. In recent years Arup has also been involved in various attractive infrastructural projects, such as the tunnel/bridge across the Øresund that con-nects Malmö in Sweden with Copenhagen in Denmark. At its highest point the 16-kilometre-long connection rises to 70 metres above sea level. Together with Norman Foster’s office they also won the competition to build the Millennium Bridge over the Thames in London. It was the first new bridge across the river since the Tower Bridge was built in 1894.Its information technology activities may be less high-profile, but Greenwich in the UK was very pleased with the IT network that was set up by Arup to connect a number of schools and com-munity centres. The firm also helped to develop new software that may bring the production of cleaner cars a step closer. More surprising was its involvement in designing a new lighting plan for the Louis Vuitton shops. An exceptional project likely to create a furore is the spectacular canopy over a square in the city centre of Seville. It will be an undulating sculpture of six-metre-high parasols of reinforced wood. Besides providing much-needed shade for the people of the neighbourhood, the mush-room-like structure also encompasses a covered market and a museum about the Roman excava-tions in the area. Locals can have a bite to eat on a raised square or idle away their time on terraces. And the roof offers a dazzling view of the city centre’s age-old roofs.

‘You can program the

software to be as

fl exible as you want’

THE WISHES OF THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES WERE considerable. Design the best swimming centre in the world; one that is sustainable, beautiful, uses the best technology and will cost 100 million dollars. The design team responded with an earthquake-proof swimming pool lit and heated largely through its transparent skin by the sun. Glass was not used for the walls and the roof due for acoustic reasons. The danger of oxidation meant the steel roof supports were positioned outside the building. And of course it looked wonderful.

A STACK OF BUBBLESA list of such ambitions would make most engineers rather nervous.

But not Tristram Carfrae. With computer pro-grams designed by himself and a large dose of creativity, the 49-year-old Australian man-ages every time to breathe life into the most curious designs. One of Arup’s most talented en gineers, he pushes gravity to the limit every day. Yet even for him the Beijing commission was something special. ‘The building has such an unusual form that we had to develop a lot of new software to be able to do the calculations. And there was a very tight deadline. We met it thanks to the close collaboration with our Chi-nese and Australian colleagues.’

Last summer in Beijing the result was there for all to admire. A stone’s throw from the equally spectacular ‘Bird’s Nest’, the cube-shaped building has walls that appear to consist of stacked bubbles. A geometrically perfect skeleton of 20,000 steel pipes keeps the 4,000 transparent membranes of insulating ETFE foil in place. Another new icon for China.

WILDEST DREAMSThe Beijing Olympics were a provisional highpoint for Arup. As well as the Olympic pool, it was also involved in designing the Olympic Stadium and the city’s new airport. It testifi es to the rep-utation the consultancy has built over the last 60 years. What is designed by the 10,000 staff spread over 80 offi ces worldwide can be realised and is solid as a rock. Though not the largest consultancy in its fi eld, Arup is re-garded by many as the most extraordinary. Time and again its en-gineers succeed in making the wildest dreams of architects come true. It’s no wonder that renowned architects like Norman Foster, Renzo Piano or Rem Koolhaas are so keen to work with Arup. Many of the buildings to which the fi rm has contributed are among the best these architects have designed. From London’s rocket-


shaped Swiss Re offi ce, to the head offi ce of Chinese state television in Beijing and Kansai Airport in Japan, Arup worked on them all.

THINK TANKThe predecessors of today’s star architects were also keen to work with the engineering consultancy’s whiz kids. Virtually every post-war architect of any standing has set foot in its London head offi ce. Ove Arup, the company’s founder, was also a fervent admirer of modern architecture, especially the work of Le Corbusier. As mem-ber of a think tank he was affi liated with the Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) and before World War II got to know many modern architects personally. Thanks to his knowl-edge of reinforced concrete he was a sought-after partner. Though the new material enabled architects to design hitherto impossible forms, unlike Ove Arup, they lacked the knowledge and mathemat-ical insight to determine the correct mixture of steel and cement. For contemporary architects, up-to-date knowledge of mate-rials and building techniques is not the only reason to collaborate with the engineering fi rm. Arup has also built a considerable rep-utation in working with CAD (computer-aided design) software. For the construction industry it would be impossible to imagine life without these ingenious design programs. Many projects are now so complex that designs can only be presented in a three-dimen-sional form. What’s more, CAD programs are prodigious calcula-tors. Complicated sums that once took engineers days to complete can now be done in a matter of minutes.

PARAMETRIC DESIGNArchitect J Parrish knows all about that. Before coming to Arup, he was involved in designing Sydney’s Olympic Stadium. ‘It took me ten days at most to design the building. Then three colleagues spent two days each on it. That was fast for those days.’ As always since the start of his career, he used programs he had designed him-self. Much in demand as a designer of sports complexes, he was, for example, responsible for the fi rst CAD program with which the interior of a stadium could be quickly and easily designed. The distance between the seats, the width of the aisles and the sightlines from the tribunes: all rolled out of the computer in a fl ash. Meanwhile Parrish, already a step further, is exploring the possibilities of parametric design. In such programs a number of frequently recurring steps in the design process have been made fully automatic. Besides saving time, that also greatly facilitates the calculation of diverse alternatives. In Parrish’s view this type of de-sign is the thing of the future. Some people fear that these new pro-grams will result in uniform sports complexes. But Parrish waives that aside. ‘Every club wants its own individual stadium. In any

‘We prefer to think with the architect about every aspect of the design from the outset’

case, the customs and regulations are different in different places. You can program the software as fl exibly as you want.’

PARTNERS IN CRIMEKnow-how and expertise are not the only factors of importance – it has to click between a client and an engineer. If the chemistry between partners is not right you can forget your top design. Renzo Piano in a foreword to a book about Arup is quite defi nite about that. In the most favourable circumstances, he says, engineers are partners in crime who support an architect at diffi cult moments. Carfrae agrees. ‘Most engineering fi rms are geared to solving iso-lated problems. We prefer to think with the architect about every aspect of the design from the outset.’ That multidisciplinary approach is perhaps one of the rea-sons why Arup always manages to attract the best engineers. Many who started there after graduating, remain with Arup for the rest of their career. Despite its huge growth most of the work at Arup is still done in small, independently operating project teams. With diffi cult problems they can fall back on the expertise of specialists, thereby combining a broad view with detailed knowledge. Though Arup has a considerable reputation among col-leagues and clients, when a spectacular building is completed the media often only has eyes for the star architect. The engineer who made it possible to realise the design comes off second-best. Carfrae does fi nd that a bit frustrating: ‘Although we are getting more rec-ognition for our part in it than we used to.’ He thinks things may change in the future due to the increasing complexity of projects. ‘In design teams architects are still in charge, but they expect more and more input from other players. The time that an architect could claim a building only for himself may be over.’ <<<

The structural analysis model of Zlote Tarasy’s roof included a sliding snow loadcase.


20S T A T E M E N T

Zooming in on Recent decades have seen a huge increase in the number of building materials. Wood, stone and metal have been joined by the most remarkable fabricated materials. Thanks to nanotechnology and biomimetics, some can even change colour or react to sound.

BY JACO BOER, PHOTOGRAPHY: CORBIS

EVERY DAY PEOPLE PEER IN THE MIRROR AND ASK themselves, what shall I wear? Light summer trousers with a khaki shirt, or a grey pullover and a black skirt? Some clothes will suit the season more than others. But equally important is what image we want to project. The same applies to companies. How an offi ce or building is fi tted out is partially responsible for the image people have of the business. So architects need to consider very carefully which materials, or combinations of materials, to use in their de-signs. Are natural materials like brick and wood the best match for the company profi le or is it possible to experiment with the latest

RESEARCH AND INNOVATION


materials

It sounds like science-fi ction, but offi ces with climate-controlled façades and self-cleaning windows are closer than you think

plastics? And how does that effect the ecosystem and our environ-ment?

HUGE RANGEAs the climate infl uences what people wear, so must architects take a diversity of technological requirements into account when choos-ing materials. A seaside shopping centre needs external walls that are resistant to blazing sun and salty sea wind. And a client may insist that only sustainable materials be used. The fact that every material has its own characteristics makes it easy for architects to meet those

requirements. The trick, though, is to select from the huge range on offer precisely what is needed to meet those requirements. Take stone: an architect can choose from 8,000 different kinds, each with its own characteristics. And every day sees the appearance of new materials that are even stronger, lighter, eco-friendlier, more fl exible or more sound-absorbent than existing products.

NANOTECHNOLOGYIt used to be so much simpler. You had to make do with natural materials sourced from the surrounding area. In southern Europe


22S T A T E M E N T

the fi nest kinds of stone were hacked out of the mountains, and in delta areas robust bricks were made from slabs of clay. Wood was another widely used natural material with a different shape and character, depending on where it came from. Only in the 19th cen-tury did steel and glass take over architecture. Buildings became higher and more transparent. Reinforced concrete allowed archi-tects to span much larger spaces without having to use extra pillars. And in the 1950s all sorts of new plastics came on the market. The range of materials was greater than ever. Meanwhile we have moved on and we even have materials that change colour or shape, emit light or react to sound. Nano-technology in particular has accelerated the discovery of new prod-ucts. In 1981 scientists using a special microscope were able for the fi rst time to distinguish the individual molecules of materials. Nine years later, a research team succeeded in getting the individual atoms of a product to move, which enabled them to manipulate its qualities. This enabled previously fl ammable wood types to be protected against fi re with a natural fi bre.

SMART MATERIALSThis revolutionary discovery appears to have unlimited possibilities. The drawbacks are being removed from materials that were previ-ously too heavy, light-sensitive or dangerous to people’s health. We can now make materials with the qualities we need, or reduce the qualities we need less of to meet certain requirements. That is good news for the environment. Things are looking particularly bright for materials that react to outside infl uences, the so-called smart materials. There are now fl oors or walls, for instance, that change their colour and smell in response to heat, not to mention photo-chromatic glass that darkens when exposed to ultraviolet radiation – not a bright prospect for window cleaners. But facility managers will welcome the coating that transforms the dirt on windows when

exposed to sunlight, so that it washes off the glass when it rains. It sounds like science-fi ction, but offi ces with climate-controlled façades and self-cleaning windows are closer than you think. Developing these new materials is still extremely expensive. And it takes a while for innovations to fi lter through to the con-struction industry. For the time being, nanotechnology will largely be used in the building industry to produce coatings that provide existing products with better protection against unwanted outside infl uences. The paint industry for example is already working with anti-graffi ti coatings and heat- or scratch-resistant paints. Other useful products are coatings that make it easier to keep taps and shower heads clean and the anti-rust treatments for metal.

BIOMIMETICSAnother promising source of innovative mate-rials is biomimetics. In this branch of science researchers study plants and animals in order to mimic their features in processes and products. The plumage of a penguin, for example, can yield valuable information of use when it comes to fabricating glass wool blankets for insulation.

The Japanese are currently studying the characteristic resilience of the snake-like sea cucumber for clues on how to produce even bet-ter foundations for earthquake-prone areas. Many of these innovations are discovered in other sectors before the building industry takes them on board. Space travel has been a particularly fruitful source of innovation. NASA, for in-stance developed the ultralight Aerogel, which consists of 98 per cent air and insulates 20 per cent better than traditional glass. And research in the sports world often leads to interesting products for architects and building contractors. Outlast, for example, a tem-perature-balancing material incorporated in sports clothing, is now being used in ceiling panels and plasterwork.

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE In recent years the discovery of new materials has rapidly acceler-ated. Scientists in different sectors and disciplines are collaborating more closely than ever, thereby optimising the exchange of knowl-edge and the resultant cross-fertilisation. The explosive increase in the calculation capacity of computers has also contributed to a faster rate of innovation. What is more, CAD software makes it far easier for construction engineers to calculate the amount of mate-rial needed in certain places to make them strong enough. Which means that raw materials can then be used more effi ciently, benefi t-ing both the budget and the environment. In any case, the growing demand for products that degrade the earth as little as possible will soon compel inventors to work more than before according to sustainable principles. Poorly de-gradable materials like chemical coatings and products consisting of several components are on the way out. Clever researchers, then, will concentrate more on innovations that help to limit the use of raw materials or the emission of dangerous substances. <<<

Space travel has been a particularly fruitful source of innovation


‘I AGREE WITH THAT PROPOSITION,’ SAYS BMW’S DIRECTOR OF DESIGN Adrian van Hooydonk, who is responsible for designing the new BMW 7 series. ‘Both are inspiring and in my case literally new lines arise based on those impressions. So I feel part artist and part de-signer. Obviously I am not as free as an artist. I can’t permit myself to produce a one-off, my designs have to still be functional yet modern in eight years’ time.’ Although architects do infl uence him, his designs do not contain visible references to the great master builders, such as the deux chevauxBauhaus circle. He does have to take account of things like the shark-nose grille and the typical BMW design feature in the car’s C-pillar, the Hofmeister-kink. ‘Then again a car is fundamentally different from a building. With a car the surroundings change and within those changing surroundings the design must be able to hold its own. An architect is concerned with fi xed values. I with changing values. Ideally speaking, when you see the front of a car you also want to know what it looks like from the side and the back. If you know how to in-corporate that tension you’re doing a good job. If I can tell what a building looks like from the back when I glance at the front, I lose interest. That’s why I fi nd the architect Frank O. Gehry’s buildings so exciting. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is a building that really has pace, just as a car design has to have a certain dynamism. There you have the similarity I think between architecture and car design; it must invite you to explore it, attract you to it, and hold your attention. Compare the new BMW 7 for my part with the Guggenheim. I can live with that.’ <<<

BY PAUL STEENHOFF, PHOTOGRAPHY: INGMAR SIEGRAM

ADRIAN VAN HOOYDONK, DIRECTOR OF DESIGN AT BMW

The interface between architecture and design is a stimulating source of inspira-tion for those practising the art of design.‘The new

BMW 7 is as exciting as the Guggenheim’

23S T A T E M E N T

DES

IGN

& A

RCH

ITEC

TURE


24S T A T E M E N T

ATTRACTIVE ARCHITECTURE IS scarce on the ground in the suburbs of Par-is. Hastily built apartment complexes, spa-ghetti junctions, depressing shopping cen-tres, deserted industrial estates – for which the Dutch architect Winy Maas coined the term ‘mocheness’, an anglicised version of the French word moche, meaning ugly. That ugliness is not limited to the notori-ous barrack-like housing of Clichy-sous-Bois in the north-east, but extends all the way to districts like Les Piramides in Évry to the south. ‘At a recent meeting with mayors from the suburbs, I noticed they had all adopted the word coined by Maas,’ says Paul Koch, ING Real Estate France’s director of Development and indirectly involved with the Greater Paris project launched last year by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Opposite him, in his offi ce near the stately Parc Monceau, sits Jacques Mar-seille, Professor of Economic History at the Sorbonne, author of such bestsellers as Le Grand Gaspillage (on the great wastage of public spending) and a thorn in the fl esh

Jacques Marseille, intellectual and economist, and Paul Koch, ING Real Estate France’s country manager, exchange ideas about the situation in the French real estate market. About the illusion known as Greater Paris, the need for schools with strict discipline and op-portunity for entrepreneurial initiative.

E X P E R T O P I N I O N

of French politicians, whose illusions he is in the habit of destroying with indisputible fi gures. According to Marseille, Sarkozy’s Greater Paris is one such illusion. Last spring, the hyperactive president unfolded his ambition to open up Paris, a 19th-cen-tury treasure, and link it with its 20th-cen-tury crown of poor and wealthy suburbs. Ten leading architects (including the Rot-terdam offi ce MVRVD’s Winy Maas, men-tioned above) were asked to come up with ideas for Greater Paris. ‘But what is Great-er Paris?’ wonders Marseille. ‘Are the real problems of the suburbs being taken into account? As long as the French don’t face up to what they are, all plans are doomed from the start!’

PAUL KOCH: ‘To go back to that ugli-ness for a moment: that’s easy to explain. When the demand for cheap rented hous-ing exploded during the post-war recon-struction period, house-building became highly industrialised. Sustainability was not a concern and subsequently everything

BY MARI JN KRUK, PHOTOGRAPHY: EMILE LUIDER/

DE BEELDREDAKTIE

Paul Koch Jacques Marseille

24S T A T E M E N T

Paris versus the rest

Statement 1-2009-expert_opinion_p-24-27.indd 24Statement 1-2009-expert_opinion_p-24-27.indd 24 12-02-2009 11:14:4512-02-2009 11:14:45

was very poorly maintained. Whole cities were thrown up in that way and the munic-ipalities interpreted things as they wished. Bear in mind that the Île de France is an archipelago of about 1,100 municipalities, all with their own ideas. If a mayor wanted a shopping centre, he put one up. And the whole conurbation of Paris was fi lled up like that, all in a jumble, without any coor-dination at all.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘I don’t yet know whether a Greater Paris will be an improvement. After all, in the Île de France every decision is politically motivated. In the north the socialists call the shots, in the east and in the south left and right are in confl ict, and the rich live in the west. The political rivalry is horrendous! Paris itself is a factor apart. The centre is surrounded by a ring road that has taken the place of the 19th-century fortifi cations. There has always been that idea of Paris and the rest. The rest being those arriving at the stations of St. Lazare or Gare du Nord. So the idea

that you can put them all into one category is a complete illusion.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘Even so, I was surprised by what I observed during meetings of the mayors’ association AMIF where Greater Paris and the possible architectural projects were discussed. You fi nd socialists there, communists, conservatives, etc. They cer-tainly compete against the central govern-ment which wants to impose its will, but remarkably enough they were largely in agreement amongst themselves. The only thing that divided opinions was the trans-port issue.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘The real ques-tion is: why the continual emphasis on transport? The answer is simple: because that gives the authorities a pretext for not facing up to the ghettoisation of French society. Parents know perfectly well which schools they want their children to go or not, but the politicians and the administra-tors don’t want to acknowledge the fact that

Île de France is an island realm of different communities that shun each other: the mid-dle class shuns the lower middle class; the lower middle class shuns the workers and everybody shuns the immigrants. Trans-port is no solution, just as architecture can be no solution; even if you put up the most beautiful building in the world nobody will live there, because nobody wants to live near people they want to avoid.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘All the same, Manuel Valls – the mayor of Évry and rising star of the Socialist Party – still believes architecture can provide a solution. The development arm of ING Real Estate France, for exam-ple, after winning a developers’ competi-tion in which the entire developers’ market participated, is trying to build affordable quality housing in the centre of Évry. Valls believes that if you deliver attractive and sound architecture you can attract people from neighbouring municipalities. Up un-til now, however, that has not happened; the only people who want to live there are

JACQUES MARSEILLE:

‘It’s always been a case of Paris and everything else.The idea that you can put all thattogether in one category is an illusion’


26S T A T E M E N T

those from Évry itself. But, unlike Jacques, I still believe that somebody like Valls can achieve things in his municipality, because it is possible to change such a zone. Before this, I spent 12 years in Prague where we had a similar situation: and there we com-pletely changed things. Branding is crucial. Building alone is not enough, you also have to work on the image of your city. That you do via information, advertising cam-paigns, etc. With the Seine beside it Évry has so many possibilities. Why does no-body make use of them?!’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘Parents leave those districts because they know their children will be in a class with 40 different nationalities and that their school results will lag behind. If you take a map of the Île de France and compare the house prices with the school results you will see what I mean. What you have to do is, like the Brit-ish, provide good schools ruled by strict discipline, with excellent teachers, so that the schools can again become places the

students want to identify with.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘School is certainly impor-tant, but the scarcity of medium and small businesses is at least as serious a problem. The suburbs lack a creative and entrepre-neurial class. Take Évry and the impover-ished Les Piramides district. Rotterdam had a similar district which it sold for a token amount to young creatives and entrepre-neurs. You should see what they have made of it! School alone is not enough. There has to be scope for entrepreneurial initiative.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘Oddly enough there is plenty of that. A survey showed that 34 per cent of young French people wanted to start their own business. And last year, 330,000 new companies started up in France. A record. Now, after a re-cent measure, new start-ups only pay their initial taxes after they know what their annual turnover was. That is a signifi cant reform. Do you know how many busi-ness start-ups there were in the fi rst weeks

In Paris, the development branch of ING Real Estate participated in the ex-pansion of the Paris Rive Gauche busi-ness district around the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (François Mit-terrand site). This year, work starts on the construction of three buildings with 40,990 m2 of office space on the grounds of the former Claude Ber-nard hospital in the 19th arrondisse-ment.ING Real Estate is also active in many other parts of France, such as Lyon, where it is working on the ambi-tious Le Monolithe, a futuristic building with both housing and offices. Other projects include 30,000 m2 of retail space right beside the new Pompi-dou Centre in Metz, 450 high-quality houses, office space and shops in the centre of Évry and, at five locations near Bordeaux, innovative housing designed by, among others, the ar-chitect and Pritzker prize winner Jean Nouvel. ING Real Estate is also active in Nantes, Mulhouse, Tours, Valenci-ennes, Saint-Brieux and Le Havre.

I N G R E A L E S T A T E F R A N C E

S T A T E M E N T


of January? Two thousand. A day! But do you know what is really fascinating about France? It has every possible trump: tour-ism, a favourable geographical position, gas-tronomy, inventiveness. The really strikingthing about us is our ability not to use any of them; our talent for leaving our trump cards untouched! What is happening now is that anyone who has the chance to leave the Île de France region moves away to the west of the country and the Mediterranean. Many elderly people do that. Their place is taken by immigrants from countries like Mali, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. Paris will eventually become a kind of Washington: a wealthy white centre surrounded by poor districts where blacks live in ghettos. Mean-while you see the revival of provincial cities that had lain dormant since the 19th cen-tury: Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Rennes, Nantes – plenty of building is going on there. The weight of Paris as the centre of France is declining and we are witnessing a major territorial reshuffl e.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘I am still not so sure about that: Île de France continues to be the area where most of the money is earned.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘Even so. Twen-ty years ago 22 per cent of the French na-tional income was earned in the in Île de France and 21 per cent of that was also spent there. Now 30 per cent of the national income is earned in the Île de France and 22 per cent is spent there. Which means that 8 per cent is spent elsewhere. The French paradox is that people earn money where they don’t want to live and spend money where they would like to live.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘It is a strange country! But interesting for real estate companies. Espe-cially if they do things thoroughly, because there is a huge demand for housing and what is built is usually of poor quality. You often hear it said: “good architecture is ex-pensive architecture”, but that is not neces-sarily so. Good architecture does not have to be expensive, provided it is realised with

knowledge of building methods, of materi-als and of architectural details, and as long as you use the know-how of local building companies. In France it can certainly be done 25 to 30 per cent cheaper.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘That offers huge opportunities given the demographic developments. Economic crisis or not: that demography is a major trump card. What other European country can say nowadays: we need 300,000 to 400,000 houses a year. But the monopoly of building giants like Bouygues, Vinci and Eiffage must be bro-ken; they have cornered most of the mar-ket.’

PAUL KOCH: ‘We managed to do that in Lyon. ING formed a coordinated front with four companies from Lyon and we were able to divide the activities to our mutual benefi t. But the building costs per square metre constantly amaze me. In my time as urban planner for the Municipal-ity of Rotterdam I put up more than 2,000 social housing units in the Delfshaven dis-trict. But when I see how that goes here... incredible, incredible! Yet I know it is pos-sible to build cheaply in France.’

JACQUES MARSEILLE: ‘The economic crisis will affect house prices in particular. The French economist Jacques Friggit com-pares them in a curve, specially designed by him, with the income available to house-holds for real estate. Every time the limit of 1.2 is exceeded house prices go down. Over the last six to seven years house prices rose to such an extent that if you want to catch up with the trend at all those prices will have to go down by about 30 to 40 per cent. That’s good news for people who want to buy something, especially if the interest rate goes down. But it’s a problem for the builders of new houses. They can’t just cut their costs by 30 to 40 per cent. So if prices for materials remain high they have a seri-ous problem. On the other hand: the high demand for new homes continues unabat-ed, so anybody who can think how to build in France beautiful things for little money, will not be short of business in the years to come.’ <<<

‘The French paradox is that people earn money in places where they don’t want to live and spend money where they would like to live’

JACQUES MARSEILLE:


Form follows desire A spectacular new building sometimes puts a city or

region permanently on the map – something every city wants. In recent decades, the unceasing attempts of architects to make icons have led to a rash of such buildings.

I C O N I CA R C H I T E C T U R E

BY BERNARD HULSMAN, I L LUSTRATION: RONALD SLABBERS

IN THE PAST, AN ICON WAS A RELIGIOUS IMAGE OF Jesus, Mary or a saint. But today anything or anyone can be an icon, from pop stars to chairs, from politicians to paintings. In architec-ture, the ‘icon’ concept is also liable to infl ation. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge (1933) is, rightly, called an icon, as are new buildings in urban renewal districts far from being embedded in the collective memory. Like Parkrand, for example, a 2006 apartment box with fi ve huge holes in Amsterdam’s Nieuw-West district, de-signed by the Rotterdam architectural fi rm MVRDV. ‘The building will give the neighbourhood an iconographic quality which it pre-viously lacked,’ write the MVRDV architects on their site. Sometimes a building gets to be an icon because of its enor-mous height. Designed by the Argentinian architect Cesar Pelli,

Kuala Lumpur’s two phallic Petronas Towers (1998), linked by aerial walk-ways, became an icon simply because it was for a time the world’s tallest building. The same goes for the nearly completed Dubai Towers designed by the American fi rm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill: the

688-metre-high building is set to become the tallest in the world. But if a building is not uber-tall, it must have something striking in order to be an icon. But the globalised world, particularly the explosively growing cities in China, the Gulf states and other Asian countries, are producing so many iconic buildings that both critics

Critics and architects are getting bored with the count-

less sensational projects

28S T A T E M E N T


and architects are getting bored with them. More than a year ago, for example, Willem Jan Neutelings, one of the two partners in the Neutelings Riedijk fi rm, already denounced architectural icons in The Destiny of Architecture, his now famous lecture at Rotterdam’s Architecture 2 symposium. ‘Architects – perhaps uncomfortable because they have not managed to formulate solutions for global warming, the energy crisis, overpopulation or the poor housing in the conurbations – seem to be taking fl ight in exuberant designs and virtual debates, away from the everyday,’ stated Neutelings, who also has numerous iconic buildings to his name for that matter. The internationally renowned critic Hans Ibelings was even more vehement in his protest against icons. ‘Any self-respecting icon is a frivolous building, a building with a twist, its odd form one in a thousand, though there is already such a rash of icons that the uniqueness of the craze is subject to infl ation. Anyone who asks about the why of iconic architecture, gets no real answer. Why? Be-cause. Because there is a demand for it, because it’s possible. There for no apparent reason. Not, form follows function; not even, form follows fi ction. An icon, in the current sense, is not relevant, brings nothing to expression, lacks deeper meaning, has no raison d’être except the desire to be conspicuous. Producing iconic buildings is just as immaterial as David Beckham’s curling shots. After a while they look frightful.’

DEBAUCHING OF CURRENCYIcons have been under fi re for a long time. Deyan Sudjic, the present director of the Design Museum in London, already criticised the

phenomenon six years ago. ‘Icons are the architecture of diminish-ing returns in which every new sensational building must attempt to eclipse the last one,’ he wrote in an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian. ‘It leads to a kind of hyperinfl ation, the architec-tural equivalent of the Weimar Republic’s debauching of its cur-rency. Everybody wants an icon now.’ Sudjic’s bête noire was the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, who has in recent years built spectacular, organic cultural centres, museums and railway stations in Valencia, Milwaukee, Liège and many other parts of the world. In his view, Calatrava is a victim of his own success, who hides his lack of creativity with repetitions of his own work. In 2003 Sudjic said he expected that iconic architecture, like Art Nouveau around 1900, would be a short-lived phenomenon. But six years later, that prediction has clearly not proved correct. More icons are being built than ever before. That is because iconic buildings are not ‘there for no apparent reason’ and are more than just ‘fl ights from reality’.

PERMANENTIn his book The Iconic Building (2005), a response to Sudjic and other English-speaking critics of iconic architecture, the British-American architecture critic Charles Jencks shows that icons are an essential, permanent and even inevitable phenomenon in world architecture. Icons, in his view, far from being irrelevant buildings, can give a city or company an identity. A good icon must meet a number of conditions, states Jencks. Iconic buildings have a distinct form that is unmistakeable, yet they


The clients are not the only ones who want icons, the media also smooth the way for ‘spectacle’ architecture

are enigmatic and open to multiple interpretations. As an example he gives Le Corbusier’s famous chapel in Ronchamp (1955), which can be read as a nun’s head in a wimple as well as a swimming duck or folded hands. Sir Norman Foster’s Swiss Re tower in London is a rocket as well as a gherkin. In The Iconic Building Jenks also shows that iconic architec-ture has been around for a long time. Among others, he mentions the Sydney Opera House by the recently deceased Danish architect Jørn Utzon, which instantly became the Australian city icon on its completion in 1973. He could also have cited the Gothic churches with which medieval European cities tried to outdo one another. For all things considered there have always been icons in architec-ture. What is new in the current period of globalised capitalism is the exponential growth in the number of icons.

EXUBERANCEThe current boom in iconic architecture started in 1997 with the opening of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, north-ern Spain. The gleaming titanium building has become the run-down industrial city’s icon, continuing to attract masses of tourists more than ten years later. And ever since, nearly every European, American and Asian city has wanted a similar icon for their city brand. And they are not alone – large companies, oil sheiks in the Middle East and public institutions in China also want buildings to use as a city brand. The nearly completed loop-shaped building by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA offi ce for the Chinese television network CCTV in Peking is a good example of a ‘state icon’, commissioned by authoritarian regimes in particular. Designing an icon with a distinct yet enigmatic form is no sinecure. It is impossible to repeat an iconic success. In Seattle and Los Angeles, Frank Gehry’s Experience Music Project and the Disney Concert Hall, both akin to the Guggenheim Bilbao, failed to become icons. Indeed, as Jencks maintains, an icon must be un-mistakeable. A prerequisite that paves the way for architects to come up with ever-different and increasingly spectacular designs to provide their clients with icons. The architectural exuberance race is most noticeable in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two cities in the United Arab Emirates governed by an incredible building mania, in which money

was no object, at least not until the credit crisis. Here, world-re-nowned star architects like Zaha Hadid (Abu Dhabi Opera House, Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre), Jean Nouvel (Abu Dhabi Louvre Museum), Frank Gehry (Guggenheim Abu Dhabi) and Tado Ando (Abu Dhabi Maritime Museum) try to outdo one an-other with their spectacular buildings. It is not only the clients who want icons, the media also facilitate ‘spectacle’ architecture. Architects are perfectly aware that ordinary, well-built, properly-functioning buildings won’t get them into the architectural magazines. To become famous they must make something sensational. And in this age of visual culture, that means, above all, a photogenic building that also comes out well as a digital computer image. At the start of the 21st century, architecture is fi rst and foremost an image: editorial teams decide whether to write about a building on the basis of photos. ‘Beauty’ has therefore become the all-important criterion when judging architecture. ‘Functionalism’ and ‘sturdiness’, two architectural components considered essential by the Roman architect Vitruvius, now play a minor role or are not even taken into consideration. Which is why so many ‘iconic’ buildings are defective. For exam-ple, it is not easy to hold good exhibitions in Richard Rogers’ and Renzo Piano’s Pompidou Centre, the iconic modern museum in Paris dating from 1975 – only 20 years later, it had to be rebuilt from top to bottom.

SKYLINESo the circumstances in which architecture is produced in recent years smooth the way for icons. Form follows desire: clients and the media want icons, which architects are all too willing to provide. Yet inevitability does not mean that iconic architecture is without its problems. In the fi rst place, a surfeit of icons will mean that not one of them will become a brand name. This is likely to be the case in Dubai, where there is such a rash of ‘iconic’ buildings that none of them are likely to function as the city brand. In all probability the city skyline will do that. A more serious problem, as in ‘ordinary’ architecture, is that much iconic architecture fails. But while ‘ordinary’ failed archi-tecture is not that disturbing – a failed neutral box is still neutral – failed icons are affected monstrosities. <<<


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THE SWISS BROTHERS MARKUS AND DANIEL FREITAG BECAME WORLD FAMOUSwith their bags made of recycled truck tarpaulin, safety belts and air bags. ‘Design and architecture are closely related,’ says Markus Freitag from their base in Zurich. ‘In our view both should be unique, just as our bags are all unique. You will have gathered that I’m not in favour of uniform dis-tricts or batch production. And the design should also be sustainable. A building shouldn’t fall apart after ten years, just as one of our bags should last a lifetime. Both architecture and design ought to be beautiful as well as functional. Therefore we make typical men’s bags and typical women’s bags. All beautiful but functional too, geared to the user. Just like it should be in architecture. A building or house should fi t the user, but must be beautiful as well, should rouse an ‘‘ah’’ response.’ The Freitags’ designs have swiftly become classics. ‘Yes, we’re very proud of that. We are now in the same league as the Matterhorn and the Swiss Army Knife. And our shop built from used sea containers has also become a monument, an icon. Those containers are the building blocks with which we built and can continue to alter our accommodation. Compare it with our products; we keep using the same materials and yet each product is unique. Of course an architect basically does the same, creating a unique product every time with the same materials. I think that’s a good parallel there between architecture and design. You can’t fi nd any architectural infl uences in our designs, at least not conscious ones. But that gives me an idea …’ <<<

BY PAUL STEENHOFF, PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREAS SCHWAIGER/

DE BEELDREDAKTIE

MARKUS AND DANIEL FREITAG OF CULT LABEL FREITAG

The interface between architecture and design is a stimulating source of inspira-tion for those practising the art of design.

‘Every bag, like every building,

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His experimental and highly controversial designs continue to stir up feelings. Never one to make concessions, Daniel Libeskind is not concerned with the form, but with the meaning of a project. ‘I am not an architect who is into architecture.’

The archit DANIEL L IBESKIND

T H E A R C H I T E C T

BY ROB HARTGERS PHOTOGRAPHY: BITTERBREDT, JUEDISCHES MUSEUM,

ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM, SILVERSTEIN PROPERTIES & DBOX

The Royal Ontario Museum project set out to renovate ten new galleries in the existing historical building and creating an extension to the museum.


ecture of meaning.Situated at one of the most prominent intersections in downtown Toronto, the Royal Ontario Museum has become a dynamic centre for the city.


FOR A LONG TIME, Daniel Libeskind was known as the ‘paper archi-tect.’ Fresh out of architec-ture school in New York, he was offered a job by the renowned Richard Meier. After only seven days he quit because he disliked the offi ce routine. He spent the next two decades of his career teaching architecture and showed little interest in designing anything that could actually be built. He did enter competitions, but his designs were highly abstract constructions. Two years before the wall came down, Libeskind designed a housing project in West Berlin in the shape of huge bar rising diago-nally from the ground, with one end hovering ten stories above the underlying street. It won the design competition, but the project was never built. It did however end up in an exhibition about Deconstructivist Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Shortly afterwards, Libeskind was asked to enter the competition for a new Jewish Museum in Berlin. It was to become his fi rst design that was actually built.

INACCESSIBLE VOIDWhen the Jewish Museum opened in 1999, it was unlike any other building. It is a metaphor come to life. It is shaped like a giant zigzag. From the air, it resembles a broken Star of David. The building’s three interpenetrating corridors are called the Axis of Emigration, the Axis of the Holocaust, and the Axis of Continuity. Long, narrow windows, like slashes in the façade, let in light at un-

expected places. In the middle of the museum there is an empty concrete shaft called the Holo-caust Tower, with windows only near the top. A long, inaccessi-ble void cuts through the entire building. Elsewhere, a staircase leads to a blank wall. Outside, in the Garden of Exile and Emigra-tion, 48 20-foot-high columns are fi lled with earth from Berlin – a reference to the year Israel

was founded. A 49th column is fi lled with soil from Jerusalem. In his memoir Breaking Ground Libeskind, whose parents survived the Holocaust by escaping to the Soviet Union, wrote: ‘I fi nd my-self drawn to explore what I call the void – the presence of an over-whelming emptiness created when a community is wiped out; when the continuity of life is so brutally disrupted that the structure is forever torqued and transformed.’ As an exhibition space, the Jewish Museum is not very func-tional. As a symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust, it defi nitely is. So much so, that for the fi rst two years after it opened, the museum had no exhibit. It was an exhibition in itself.

Admirers laud Libeskind as the architect who brought

philosophy back into construction

The extension to the Denver Art Museum, The Frederic C.Hamilton Building, is inspired by the vitality and growth of the city.


The Imperial War Museum North is the interlocking of three shards representing earth, air and water.

‘I am not an architect who is into architecture,’ explained Libeskind. ‘A writer’s not interested in writing, he just wants to tell a story. Architecture is a medium to communicate the beauty of a place, of light and shadows. I have a repertoire of forms, but I don’t think about them. I think of the meaning of the project.’ Libeskind’s Jewish Museum caused great controversy. His admirers lauded Libeskind as the architect who put philosophy back into construction, and who can communicate ideas, emotions and memories through architecture. His opponents claimed that the architect with the trademark black outfi t, wraparound spectacles and cowboy boots is more concerned with form than with content. The Jewish architect Isi Metzstein criticised the ‘negative attitude’ of the Jewish Museum. He accused Libeskind of ‘kidnapping’ the Holocaust: ‘It was meant to be a museum which celebrated Jewish-ness. But it says nothing about the Jewish contribution to the his-tory of Berlin.’

SYMBOLIC STRUCTURESPartly due to the controversy, the Jewish Museum thrust Libes-kind, in his early forties, into the front rank of international archi-

tects. He became the architect of choice for projects that required a poetic or emotional response. In the years following the com-pletion of the Jewish Museum, he went on to design the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Fran-cisco. In 2003, he won the competition to design the master plan for the reconstruction of Ground Zero. Libeskind’s plan calls for a 1,776-foot (541m) spindle-shaped tower (Freedom Tower), with 7.5 million square feet of offi ce space and room for indoor gar-dens above the 70th fl oor. At the centre of the World Trade Center complex, a 70-foot pit will expose the concrete foundation walls of the former Twin Tower buildings. This design went through many revisions until a fi nal plan was unveiled in the summer of 2006 – though by that time, Libeskind himself was pushed off the design team for the Freedom Tower. As with most of Libeskind’s architecture, his uncompromising symbolic structures divided the public and the critics. The infl uential New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp was initially thrilled when Libeskind was chosen as the main architect for the Ground Zero site, but changed his mind when he took a look at the fi nal drawings. He called Libes-

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Thanks to the abundant wind, air and light the Turbulence House (top) and Planar House are places made for refl ection.

For the fi rst two years after it

opened, the muse-um had no exhibit.

It was an exhibition of itself

The extension to the Jewish Museum in Berlin is connected to the baroque building via underground axial roads.

kind’s idea of leaving the rock wall, which had protected the towers from the Hudson river, open in a deep pit, ‘astonishingly tasteless, emotionally manipulative, and close to nostalgia and kitsch.’ Libes-kind remained unshaken. For him, the infi ghting is part of the job of being an architect, he told The Guardian: ‘Architecture (…) is a deeply political act, as it can only be built through agreement, through discussion, through discourse, and through a democratic view of what is best for the citizens of a city.’

TRADITIONALIST WITH A TWISTHis success as a designer of buildings that commemorate global tragedies has left Libeskind with the dubious epithet of the architect ‘who does death very well.’ It does not do him justice. Libeskind is much more than that. He is an architect who has developed a unique and very distinctive style, characterised by crystalline shapes. His buildings often feature sharp angles, glass ceilings, and slanted walls. In Libeskind’s spectacular extension to the Denver Art Museum, seemingly composed of colliding silver boxes, virtu-ally all walls are sloping. Likewise, the new wing of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto consists of fi ve intersecting volumes, which are reminiscent of crystals. The intersection of two of the crystals, each of which is dedicated to new galleries, creates a void called the Spirit House. This is essentially a large atrium rising from below ground level to the fourth fl oor. Containing a number of criss-crossing bridges at various levels, it is intended to be a place for visitors to refl ect on the exhibitions they have visited. A fourth crystal, known as the Stair of Wonders, is dedicated to vertical circulation. A fi fth crystal houses a restaurant. Because of Libeskind’s experiments with form, he has been labelled a deconstructivist or a post-modernist. He rejects the labels. Libeskind likes to think of himself as a traditionalist with

a twist: ‘I don’t believe that I am doing anything that goes against tradition. But one would have to begin a discus-sion about tradition. Is tradi-tion an imitation? Is tradition the unconscious, habitual reinforcement of the not-knowing? Or is tradition the grasping of the ungraspable and passing it on, having had a lot to do with it?’

WILD MANFor the fi rst 20 years of his career, Libeskind was the architect’s architect, a brilliant theorist whose designs seemed to be too far-out to ever be made in stone or concrete. After he designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin all that changed overnight. Libeskind became a practising architect with an international staff of 130 people and satellite offi ces in several cities. Still, for a long time he remained the wild man of architecture. He ranted against ‘the notion that archi-tecture must be instantly understandable’. It was hard to image that


Studio Daniel Libeskind’s design study was selected in February 2003 as the master site plan for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.

Libeskind’s brand of experimental, ‘emotional’ architecture would win him commissions for shopping malls and housing projects. Yet this is precisely what happened. Libeskind and his team have been asked to design a luxury mall in Las Vegas, a waterfront develop-ment in South Korea, and recently, a 54-storey residential tower in Manhattan with voids spiralling around the tower, which expose the interior structure and innards of the tower. These huge voids will serve as hanging gardens and be fi lled with trees and shrub-beries.

Some have suggested Libeskind has toned down his experi-mentalism to become accepted as a mainstream architect. One only has to look at project 18.36.54 (due to be completed this year) to see this is not true. A wealthy client asked Libeskind to design a weekend home near New York City. The result is breathtaking. The design resembles a giant steel snowfl ake, futuristic and ancient at the same time. It certainly lives up to one of Libeskind’s maxims: ‘If a building is good, then surprise is part of the building, even if you walk into it hundreds of times.’ <<<

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ite

ms

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W E L C O M E M I X E D - U S E A L L E E

ING Real Estate Hungary is developing Allee, a unique mixed-use project created by internationally renowned architect Chapman Taylor. Strategically located in the heart of the most populated district in Budapest, one of Central Europe’s leading capitals, it is set to become one of the dominant shopping centres in the city. Budapest is a dynamic, cosmopolitan city with a population approaching two million and around 20 million visitors every year. Its residents are highly fashion conscious and brand aware, contributing to the city’s reputation as ‘the Paris of the East’.Allee, comprising 46,000 m² of retail and leisure accommodation, 6,900 m² of self-contained class ‘A’ offi ces and 1,200 underground parking spaces, is under construction and will open in November 2009. In view of the current economic situation the project is designed to high international standards and will provide a modern shopping en-vironment serving the affl uent Buda suburbs of Budapest. The project is expected to open with 100% occupancy, offering an unrivalled tenant mix anchored by leading international (fashion) retailers. Furthermore, an Interspar hypermarket of 6000 m² in the basement and a 13-screen cinema of Cinema City with a food court on the upper fl oor will welcome the visitors.The credentials of Allee are compelling: excellent public transport access, superior catchment population, strong retailer demand, unique tenant mix and carefully de-signed layout that provides an enhanced shopping envi-ronment. ING Real Estate is confi dent the project will contribute to the region’s economic uprise. With long term leases, full indexation, and sustainable base rents with turnover rent upside, Allee is expected to outper-form other assets within this sector.

B u d a p e s t , H u n g a r y


I M P R O V E D C U L T U R A L H O T S P O T

After closing for renovation for the last two years, the Flemish Opera in Antwerp reopened its doors in No-vember 2007. The completely refur-bished opera building now has a side stage, loading platform, workshops, offi ces and a new practice room for the opera choir. The extra space need-ed for this makeover came from the neighbouring buildings, one of which was a former ING bank. The complex incorporation of the city block also included the realisation of 16 apart-ments on the upper fl oors of the his-torical bank building and a restaurant on the ground fl oor, adding to the at-traction of the new town square. The Flemish Opera is a cultural hot spot once again.

A n t w e r p , B e l g i u m

The southern part of L’Île Saint-Denis, an island northwest of Paris on the river Seine, is to be transformed into an eco-friendly waterfront community. The 7-hectare site formerly occupied by the warehouses of the French department store Printemps will become an ecologically innovative and effi cient neigh-bourhood. The operation is a unique urban-planning project, creating a sustain-able balance between residences, offi ces, activities and facilities. Incorporating the island’s natural features, the urban design is rooted in respect for the en-vironment and in reviving lifestyles and leisure activities centred around the river Seine. The project includes 435 apartments (50% free housing, 20% aimed housing, 30% social housing), 2000 m² of shops and facilities, 4,700 m² of artist and craftsman studios, 15,500 m² of offi ce space, a hotel, a cultural equipment, a nautical warehouse and a water park as well as a student residence and a day nursery.The avant-garde neighbourhood will be designed by urban specialists WEST 8 and landscape architects and designers Mutabilis, who will ensure its unity of style. WEST 8 will coordinate the seven architects responsible for the project’s architectural variety. Noteworthy is that the architectural design was guided by the buildings’ energy needs. ‘The project will strive to answer the needs of the island’s residents and visitors by building a community where people will be happy to live on a long-term basis,’ says Fadia Karam, project director Devel-opment at ING Real Estate in France.

E C O - F R I E N D L Y W A T E R F R O N TL ’ Î l e S a i n t - D e n i s , F r a n c e


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Are you more likely to do your best when you design your own house? ‘It’s not that,’ says architect Lawrence Scarpa. ‘But being my own client is an advantage, that makes it easier to realise what I have in mind.’

LAWRENCE SCARPA IS CO-FOUNDER OF THE ARCHITECTURAL fi rm Pugh + Scarpa in Santa Monica. Together with his wife and son, he has lived since 2005 in the Solar Umbrella House, self-tailored to their personal vision in Venice Beach, California. He and his wife Angela Brooks – a part-ner in the same architectural fi rm – have shown with the Solar Umbrella House that simplicity, eco-friendly materials, modern design and cost-effectiveness can make a good marriage. And in any case, living in your own design is wonderful.

INSIDE MEETS OUTSIDEThe house is situated on an elongated 12 by 100-metre plot of land which, when Scarpa and Brooks spotted it, housed a bungalow dating from 1923. Together they upgraded that villa into a sustainable and visually attrac-tive home for themselves. The result is an architectural treasure that since its completion has been visited by hundreds of architects and developers. The living area is now three times larger than that of the original bunga-low, partly because they built an extra fl oor on top. The interior is largely their own work as well. Some pieces of furniture have been built in: in the sunken living area the back of studio couch is integrated into a higher fl oor. Such solutions strengthen the impression that the house is a single space. The rooms fl ow into each other, doors are few and far between and there is plenty of natural light everywhere. An open sightline running the length of the house accentuates that transparency and links the outside with the interior space. Scarpa: ‘Spatial quality is essential. The garden and terrace are kind of outside rooms, the house is a dynamic combination of solids and voids. We open the doors and the garden comes right into the house. We live inside and out. Maybe that’s special, but our eight-year-old son grew up here, for him it’s kind of normal.’

GREEN IS THE NORMAs for light, air, ventilation, heat and cooling, the design makes the most of the mild Californian climate. The sun has plenty of opportunity to do its work and rainwater is collected and recycled. The eye-catching roof of 90 solar panels generates 95 per cent of the energy needed by the oc-cupants. The umbrella-like panels over the house protect it from extreme heat or too much light. The umbrella overhangs part of the terrace and

Living in your

BY RUUD SL IER INGS, PHOTOGRAPHY: PUGH + SCARPA ARCHITECTS

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42S T A T E M E N T

It’s nice to do a project in which you have free

rein, like your own house

the swimming pool and also prevents other people from looking in – while Scarpa and Brooks believe a house should be one with its environment they also value their privacy. The solar roof combines business with pleasure, green with the aesthetical, the house with its environment. You don’t often see that. ‘No big deal,’ says Scarpa, ‘I think it’s common sense. Sustainability and good design are not mutually exclusive, they are one and the same. When you design a building you at fi rst should think about and react to the site. And thinking about the site is thinking about the climate as well. So the solar pan-els are truly building-integrated. On the other hand, you can take them off and replace them by some other skin if you want. But that skin wouldn’t generate energy.’

EXTRAORDINARY THINGSAs Scarpa himself knows, sustainable building is much less simple in practice than it sounds: ‘Recently we lost a competition for a museum project. Besides that I think we had the better scheme, we preserved and tied into our project a beautiful old mill and fi ve 200-year-old oak trees. But the winning entry got rid of this. So, it’s not just the architect, it’s the client as well.’ So it’s sometimes nice to do a project in which you have free rein, like your own house. Also when it came to materials Scarpa and Brooks took the unconventional route, using among other things compressed woodchips and old newspapers. That meant they could keep the

costs down and make the house even more unique as well. Scarpa: ‘You have to investigate a little bit to fi nd extraordinary things. When somebody says “you can’t”, that stimulates us. We look for materials that are easily overlooked. For this house we resourcefully took materials and contextually repositioned them as

design elements. That’s not diffi cult, that’s part of the joy of being an architect.’

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLEAccording to Scarpa, building the Solar Umbrella House cost less than if he had built an ordinary house, partly because he did a lot of work himself and with the help of friends. Nevertheless, in his view green building is cheaper if you are prepared to take into account the long lifespan of a house in your calculations: ‘Five years as pay-back time, that’s foolish. We looked at a 20-year payback time for this house for justifying the investment. By the time we’d fi nished construction we had utility prices and could cut that period by half. So the Solar Umbrella yields valuable lessons on overcoming barri-ers to green, affordable development.’ That should be a fi ne business case for people who are still re-luctant to invest in sustainability. Scarpa is sceptical: ‘Unfortunately in this society it’s a tag line for many designers to be a sustainable architect. Sustainability should not be a paradigm for architecture, it’s a fundamental principle: a building should work with its site and climate. We don’t generally make a big deal of it or even talk about sustainability. I think it’s a question of ethics and not of a design concept. We have some clients who couldn’t care less about it. They get it anyway, they just don’t know it.’ <<<

An architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm with over 20 professionals from Santa Monica (United States). Gwynne Pugh, Lawrence Scarpa and Angela Brooks head the firm. Found-ed in 1991 Pugh + Scarpa strongly believe that architecture should engage users, heighten their sense of awareness, and bring a deeper understanding and vitality to their experience.

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THE UK DESIGN COLLECTIVE FARM IS FAMOUS FOR ITS REMARKABLE FURNITURE and accessories. A sofa made of corrugated cardboard, a stool in the shape of a pig, a vase like a hand grenade and a bird fl at. Alexena Cayless is one of the four members of the collective. Alexena: ‘Of course architecture has an infl uence on our designs, but I think that is mostly subconscious. It differs from person to person. My colleague Guy Brown is a practicing engineer and his designs are very structural. My designs, on the other hand, are more driven by emotion. I feel more like an artist than a designer. I trained in sculpture and came late to design. My designs are about more than solving problems. I want to touch the human side, attract and hold attention with my designs. They must create their own world within the context of the existing architecture. In that respect I feel more like an interior designer.’ Alexena’s father was a furniture maker and he passed on those genes to his daughter. He also gave her some pieces of furniture that are now in her house in London. ‘They are designs from the 1970s. I fi nd them inspiring and I’ve also redesigned a couple of those retro chairs and included them in my collection.’ Boxes are another of Alexena’s passions. ‘My whole house is full of them. They remind me of the shoe boxes people use to keep their personal things in. I fi nd them fascinating and I’ve designed and decorated many pieces on that theme. That way I hope to charge my designs with emotion. I think a design really works only when it triggers that emotion in other people.’ <<<

BY PAUL STEENHOFF, PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRIS GLOAG/

DE BEELDREDAKTIE

ALEXENA CAYLESS OF FARM DESIGN COLLECTIVE


‘Design should arouse

emotion’

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That architecture is a profession for the old was a popular saying until late in the last century. But the 21st century has seen a radical change. Up-and-coming talent is making its presence felt, makes cross-overs and ignores borders.

ARCHITECTURAL FIRMS HAVE TURNED INTO STUDIOS, ‘dovecotes’ where young people from all over the world fl y in and out, networking and absorbing knowledge. Geographical borders are there to be crossed and the same goes for the profession itself: from the epicentre of architecture cross-overs are made to design, fashion,fi lm, graphic design, interior and public space. With all disciplinesin-house, the studio of today knows how to tap new sources.

CROSS-FERTILISATIONInternationally oriented postdoctoral institutions like London’s Archi-tectural Association (AA) or Rotterdam’s Berlage Institute facilitate this cross-fertilisation. But one architect is undoubtedly responsible for this development: Rem Koolhaas. With their intellectual challenge, his offi ce OMA and his research department AMO have had a magnetic attraction for young international talent. International Design in Rotterdam is just such a ‘Koolhaas offshoot’. The Mexican Felix Madrazo (1972) was as-sistant to architect Winy Maas (of MVRDV) in the 3d City project before moving to OMA/Koolhaas. His Turkish colleague Arman Akdogan (1973) gained his practical experience at Adriaan Geuze’s West8. They could have set up in Mexico or Istanbul but ended by chance in Rotterdam. Both

took courses at the Berlage Institute between 2000 and 2002. After leaving the mega-offi ces of OMA and West8, they decided to collaborate on a smaller scale and won competitions for regeneration projects in Spanish social housing. Akdogan: ‘In different cir-cumstances there would have been no logic interna-

tionally in combining the ambitions of two different nationalities in one business. Unexpected relationships give rise to concepts for our projects that form the basis of IND.’ Young architects are eager to set up on their own. The attraction is the adventure and intensive effort that go with every project, as well as the opportunity to fulfi l their own ambitions. Large fi rms offer little scope to

Crossing borders, A NEW GENERATION OF ARCHITECTS

BY JAAP HUISMAN, PHOTOGRAPHY: LANA CAVAR, INGMAR SIEGRAM

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3LHD

‘The tower is so narrow in the middle that the steel frame there is asdense and compact as

possible’

create an image and develop your talent: the ‘mean and lean’ principle. The former are comparable with design studios and fashion designers who eas-ily move offi ce and widen their horizons.

FAÇADECompetitions are the perfect springboard for young architectural talent. Information Based Architecture (IBA) in Amsterdam won the competition for a tower that may al-ready be declared an icon of the Chinese city Guangzhou (previously Canton). A combina-tion of television mast and sightseeing tower, it is both functional and an attraction. ‘The façade is the construction’, explains IBA’s

Mark Hemel (1966), ‘the tower is so narrow in the middle that the steel frame there is as dense and compact as possible.’ Mark Hemel: ‘We are dependent on competitions. And the increas-ingly strict European regulations governing new architectural studios, such as minimal turnover and maximum experience, force us to move to Asia.’ That explains why young studios expand into Dubai, Russia or China. What evidently appealed to the Chinese was the imaginative form, an in-troverted Eiffel Tower, that fi ts with the concept of a new China in combi-nation with a link to the West. That is the effect of global architecture. NEW VISUAL IDIOMThis exchange is discernible in the ‘new Europe’ as well. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Balkan War graduates of technical univer-sities swarm across the world to acquire new knowledge which they take home again. A multidisciplinary sutdio with offi ces in Zagreb and Split, 3LHD focuses on the integration of architecture, urban planning, design and art. They have won prizes, been given commissions and explored their chosen fi eld. And they have crossed the border into China. In Xi’an they won the competition for the Eastern European Cultural Centre, proving that the world can also be conquered from Zagreb. Marko Dabrovic (1969), incidentally, does not regard himself as part of Eastern Europe. ‘Our exact location is Central Europe and the bulk of our work is in Croatia. We seize every opportunity to cross the border and be part of the international scene.’ Besides China, that scene is also in Spain, Hungary and Japan, where 3LHD designed the Croatian Pavilion for the 2005 Expo in Nagoya. UNLIMITED BY BORDERS Mark Hemel and his colleague Barbara Kuit (1968) spent fi ve years learn-ing their profession with Zaha Hadid. In 1998 they founded IBA. ‘I am in London on a regular base because I teach at the AA and have connections there.’ It shows the mentality of the new generation: it doesn’t really matter where you are based. Nonetheless, Hemel does not fi nd it easy to realise a building in China. The language is an obstacle, as is unfamiliarity with the culture, not to mention the local regulations. ‘We are lucky to have a pool of Chinese and Asian ex-students who provide back-up.’ IND, whose work during its short existence has mainly consisted of commissions for studies, is also discovering that it takes years to establish yourself abroad. ‘Because the new generation is not confi ned by borders, we need to fi nd ways of presenting ourselves in today’s society,’ says Dabrovic. ‘We

Based in Zagreb and Split, 3LHD was founded in 1994 and consists of Sasa Begovic, Marko Dabrovic, Tatjana Groz-danic Begovic and Silvije Novak and to-day it consists of 40 architects. They won the Architectural Review Award in the UK and the ID Magazine Award in the United States. 3LHD’s Sports Hall in Bale, Italy was Sport category winner on the 2008 World Architecture Festival in Barcelona. Significant projects: the Croatian Pavilion for the 2005 Expo in Japan, the Eastern European Cultural Centre in Xi’an (China) and the Memorial Bridge in Rijeka.www.3lhd.com

3 L H D


IBA

IND

think that architects today, like our predecessors, are equally constrained by rules, clients, budgets and all kinds of obstacles.’ In that sense being unlimited by borders is a relative concept.

PERFECT RECIPELooking at 3LHD’s projects you see that being unlimited shows more in the mix of disciplines. The Memorial Bridge in Rijeka, a waterfront boule-vard in Split, a hotel in Rovinj, the Expo Pavilion for the world fair in Japan underline its scope. Functional needs are not the only conditions buildings have to meet, according to 3LHD. An integral approach and a thematic underpinning are the roads leading to a good design, with the location (the genius loci) serving as inspiration. But they fi nd the synthesis between different cultures in an urban environment in a constantly changing world even more important. They believe that is the task of architects task at this time. IBA’s Mark Hemel also feels that architecture needs to get away from superfi ciality. He sees architects ‘standing beside their building’ as it were, as if they are not part of it – a sad way to practice your profession, he thinks.

YOU TUBE-LIKE BUILDINGThat is the only way for a new up-and-coming studio to distinguish itself from the multitude of relatively anonymous ones. That IBA uses other disciplines in its projects can be seen in a pavilion for Amsterdam’s Mu-seumplein where light and video artists play a major role. ‘A You Tube-like building in which tourists can make their own broadcast. That’s much more exciting than the IAmsterdam logo which is there now.’ As IBA integrates study and research into the design, so does Rotterdam’s IND set store by analysis, seeking in fact a fusion between Cartesian and phenomenological thought. How can we avoid the disagree-able aspect of pure modernism, how can we achieve subjective quality, are the questions that come up during such philosophical exercises. Akdogan: ‘Looking at our recent projects, we feel we are most successful in dense urban environments or the complete opposite: projects with the fewest programmatic requirements, like bridges, an athletics track or a house.’

AMBITIONSWhat would the three studios like to achieve? For the Croatian 3LHD that means the integration of interior and exterior space, the use of digital/elec-tronic media as well as architecture in a historical context. IND, for the time being, is after a wide-ranging portfolio with room for discussion and hopefully for controversial proposals. IBA’s Mark Hemel believes archi-tecture should also adapt to its context, but he also thinks space should be enriching. Architecture must have value, which is possible if it refl ects, for example, the changes in the weather, nature and the landscape. In this light the TV & Sightseeing Tower in Guangzhou is likely to be more than just a landmark: it will be an experience for both visitors and onlookers. <<<

Mark Hemel and Barbara Kuit founded Information Based Architecture in 1998. Hemel teaches at the Architectural Asso-ciation in London and Kuit has worked as assistant to Zaha Hadid and Philippe Starck. Most important project: the TV & Sightseeing Tower in Guangzhou. Others include competition designs for a concert hall in Sarajevo and a media centre in Leipzig (IBA was short-listed), urban plan including a stadium for Naestved (Den-mark). www.hemel.dircon.co.uk

I N F O R M A T I O N B A S E D A R C H I -T E C T U R E ( I B A )

Felix Madrazo and Arman Akdogan founded the Rotterdam-based Interna-tional Design in 2007. They took part in the Roots exhibition at Arcam in the sum-mer of 2008. Most important projects: social housing in Ceuta (Spain); study for a bridge over the River Maas in Venlo; urban proposal for the new capital city of Kazakstan (Astana), and holiday homes in Ismit near Istanbul.www.internationaldesign.nl

I N T E R N A T I O N A LD E S I G N ( I N D )


ite

ms

S E V E N T Y E X P E R T S O N B E T T E R A N D C H E A P E R H O U S I N GWhy is housing in France smaller yet more expensive than in any other European country? This is the main issue ad-dressed by France’s Housing Platform, an initiative of the development business from ING Real Estate.At a time when purchasing power is the major preoccu-pation of the French people, the Housing Platform brings together experts from different European countries to fi nd out how to realise better and cheaper housing, why construction prices in France are 30 to 50 per cent higher than in the rest of Europe, why housing in countries like the Netherlands and Germany is far more sustainable than in France, and how to engage in cultural evolution in fa-vour of architectural innovation. Such important questions are discussed in accordance with fi ve major themes: price

F r a n c e ’ s H o u s i n g P l a t f o r m

48S T A T E M E N T

structure, value creation, architectural quality, construction methods, and management.During the fi rst meeting on October 13th 2008, over seven-ty experts such as architects, urban planners, economists, land developers, construction companies, and social hous-ing investors, analysed the determinant factors of housing construction costs per square metre in the French hexagon. One of the projects Development France of ING Real Estate presented during the Housing Platform meeting was Habiter les Quais in the town of Nantes. It is one of the projects meeting the values and criteria to which the ING Group has committed, in favor of a sustainable and innova-tive habitat which is adapted to the current and future needs of families, notably fi rst-time buyers.

Chamartín Imobiliaria and ING Real Estate are de-veloping Dolce Vita Tejo. The project is created by the architects RTKL and Promontorio and will be opening in May 2009. The shopping centre is located in the north of Amadora, 10 kilometres from the cen-tre of the Portuguese capital Lisbon.Dolce Vita Tejo will be part of a commercial complex with a total surface area of 152,782 m2 and a net retail area of 104,700 m2. The project is expected to open at close to 100% occupancy, including retailers like an Auchan hypermarket (Alcampo), El Corte Inglés Group, Inditex and a cinema. The complex is part of an undertaking including a residential and industrial area and will be part of the largest commercial area in Portugal. Centrally lo-cated within six districts of Lisbon and adjacent to the junction of the inner ring road of Lisbon and the highway IC 16, the shopping centre gives a unique opportunity for success.

O P P O R T U N I T Y F O R S U C C E S SD o l c e V i t a T e j o

Statement 1-2009-p48.indd 48Statement 1-2009-p48.indd 48 12-02-2009 11:02:2212-02-2009 11:02:22

FABRICE BOUSTEAU IS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF BEAUX ARTS MAGAZINE, A French monthly fashion, architecture and photography publication. He is also the conservator of the Chanel Mobile Art exhibition, housed in a mobile museum in the form of Coco Chanel’s famous 2.55 quilted leather handbag. The mobile museum – a creation of the architect Zaha Hadid – has already visited Hong Kong and Tokyo and is on its way to Moscow, London and Paris. ‘The project was launched by Karl Lagerfeld to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 2.55,’ says Bousteau. ‘So I asked artists like Subodh Gupta, Tabaimo and Leandro Erlich to look at Chanel’s fashion, the handbag in particular, and present their vision of it. I gave them carte blanche. What is notable about this exhibition is that it has become a melting pot of art, fashion, architecture and design. So I am quite comfortable with the proposition. As an artist you pick up things from all over the place and they become the composite of your world, your art. I think that process is refl ected better in this mobile museum than anywhere else. What’s more, thanks to that fusion, you see a universal language come into being, which is understood in America as well as in India. I fi nd that fascinating. As far as Bousteau is concerned, the artists can use any medium they like to express their vision on Chanel and the 2.55. Gupta, for instance, uses a split screen for his video impression. ‘It was not Chanel’s intention to entice celebrities. Gupta, for example, was not very well-known in India. And now he is world-famous. So in a sense the exhibition is a breeding ground as well, and Chanel is also gratifying in that unknown artists have been given an opportunity. I am proud to have been able to work on this exhibition. The building alone – the exceptional architecture, plus the fact that it’s mobile – makes this quite unique.’ The exhibition ends in Paris in July 2010, the year in which the bag celebrates its 50th anniversary. <<<

BY PAUL STEENHOFF, PHOTOGRAPHY: PHIL IPPE PROVILY/

DE BEELDREDAKTIE

FABRICE BOUSTEAU, CURATOR OF THE CHANEL MOBILE ART EXHIBITION:


‘The fusion of fashion,

architecture and design

gives rise to the new language

of art’

49S T A T E M E N T

DES

IGN

& A

RCH

ITEC

TURE


50S T A T E M E N T

Openness and transparency

Since its grand opening in November 2007, Renzo Piano’s New York Times Building has become a vital, fully-integrated part of its Times Square neighbourhood. The building was an initiative of the Development branch of ING Real Estate, the New York Times Company and real estate firm Forest City Ratner Companies. The construction was a joint venture of the latter two.

W O R K I N P R O G R E S S

LOCATED IN THE CENTRE OF THE REVITALISED WEST side of midtown Manhattan, the iconic New York Times Building houses other companies as well as the newspaper’s new headquar-ters. The 52-storey building expresses the intrinsic link between the newspaper and the city through a striking double-skin curtain wall of clear glass. Architect Renzo Piano: ‘I wanted a transparent relation-ship between the street and the building. From the street, you can see through the whole building. Nothing is hidden.’ The remarkable façade is made even more dramatic by a screen of ceramic rods. Piano: ‘Like the city itself, the building will catch the light and change col-our with the weather. Bluish after a shower, and in the evening on a sunny day, shimmering red. The story of this building is one of light-ness and transparency.’ The ceramic rods also serve as a sunscreen that reduces the amount of heat coming into the building, allowing the use of fl oor-to-ceiling ultra-clear glass which maximises views and light for the occupants and enables people outside to see in. The vision of openness is also wonderfully apparent in the building’s lobby, which includes a semi-public auditorium and pub-licly accessible restaurants and shops. Furthermore, there is a birch-and-moss garden surrounded by glass walls, forming the heart of the building and the focal point of the colourful, airy lobby. The New York Times Building has quickly become a recog-nisable fi xture on Manhattan’s legendary skyline and home to major fi nancial services companies and law fi rms. Jeffrey A. Barclay, who structured the joint venture with Forest City Ratner and the New York Times Company on behalf of ING Real Estate: ‘This building was conceived within months of the terrorist attacks of 9/11; now, in 2009, it stands as a monument to the optimism shared by a legendary communications company, a world class developer and a great global fi nancial institution.’ <<<

BY KASPER MARINUS, PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHEL DENANCÉ, RPBW

ING REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT


Differences in façade colour, window layout and size distinguish the semi-detached houses, resulting in a livelier looking street.


52S T A T E M E N T

The all-glass curtain wall with the ceramic sunscreen is the fi rst of its kind in the US. It is a highly innovative way to bring natural light into the building.

This customised villa, maximising the possibilities for excellent views, ensures higher-quality of living.

The integration of interior and exterior, nature and the built environment reaches its peak in the ground fl oor garden.


Moveable Type is a media artwork consisting of hundreds of digital screens displaying fragments of The Times’ ever-growing news database.

‘You can see through the whole building. Nothing is hidden’


54S T A T E M E N T

The open plan and low work-station panels of the newsroom support the Times Company’s goal for a vibrant, stimulating workplace emphasising strong communication.

The tower has quickly become one of the most recognisable on the Manhattan skyline.

The vision of openness is wonderfully apparent

The building’s basic shape is simple and primary, similar to the Manhattan grid.


co

lum

n ‘ARCHITECTS ARE IN THE FIRST PLACE DESIGNERS OF buildings and landscapes. They respond to society’s demand for certain products and services. You can be critical about the level of the average design. In new housing estates, for instance, there are lots of houses in his-toricising styles. But while there is nothing wrong with the role of service provider, it is also important that designers as ‘hands-on’ experts mirror society to a certain extent. By deliberately exaggerating spatial processes they can hold up a mirror to society and show that there are alternatives to patterns entrenched in living and working. That can be diffi cult. An architectural fi rm is also a company that must remain in business. But for a society that wants to renew itself that mirroring aspect is crucial. It remains to be seen whether the enormous focus on sustainability will eventually result in good buildings. It is logical that designers should take the environment into account. But at present the extra cost of a sus-tainable building usually results in a lesser quality of the urban plan and architectural design. That can never have been the intention. Another exciting aspect is how the credit crisis will affect society and architecture. Will the design remain optimistic and geared to satisfy-ing individual needs or will the social agenda get more space? Architects are good at representing social processes. They can make public spaces that really are communal if there is suffi cient support for that within a community. But will that really happen? Until recently architecture was sexy above all. But the credit crisis is changing that. The discussion on the iconisation of architecture must also be seen in that context. In itself it is laudable that buildings arouse emo-tions and stir people, but the demand for spectacular buildings was often very banal. Every city wanted something designed by a certain architect. But that results in exactly the kind of generic city that architects ought to be avoiding. So those commissioning a building should take a more in-depth view. And the demand for exceptional quality should be extended for a change to people’s everyday working and living environment. Make something they can be proud of. At the moment there is too much focus on the individual building. In the future the architect’s role will not be marginalised so easily. It’s true that designs are increasingly complex technically. That means de-signers will have to work closely with engineers to realise their buildings. But, unlike the latter, designers are able to identify what is special and unique about a place. If the technology becomes dominant what you get is precisely more of the same. Clients are starting to realise that. In the past, the spatial expertise of architects was often ignored. But that’s changing. Designers are increasingly appreciated for their know-how and insight, which brings new challenges for the profession. They will need to take a more process-oriented approach and communicate better with other players. That will keep them on the ball.’ <<<

W I N Y M A A S

‘It is essential to hold a mirror

to society’Architect and co-founder of MVRDV Winy Maas is profes-sor architectural and urban design at Delft University of Techno-logy (TU) and founder of the Why Factory, a research consultancy affiliated to the TU.

C O L U M N

55S T A T E M E N T

PHOTOGRAPHY: ROB ‘T HART


CHRISTIAN BIECHER, ARCHITECT AND DESIGNER

(see page 12)

State

m Modesty is a precondition for being able to get close to the psychology of projects, and therefore of people in particular

‘

’Statement-ENG_0109.indd 56Statement-ENG_0109.indd 56 02-02-2009 10:10:4102-02-2009 10:10:41

statement nr.1 2009

Documents

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