The architecture of Herzog and de Meuron resides at the intersection of fine art and efficient function. The architects maintain close ties to contemporary conceptual art movements, but they also embrace the limitations imposed on them by the requirements of use....
[more]The architecture of Herzog and de Meuron resides at the intersection of fine art and efficient function. The architects maintain close ties to contemporary conceptual art movements, but they also embrace the limitations imposed on them by the requirements of use.
They begin, in fact, with limitations: constraints imposed by place, by the specific needs of a particular industry, by the requirements of urban efficiency in crowded modern cities. Their aesthetic developed as a reaction to these limitations. An architect like Gaudà designs structures that entertain little if any interaction with their environment; he is fascinated with ornamentation and embellishment. Herzog and de Meuron, on the other hand, reckon with the nature of their space before their designs begin to unfold. They maintain an intimate relation to context.
In the recently constructed Tate Modern, not only did Herzog and de Meuron reckon with space, they reckoned with the building that was already there -- an old, enormous power station on the bank of the Thames. Whereas most of their competition imagined drastic modifications to the building, Herzog and de Meuron won the job because of their subtlety: they imagined only minor alterations. The result is a massive, awe-inspiring building that maintains its original industrial character.
Industry, efficiency, and minimalism have always been part of Herzog and de Meuron's aesthetic. Their structures stick to simple geometric forms, rectangles and cubes with textured outward facades devoid of protruding embellishments. Their "Signal Box Auf dem Wolf" in Basel, for example, is a stark monolith rising up from intersecting railways. Wrapped from top to bottom in copper slats that obscure the windows like horizontal blinds, the individual floors cannot be detected from outside. The building looks simply like a single undivided rectangle.
But behind these somewhat austere exteriors lies a complicated crystalline structure that appears to go on endlessly. While the outside of the "Signal Box" seems unitary, undivided, the inside betrays a dizzying infinity. And this is a common feature of Herzog and de Meuron's work. Flat, planar surfaces, textured with stone that gives them an unusual textile quality, seem to hint at a hidden depth within. The result is a unique integration of unity and multiplicity, of simplicity and complexity: a delicate, precise balance of function and form.
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