good evening. well tonight emanuelchrist will be lecturing about thework of the zurich based firm christ & gantenbein,which was established in 1998. after teaching as twopartners, christoph gantenbein and emanuel christ,they have taught in several schools includingmendrisio and the berlage institute. they are now professors atthe eth [? till ?] 2010,
and they are teaching atthe school here at the gsd this term, a very interestingoptions studio by the way. they have publishedseveral monographs, there is a+u monograph, andthere is also a 2g magazine that a lot of theinstructors of this is school go to have amonography as mark and sharon [? that ?] are there, christine,david severen, ricardo bak gorodon, victor navarro,maria langarita, renata sentkiewicz, and inaki abalos.
[inaudible] yeah, exactly i waswaiting until the last name on the list. the work of christ & gantenbeinhas expanded psychologically to include the residential,commercial, infrastructural, and cultural projects, alot of cultural projects, in the last years. they have alsoexpanded geographically from the native switzerland tomexico, england, france, china.
and through this expansionthey have won several, i mean a series of designawards that i'm not going to read because it's too long. so now they are dealingwith the basel extension of the kunstmuseum in basel,the swiss national museum in zurich, and i think that theywill probably present something on these projects worksthat are probably the most, i would say, importantin this moment. and they are, as many ofthe lecturers in this room,
are interested in booksand are publishing books and i see i haven't broughtthe book that i have but this series of revieware a wonderful series of documents of architecturepublished by art books and directed by themwith the title of review, which is a very interestingtitle by the way. what i want to focus onthis evening is in their, i have an interpretationand i don't know if it is correct i meanmaybe you kill me after this,
all their positionas architects, because to be anarchitect in switzerland, and even moreprecisely in theory, is to deal with aschool that places heavy weight on your shoulders. i mean is a really importantschool for its tradition, i mean is gottfried semper,is moser, is aldo rossi, is many people and many layersof swiss kind of ideology, if we can talk about that.
so sometimes it's even aproblem to free yourself of such a heavy weightand of i would say the title of the lectures,sustainability of form, probably will be aresume of their work, but also a way to manifestcontinuity in time and to manifest a projectionof their own subjectivity, i would say, but notonly subjectivity, i would say that the worktries to give presence to, i would say irony in themoment, pleasure, contradiction,
and a lot of disruptiveintrusions on almost, sometimes, almost toreal objects and forms, and materials, thatat the same time that everything iswrapped in their rationale of disciplinaryknowledge, and i would say the rationality of the swissarchitecture that all of us know. i think that one thing that isvery attractive of their work is precisely this dimension,of this combination of two
things, that you distinguishthat they're swiss architects and at the same time there'sa kind of disruptive, a kind of naturaltendency to change it and to transform thiskind of rationality into something that is less100% swiss architecture. we have talked about thisidea of introductions and contradictions, or somedualism, it was my term, and they can have allthe terms, in the works in order to avoid the tyrannyof program and context,
and create thestruggles that change the scenario that initiallythey have to confront. but in their last works, asfar as i understand them, this has become more perverse,or more complex if you want, and the [? option ?] [? to ?]see the [? syllabus ?] for example, for me is a goodexample of this complexity. because it's not aboutintrusion of other things, is kind of disruptivedimension inside or within the typological discourse.
the method, i don'twant to spin it because i don't knowif it is true or not, but the method that waythey're using typologies is becoming, ina way, completely different to the typicalaffirmative dimension that typology has acquired. that they have a continuitywith this discourse and discontinuity. time embedded in the materialorganization of objects' core
architecture, istime embedded there. and the only way touse this approach without it's normative,affirmative, essentially is paraphernalia,i think is simply to dismantle thecause-effect logic that this system ofdesigning through typologies, projects, [inaudible]and how to do it, i think is very much like you seein a completely surreal way the typologies.
when i see these books, howthey projected some typologies in the lottery date,and the typologies had nothing to dowith the program, were corresponding tocompletely different programs. then i understood thatit could be really a very interesting methodto dislocate and create, inside the discourse of typologya kind of other dimension. maybe i'm completelywrong, but i'm not fully convinced of this isexplanation at all, so i should
stop here and let themexplain as to how they face the sustainability ofform in their practice as well as in their artistry. so please join me in welcomingchris representing both. thank you. thank you inaki. good evening, hieveryone, dear friends. actually the discourseis already there, i show the pictures nowthat come of the lecture.
but thanks again, more officialalso to mohsen, and to you inaki, for actually invitingus not only for these lectures, but also to teach here inthis wonderful and inspiring environment of the gsd,as i just said to mohsen. we really very much enjoyto be here with you, and to be challenging in ourswiss approach to the world by all of you who arenot necessarily swiss. the title of my lecture isthe sustainability of form, because we thoughtit's almost mandatory
to use the termof sustainability at this school and everysecond e-mail talks about sustainability. so we felt like toobey to this let's say main concern of our society. so the discourse ofthe next hour or so will be about our actuallyvery ambitious project of making architecturethat is sustainable not only in terms of costmaterial and social criteria,
but the project of makingan architecture that is sustainable in terms ofits form, which is a big word. and this means in other terms,an architecture of form that is universal, thatis not personal, we'll come to that later. this implies anarchitecture that lasts, not only physicallybut also culturally, ideally architectural formthat is understandable forever. architecture thatrelates to the past given
the notion or the perspectiveof the dimension of time, but of course alsoan architecture that is open to future formsof views and understanding. so to start withthe architecture that we are dealing with,that we are trying to make, is engaging with thearchitectural heritage. and i will show 10 projectstoday, if there is enough time. presented as a series, these 10projects also tell in some way the history of ourpractice and this attempt
of combining the story of thepractice, the development, evolving practice,and also making it a theoretical discourseon our understanding of the profession, wecould call this sort of a crossover that is perhapsa biographical manifesto or something like thatit's a bit of let's say risky undertaking. ok, so this brings meto the first project. the first project thati'm showing is a book,
it was published in 2012. a project calledpictures from italy, it's about finding our ownarchitectural vocabulary, our language, youcould say it is a project that deals with theimportant task of an architect to define his ownsystem of reference. so this is actually thefirst of these reviews, we call that review numberone, as you can see pictures from italy, and i mightquote just one short part
of that text therebecause i think it's still important to us. after pictures from italywas our first architectural project, the pictures wereshot in 1999 during a six week journey throughout italy. christoph and i, wedid that trip together, it was a sort of ourarchitectural honeymoon at the time. we internalize thisjourney so much
that our identity asdesigning architects became fundamentallyinfluenced by these images. we are convinced thatthe project never starts from scratch, but thaton the contrary creativity is always related tothat, which exists and that it gains nourishmentand inspiration from it. since then ofcourse many projects have materialized in ouroffice, somewhere in all of them is as an imprint of oneof these italian pictures
mainly taking onthe general form. personal pictures,and pictorial memories have to be generalized toa certain extent in order to make them availablefor one's own work. we don't want toreproduce them directly, they take form whenwe translate them into project ideas in anarchitectural vocabulary. so this is the startingpoint, we link ourselves to the past in a certain sense,to the history of architecture
and we considerourselves, and our work, as part of this longhistory or tradition as you also may call it. but there arepictures which i won't show all of them don'tworries because is classics, the renaissance, gulioromano's palazzo te, but also anonymous findings,like [? moments, ?] places, that are heavilyarchitectonical and atmospheric, also the modernitalian modern movement, and so
on. so the architectural heritageis of course very broad, and in some wayalso quite personal, you have to discover it. and so in that sense, thisbook, pictures from italy, is a manifest of anarchitecture that cares about thearchitectural heritage. looking at these buildings meansthat we feel directly concerned as designers, weare not historians.
it is not an academic discourseon the history of architecture, it is really that webelieve we represent a generation, that we ofcourse not the only ones, that tries to give up onhistoriographic thinking. the world of architecture,whether it's ancient, or recent, or contemporary,to a certain extent you could say it's all thesame, is physically there and it continuesto exist, and we are interested in thatsimultaneous existence
of ancient, and recent, andcontemporary architecture. and why are wetalking about this? because we are convincedand excited to look at these examples, because wetake inspiration from them, and we consider them an enormouspotential for our own work. so i could state as afirst sentence related to my big topic sustainablearchitectural form is informed by theheritage of architecture. so in the book there isnot only these pictures,
but there is also morespecific moments where we confront two type of pictureson the right you will see another picture fromitaly, and on the left you see just one pictureof a project we built since we're back from italy. so, by doing so, this bookaims, i'm quoting a second part, "aims at illustratingour general architectural philosophy andnot at delineating an architecturalgenealogy of our work,"
so it's not about explaininghow the project was made, we want to express thecontinuity of the architecture through the coexistenceof the pictures. architecture stays architecture,you can design it in you, but never really reinvent it. at certain momentswe deliberately provoke by usingthe pair to show the existence of permanentarchitectural motives, always the same themes,always coming back
in a new form inone way or another. you might read that inthis pair of pictures. famous ones, surreal ones,it was very beautiful. our students know this place. there's actually notmuch text in the book. and in certainpairs, this bridge from one picture to theother is less strong, but maybe a common more generaltheme rises, or a subconscious memory of a picture mighthave speeded up the project
at a decisive moment. through reflection, we areonly now becoming aware of it. the two pictures next toeach other are equivalent, and simultaneous, thisis the decisive point, it is about the simultaneityof the picture pairs and not about anybiographic succession. in our view, a sortof timelessness resides in this simultaneity. all pictures are seen equallyof here and now, and not
as historic. does the pictures are all,in a higher sense, pictures from italy, that'sthe introduction to this second projectthat you've just see in the book layout. it was actually our firstproject that we could build, it's an apartment buildingnext to a railroad [inaudible] in the suburb of zurich,and it stands there at the rail road likean old little factory.
this is another one,this is an example that you would find typicallyall along the swiss railway network. so these pictures,actually these examples, that i'm showing youhere in black and white were very important to us, theywere designing this project. so taking picturesas a method continued to inform our design work. we created for thatspecific project
our own system of referencefor and it was clearly a statement towards theanonymous architecture of the everyday, in thatcase the second half of the 20th century all in gray. and from these pictures wewould develop and create our drawings. these are theelevations and interest in the almost casual way ofputting technical elements, it's a housingproject that doesn't
look like a housing project. also, the plan thenshows that it's like a small version of a smallfactory building, or workshop, where then in a laterstage some walls would be added in order to make itinhabitable for apartments. so there is a strongnotion of a scenario. these pictures, theseimages are telling a story, they are telling astory that of course is also related to thecontext, and i think
there is a strategic momentthat is fundamental to our work and i totally agree withinaki, context is not enough. we have to challengethe context but you also have to really useit as a potential, and by creating a pieceof architecture that uses a formal language thatengages with this context, the project can becomepart of that context, but can also activatewhat's around it, even if it doesn't seeing veryinteresting at first glance.
so designing with a picturemeans designing a scenario for a building, that's what wedid in that early grey project that still stands therewith these different type of apartments in there. of course there'sother references, and i think this ismore general and this is very straightforwardand it's also rather the biographical parts to it. while designingthese first spaces
we were referringalso to the studio that we were working in townin 60's office buildings, so you would find all theseelements and the interest in really trying toreassemble this environment we were living in. so no doubt about that,the second strong element in our architectureis the context and i would claimsustainable form is anchored in thecontext, because
an architectural artifactthat is able to communicate through dialoguewith its surrounding has a bigger chance to age,to survive, to be understood, and also to become more thanjust an individual statement. the dialogue is establishedand context, as i said, becomes part of theproject and vice versa. and in that sense,another project that i'm presentinghere is very key, it's our project for theswiss national museum.
it is a project about anarchitectural form that is created through ahighly specific context, it's actually thisbuilding complex, it is late 19th century museum,the national museum in zurich, in switzerland. so it's a historic collageof different styles of architecturethat are actually built in a time where alreadyconcrete construction was used a very academic,and sort of artistic
way of creating a nostalgicvision of the past, of course related tothe idea of creating a myth of swiss history. and our project is an extension,and the transformation of the whole complex. and what we proposedat the time, is also an internationalcompetition, is a new wing on thepark that is actually creating a sort of a circle,consisting of the old part
that you see on the rightand the new on the left, so all the new arecreating a new hole, where you then wouldactually move and circulate between the differentparts, and the two, the old is facing the new,and the new facing the old, and in terms of organizationof space, in terms of the in-between space,the earth and space, the two elementsare closely related. at the same timeyou would directly
see that there isthe context that is asking for this veryspecific, very specific, project at the sametime the form of it is pretty independent. it is a very sculpturalbody that is perhaps recalling some elementsof the existing, would see the succession of differenttypes of roofs that are somehow echoed in the new. so in plan just to giveus a very brief overview
on the organizationof the project, you see in the lower partof the drawing, the existing sort of c-shape mainbuilding around a courtyard with the lateralwing on the right, and then this ratherfree continuous arm that makes the new connectionthrough the park, and you would also see thatthere is a monumental stairs in the middle. so it's basically newgalleries, a library,
auditorium, changingexhibition spaces, that are put in aseries of a continuity, that is just one bigcontinuous space. and you also see thatin here the continuity. and you also see thatin the old building there is a sequence of verydifferent type of spaces, very small ones, veryintimate ones, very big ones, and the new building haslike one flow of space, you better see thathere, but it also
articulates a dramaturgyof changes of direction, of open and closeperspective within that form. and that's actuallythen the roof, and of course thearchitectural expression, it is a very solidbuilding in concrete. the concrete ismeant to be related to the quality of the existingnatural stone building. so there are momentsof, let say sharing, some architecturalqualities like the color
and the materiality,and at the same time, you will see this drasticdifference and the main element in terms of space almostof an iconic quality, is this gate, or thisbridge, that is connecting the museum and the park. actually, the project is notonly about this new wing, it is really about theentity of the whole, the museum as a whole, the oldbuilding more specifically. that historic photograph, whereyou see that in this richly
decorated interior, you cannotreally tell [? whether ?] this is historic architecture, thereare some elements that would be historic and ancient,some exhibits, but also it is an architectureof [? historicist ?] style. and we were asked tocompletely refurbish, for technicalreasons, et cetera, this inner structure that wasnot strong enough anymore. so what actually happens is avery interesting moment, where you would see the old columnsnatural stone actually,
and then the new walls, thatare acting as walls actually, a new ceiling, a new slab, thatis not a slab but it's also walls in concrete,fair-faced concrete, we built like fivesix years ago. it's a beautiful image in thatsense, because it literally, almost in a symbolic way, showsthat the new relies on the old is sitting on this wonderful[? capitol ?] of the old column that is carrying the new thatis this concrete structure. so there is moments ofphysical interaction
between the existingstructure and the new, but at the same timethere is also the attempt to give it a new appearance. it is more pure, it is morespatial, more sculptural, less decoration,no colors anymore, we somehow tried totranslate the existing spaces and its elementsin something like grey-scale sculpturalarchitecture. new elements in the basement,the main hall of the existing
building, and you see thatthere is a density of elements it is this neo-gothic vaults, soa very expressionist structure. you see also a new floor, that'sactually above the vaults, the domes i showed you before. so at some point it's notso clear anymore what is old and what is new,and i think that's where it gets interesting,where context, where time is producing an architecturalproject that is not the one of authoranymore, but it's
an architectural constellationthat i would call, in that sense, un-personaland more general, and in that sensealso more sustainable. in the new building, asit is more or less today, you see that there is thisrough and direct expression of concrete even pushedit a little bit further. that's the monumental stairsin the center of the new wing, with these holes lookingout into the park and into the courtyard.
actually, a contemporaryversion of a historical museum doesn't need any windows, that'sa drama for all the architects, curators, directors,they don't want windows, window is problem. but we need windows, becauseyou have to have a view relationship to theoutside, so the [? ponit ?] [? architectural ?] isactually through that big, bunker like structure, gives youjust in these moments where you turn orientation, where youwould walk around a corner,
you find in these verycomparable small openings that give you this view onto thepark and the existing building. the ceiling is open, verytechnical in that sense, it is in a way also theattempt to react and respond to the dramatic, and intense,architectural features of the existing buildingwith our new elements that are much more casual, butit's not about obstruction, it's the opposite, thingsare very clearly articulated. you see what's there,and in that sense,
these pictures show thealmost finished new part of the museum. from the outside the scaffoldingare disappearing these days, so that's how itstands in the park. where it creates theseinteresting and beautiful moments, betweennature and the museum, between the city and the museum,and between the different parts and i think this is quitean interesting image that shows how literally, howclose, the two are coming
to each other, and where theystart to create something that is the space actually, andit's not on a formal level, it's really on a physicallevel of space and organization of space, that the tubepart of the building are creating this new museum. another project engaged witha different type of context, i mean the museum isreally highly specific, it is a freestandingstructure in a park, in terms of function, butalso in terms of space,
it is in that sense unique. when it comes to a morecasual, more normal situation, like in this project,we're talking about different problemswhen it comes to context. and this is a project that weconsider quite important to us, because it is acommitment in the sense that we stated, aspart of the city. the project is actuallythe building in the middle, as you can guess, butit's urban architecture,
it's unspectacular, it'sperhaps even boring. there is a moment ofindividuality, order and disorder are in thisstrange balance you could say, that's actually thesame for the plan. it's just rooms, actuallyall white, very minimal, but somehow essential i think. that this house, it'sactually apartments for mentally disabledpeople, but it could also be just the housefor other people
where they live in acommunity or individually. it is a house that is understoodas being part of the city, and when this quote we usefor our [? office ?] studio, when adolf loos was saying"the english and the americans expect everyone tobe well-dressed," then he was talking about thegrey suit that is just normal you know, no freakyindividual show, it's just respect the factthat you're one among others, and just relax, and bepart of the collective,
and this is somehow whatthis image is talking about. and having said this,we are one step further addressing the city,addressing the problem, of the collectivespace of the city, we are talkingabout that research that we start to engage whenwe started teaching eth, in zurich, and that's another. the second, let's saytheoretical or book project, it's not a buildingit's a book, but as i
want to really underlineis that making a book and making a buildingis as important, the one as the other. and it is a great privilegethat we could, at this point, go out into the worldand look at cities. actually, here you seethe cover, in a first go, we looked at thesenormal buildings, at the normal case as wecall it, in hong kong, in rome, in new york,and in buenos aires,
and it is a collectionof examples. we call that the booktypology, so there comes this famous termof type into play, but first and foremost,it is a documentation and that's a type ofarchitectural books that exist since everarchitects are surveying a city, or the world, areobserving the world, just drawing what they thinkis relevant for themselves, and the generations to come.
and in some parts actually,especially for hong kong, we were documentingbuildings that by now that don't exist anymore. so there is also amoment of course, of documentationas historio-graphs, if i may say so. you see on the left, actuallyyou see it very badly, but there is an indexof a collection, like a butterfly collectionof these buildings,
and on the right you also seea bold title that is actually quite explicit, it's claimingthat with this collection we might be ableto create something a new urbanarchitecture, and that's where in inaki's observation onthe rather freestyle movements, around these typologiescould be explored. and then i will justread another short part of that text, so thechoice of these cities is as logical, asit is intuitive,
and that's also somethingabout these books, it is very subjective and verysystematic at the same time, i mean you can also lookat these wonderful projects or artist's project like edruscha series of photographs of the [? latest ?]swimming pools, the parking lots, every building onsunset strip, et cetera. so they are of course, veryfamous, and very beautiful works, that areexactly proposing this view onto the world,that is at the same time
very systematic, you couldalmost say scientific, but on the other hand, itis extremely subjective. also to a certain extent,[? vernon ?] [? gil ?] [? l'appage, ?] what theydid with their series on an industrial architecture. so, logical and intuitive, theyare modern cities, our cities that we chose, oncethat grew in the course of the industrialisationor later cities, that with regard to theirdevelopment patterns
and their architectureare unique. above all however,they are cities that we would intuitively,identified as urban. in other words, cities thatpossess those qualities that we miss in contemporarybuilding production, we want to examine themto determine whether they are suitable as previouslyundiscovered visions for contemporary urbanity. we're looking at them becausewe think they could be relevant,
and i'm coming back i'm alreadystarting to repeat myself i know, but it is notabout the historic interest in that sense. so hong kong, rome, new york,buenos aires, all of them, even rome, have substantiallyemerged in the last 100 years, which gives us the hope thatthey can be helpful to us in the search for acontemporary notion of a city. in so doing our goal is notto create an urban portrait, we are not seeking acomprehensive portrayal
of the city underexamination, rather we search through the thicketof a city for the logic of its form, for what is typicalof its development, or simply the typological. we seek theunderlying paradigms, we investigate this citieswith the intention of learning from them, and theirarchitecture for our own work. because why shouldn'ta building type that's part of an urbansystem in new york,
also be successful in zurich. the concept of type isa matter of principle, and not its elaborationin any specific case. a principle is universalper se, hence the type is independent of aspecific place or the city where it originated. so what happens whenwe transfer types from other cities to zurich? that was the actuallytheoretical or methodological
point, or idea, that camealong with this survey. and you see that isit it's a catalogue, but it's also aseries of pictures that show thenwhat sort of cities are produced by these types. and then you also see here onepicture of a student project, you could say thisis really dry and it is almost anonymous design, butwe were interested in doing so. that's a projectfor zurich 2011.
and we were soexcited by collecting these examples thatwe actually went on, and no worries i won't read allthe text in all these books. and i even counted, notas a project on its own, because it's justthe second part, it is the typology athens,paris, sao paulo, and delhi, where this actuallyquite exciting discovery on some buildingsthat we have here and that was also interesting.
i'm actually happy andproud to mention this here, we obviously lookedalso at the text by rafael moneo ontypology, the text that rafael moneo wrote in 1978and published in opposition and it's a text where he goesthrough the history of the term of type, from the perspectiveof architectural production, but also architecturaltheory in the '70s saying that perhaps the type is notreally very useful anymore, because it arrived toa certain dead-end.
that was his analysis,but at the same time he didn't gave up on thatterm, so it was in a way, like a closedcircle in his text, and it's a very beautiful text,and it explains it perfectly, i think in a sense that isstill very, very valuable. but he also left itopen, at the very end there is a moment of hopethat the concept of type is not dead inarchitecture, and we took on and asked rafaelmoneo whether he
would allow thatwe translate that for the first time in german. so what you seein the upper part is a translation of an englishtext that most likely was written perhaps in spanishat the beginning or however, so it was not soeasy work but i think a very important one to us andour students in switzerland. so you know, and the ones thatare in the studio with us, that this text stillmatters, that's also
in that second bookthat's actually just published a couple of weeks ago. so that's the blue one,after the gray one, we're getting wild here. let me state, sustainablearchitectural form is also typological,it is formed by a typological principlein a certain simplification, i would say the type isthe reason behind the form. it organizes a formof use, but also
then a form of space anda typological principle, gives a precise logicto a form, and that's the rationale alsoin our thinking. ideally a project finds its formthrough this logic of a type. show you two more pages of thatenormous project here in paris, and it is it'sactually interesting, no worry i'm not quoting myselfagain because it's getting a bit problematic here,but in the text of moneo it said actuallyreferring to argan,
so the modernposition at the time, for argan it was through thecomparison and overlapping of certain formal regularitiesthat the type emerged, by observing. because there aredifferent concepts of type, and you could also say type issomething that comes a priori, but the way we approached itis more in the way of argan that you collect, it's avery phenomenological way, we are collecting, weare selecting examples,
and then by comparing them,the type somehow emerges. it was the basic form throughwhich series of buildings were related to each otherin a comprehensible way, type in this sensecould be defined as the inner formalstructure of a building or series of buildings. it's in that understandingthat i think we should read it, because it is inthat sense also quite loose structure oftypological collection
that we are proposing here. in fact here that whatwe see here is athens. i think everybody gothere now that we're very excited about thattype of architecture, that we walkedthrough these cities and it's not justinteresting as a phenomenon, in terms of politics andsort of social economics, but it's also just youlook at these buildings and most of them are betterthan the buildings you design
yourself and they're alsobetter than the buildings that you are designing. so somehow this is intriguing,honestly this is not false modesty, is alsoaggressive as a statement because i really believeit, most of our colleagues are not looking the back. and it's the constellationof these buildings, and somehow we shouldalso look at it as architecture, thephysical, and that
was the main motivation. and ideally it would informyour work, i don't know, i'm not claimingthat we are here jumping from sao pauloto again switzerland. but there is momentsof interest overlapping in doing this research andin making your project, and that spot in-line ofwhat i'm telling here, that doing this researchis done very much so from the perspectiveof a designer.
this building stands on a trainstation, its regional center in switzerland, in basel. so there's the trainstation, there's this tower, with some office, three officefloors and shops, and then some housing apartments. what's actuallyvery interesting, talking abouttypology, organizing a spatial consolationin a directed dependency from some constraints, we wouldfind this floor plan, where you
see in the north is the core. so, it's a towerbut a centric core, that's because thereis heavy train traffic and that's verynoisy so you're not allowed, and not able really,to open your rooms to that side that you see in the upperpart of the drawing. so somehow it was about----here is the train. so that angle here,in the beginning it was very, in that sense verytechnical, always mathematical.
this angle showsthe first moment where you would be in the shadowof the noise from the train, so here you couldopen your window without any technical features,so there you have windows. whereas on that side it hasto be completely closed. so what happens is that youhave in that sort of fan, you would find five apartmentsin the lower floor, three bigger apartments here that allare opening towards the south on that side, i meanthis is not an invention,
there is a wonderfulplans by alvar aalto, there is all sort of that type. it's a ration of variationof a type in that sense. but it is quite a specificplan, it's a commercial project so on the under quite thepressure of optimization, but given the very specificcondition in that very specific place we created that ratheruntypical floor plan, that in the end leads to quiteinteresting apartments that are deep orientationto one side,
but opening the perspectiveto the landscape as you can imagine. and this is quiteinteresting, and then you would go in the lower part,where then we somehow flip it into the double of thesurface of the floor area where you have the offices,and that's the ground floor. so in that senseit's very simple, but what i consider interestingis that actually this very coherent, typologicaloperation, to organize the floor
plan in that specific,let's say precarious place, leads to a very strongand expressive piece of architecture. of course there is amoment of formal decision, it is symmetrical,and i think it is as basic as it is, ithelps of course to give order to that object. and here i wouldclaim that the type makes the architectural form.
the type is the buildingand is the architecture. you see that the facade is justthe ribbon window, but there, where it cannot beopen any longer, it somehow closes its eyes andit creates this rather closed expression of formslike armature. it is galvanizedsteel, that will be also a bit more markedwith the time, that's also very recent actually. and what christoph and iare so excited about it's
a non-designedobject, it is really its structure and thefacade, is one simple rule, and it goes with the logic ofthe typological organization. and given therhomboid floor plan, of course depending from howyou approach the building, it would give a completelydifferent impression, that's how it standsthen on the railways. so that's a recent project thatwe just are about to finish, and still a construction site.
and there is anotherone, that we just hand it over to theclient, it's a project that is based on a similar,let's say formal lay-out, but it's a completelydifferent set-up, it's a marketing/researchbuilding for a small swisstechnology company, that is engineering polymerprocessing for global big firms worldwide. so that's anengineering place, where
they build prototypesand are selling them, and that's importantbecause it's not housing it's not anormal case, it's not just what you see everyday in all the cities. so it's something thatis a bit more specific, and in that sense alsothe notion of type again is challenged,because there is no type for that,there is something that you have to invent, youhave to prototype something
rather. and you see these likea fan, it's a shed, but on a irregular floor plate,in section you would understand that there is two parts, in thebasement in concrete there is all the installations,the mechanics, also chemical products, so it isprotected against explosion, and on top seats a veryfragile more open structure, where you would have meetingsand seminars and so on, so it's a testingcenter as well.
talking about form,it would be clear that it refers to thelanguage and the imagery of industrial architecturein that sense, showing the very strongexpression of the shed roof and these gates, butthere is also offices, it's a brand the nameof the company is list. and that's how it justshows in the landscape, is a rather picturesqueplace in the countryside. it's raw aluminum andthen in the inside,
there is these momentswhere you would look through thiscircular windows into the world offabrication and testing, whereas in these spaces youhave the meetings, and seminars, and receptions, and so on. so a lot of thedesign effort went into defining a language,a formal vocabulary that is actually expressingthe world of technology, metallic surfacesactually very simple,
but also referring tosteel construction, but at the sametime it should also show that there is somethingabout individuality, it's not mass production. so in that project,the discourse on form was very, very much,related or influenced by the discussion withthe client on what is the right language toexpress the specific idea and purpose of such a building,that's actually what is perhaps
the most importantabout such rather small but still quite themcomplex project. and this takes me to projectnumber seven, i think or eight. this is anotherplace for working, it's an office building, for aglobal pharmaceutical company, but just offices more or less. and again talking form, talkinggeneral principles of form, i would say this is perhapsthe most radical project, it's the slabs,it's the composition
of three floorsthat are expressing, let's say a subtle variation ofthe modern principle of domino and so on. but it is not this mechanicalrepetition of a module, it is a buildingthat is composed, because every space isdifferent the height of the slab is varying as well, and whatis also interesting there is a moment of reductionto the tectonic scheme of the fragilecolumns and a very
solid monolithic whiteconcrete slabs that are lying on these rather fragile stilts. and of course themoment of openness, and i would even take it toa more general or metaphoric level perhaps as well, it ishere very concrete though, it is one fifth of thebuilding is just open space , and we said look-- we convincethe client that it would be interesting to reserve aportion of the building for not a specific use, that could be ofcourse recreation or different
types of working. it is in the swiss,or european climate, so it is not necessarilyvery hot here, the light is anadditional added value to the building inthat sense, and it also stands almostsymbolically for this idea that the buildingwould ideally be open to unknown futureways of using it and here of course thestructure is the slab
and the rest is prettyflexible, you could even say at some point it wouldbe used in a different way and also integratedinto the interior space. but for us it was absolutelyimportant to create this moment of openness,it's an offer to the people also to communicate on that siteof that sort of a campus which is actually surrounding. so the spatial interactionwith the larger and the outside is like a key elementof the project.
and this are somemore views that you could see them in the inside. perhaps just one moreword to that carpet, this is very sort ofdidactic in the sense that it shows it's not partof the primary principle of the building, it'sof course a decoration but when there is furnitureand people you wouldn't even notice so much but i think in the end theunderstanding of the building
for us, it wasabsolutely key that we make a strong distinctionbetween the white solid part of the building, that itis it's essential form and something that can change,that is added on, that is in that sense reallya more dynamic all saw and more decorative,and there we touch on the principleof cladding or clothing as we were saying. it's in that sense a verysystematic, or very logical
project, i think. and then you have these glassboxes, as quiet [? boothes ?], so somehow it is alsorelated to the question of form and language. i think it is also a goodexample because it shows very clearly that everybuilding is somehow related to other buildingsas i said in the beginning, and this is areinterpretation of the extent of the classicmodernist vocabulary,
but still it tries to give it anindividual form that hopefully will last also andbe understood, also in '50 years time. the plan is as simpleas this and you also see that it is that a separationbetween inside and outside doesn't really matter in thatsense, it's just one space. with these momentsof irritation, where the rhythm of thecolumn will change from one side to the other.
and, as you are alreadyperfectly understood, it's not one project forcontext, one for type, and one for openness,or whatever, but it's also a sort of accumulation ofthese arguments in the sense that the context of coursewas again, and still, a very important momentin this project too. since these whitefunctionalist buildings that were on that sidebuilt since the 50's, had a certain impact, and again i'mreferring here to the position,
or to statement i made earlier,that architecture should engage with the context,should become part of it and not necessarily stand outas the great exception, that's what we think. and so another projectthat is actually quite recent, and very smalland modest in that sense is a pavilion. we were just last week,i saw for the first time, christoph saw it before, withi was with swiss students
[non-english] and that's themost individual project you can imagine, and this is notat all the [non -english] but it's also a box, almosttemporary structure that stands in a garden. a luscious garden thatis so in that sense quite a romantic project, itis a small guest house or a temporary house, and it'svery basic in terms of design it is symmetric, more or less,there is the entrance door, so you get also a feeling ora sense of the scale, three
windows on each side and alsoone then on the two ends. that's the facade,clad it in roof felt or asphalt i don't know whatthe right term is in english, so that is a skinaround it, and that protects it thatalmost camouflage it in the green of thegarden, but also gives it a notion ofcomposition of order. there is, as you can see, ahorizontal band that makes something like a [? sock ?] onthe [? plimf ?] and then you
would have the vertical ones. so of course in thisalmost nothing of the box is the whole tensionof classic composition that plays with this momentof abstraction and concrete elements that are made explicit,like the shutters that you will see for the windows. so again, it isreferring explicitly to a traditionalvocabulary on the one hand, and on the other hand wewere very much interested
in keeping it openenough to be understood as almost an abstract object. in terms of the plan,it is two rooms, an entrance that is atthe same time a kitchen and a small bathroomon the other side, so very pragmatic orrational in its organization. and then you see you mightsee here in the drawing that the doors arewalls and would move in all sortsof constellations,
so you could alsototally open it and you would just have a box. so it's something that can bean office, a studio, a smaller house, as i said. and in offering thesedifferent constellations, i think it also stands almostas an ideal case for this idea that the building, itsform, is typological, and it's open, that it canalso be used in a different way that it was actually builtfor at the beginning.
so in that sense,i think it actually fits very well, the topic orthe purpose of that lecture that tries to show that ideallyour design achieves a certain degree ofanonymity, of generality, and of openness to the future. it was then furnishedwith the-- there is an old house inthe same garden, and there is some oldpiece of furniture that go very well with this,let's say elegant minimalism
of the box. and this image showsyou this double reality of the abstract containerand the classicist, almost classicist garden pavilion. and the two words thati'm proposing here is, my last sentence in thisseries of sustainable forms, sustainable form isgeneral and anonymous, and you could also say it'suniversal, it is not personal. and i don't know whether thisis totally true what i'm saying,
i know of coursethat paradoxically enough by trying toget to that point where you reach a certain levelof generality in your design, it is only through a highlyindividual effort of exactly designing in that direction. so, it's even throughinvention and innovation perhaps that youwould get there, but it is something that wefind very intriguing and very important actually.
what we are also discussingwith the students, how much, can, or should,an architectural design be your personal expression? of course there is all yourpersonal energy in there, your know how, yourunderstanding, everything, but it's not about how youfeel, architecture is not made to express yourown feelings, that's what we believe and we're notthe first ones to say that. and the last projectstill in the,
let's say, coherentdevelopment of that argument is the kunstmuseum, themuseum of fine arts in basel that gets its extension,it is actually an extension of anew building that stands on the otherside of the street. so that's a collage,a very rough sketch, where you see onthe right hand side the existing museum fromthe 1930's, and then on the left hand where thisnew building that is mainly
offering more exhibitionspace, permanent and changing exhibitions, so it isa gallery building. on the model you getan understanding, i mean this is theexisting with a courtyard and then here in a ratheraccidental geometry, on a given plot, thatit finds its logic through the historyof the town here with some medieval structuresalong the river in basel, and then more modern,and more recent
layout of the 20th century. so the form of thebuilding is directly derived from thegiven of the site, at first and thenlooking at the plan, we would understandthat the new building actually beingquite compact, it's small this small butterflycompared to the big building, but it's still has a certainpresence in that very spot in the urban space.
so you see there are twowings, one is parallel to that road, and the otherone, the smaller one is parallel to the other road. so the urban space, thecondition of the plot, is directly informingthe organization of the type of thebuilding with these two, let's say houses withinthe one building. two buildings being broughttogether in this one plan, and that's thelogic of the plan,
then the galleries arehere twice four per floor, so eight in total,orthogonal, and there we tried to really make it veryhierarchical and very clear. the logic of theform, the form that is ideally self-evidentor self explaining, and in terms of the plan,i think it is at least. you see then that inthe center, as a sort of complimentary form, youwould have the central stairs and concourse, andthe circulation space,
and then as a thirdcategory we would have the lift and thevertical circulation of all the ventilationand so on, that we would call the porche perhaps. so the difference or thegap between the outside the perimeter formof the building, that is related to the side,and then the inner form that is related to the typeof the gallery's. so it is an attempt to builda gallery, a museum, that
is rather classic in terms ofspace it is about proportions. we always claim that duringthe whole design and building process up to now,that we are trying to build a contemporaryversion of a classical museum. so it's a museum,it's galleries that refer to an understandingof a gallery space that is established, but ofcourse the size is different, proportions are different. arts is presenting itselfunder different forms nowadays,
and more installations,more interactive, so it's not the smallcabinets necessarily, so what you would understandis also in comparison. it is using somehow the samevocabulary, the sustainability of the same code in a way,so the new building speaks to a certain extent thesame language as does the old one, in thatsense we are again very coherent with thiscourse on context, on referring toheritage, informing
your own languageas an architect, being at the same timecompletely in your time, open towards the future,but you are anchored somehow in the system that isalready around you, but it is different. and that's someimages now to close, that showed just differentstages that are actually very beautiful moments. when the base buildingwas up, but not
yet some additional materials,big galleries in the basement, and then some surreal moments,where these solid walls, are somehow, not touchingthe floor, but still they are acting as beams, so itis a very solid building, it's a very solid building. and coming back to my giventitle of the sustainability, you could say it'san obvious thing, but solidity, also interms of construction, that it is builtfor 100 years, i
mean this is almost crazysaying that nowadays 2016, 15, that we here, by choosingthe materials the building technology is something thatshould really last in time, and that should also bealso last in use hopefully, because you don'tmove these walls. and i remember when i showedit to sharon, together with josef helfensteinfrom the menil collection, he was totally shocked thatthe walls wouldn't move. in american museums, thewhitney in new york, everything
is movable, everythingis flexible, and i think it is quiteinteresting as an alternative to propose a piece ofarchitecture that is not flexible, but it'smeant to be as it is and hopefully, i mean thatself-confidence stating it like that, buthopefully it's right. so it gets then light fromthe top as you can understand, now it goes on, sothis sustainability on the physical level isalso there with the stairs,
i mean you have cementstucco on the walls, that's very basic it's rough, it'snot just nice it's also rough. it's not elegantnecessarily, but i think it is quitenoble in the sense that you have massivemarble stairs. you have these momentsin the central stairwell that i showed you, withthe light from the top. i mean, it's notfinished, and then you would have againour favorite material.
is true, do you callthat galvanized a steel? this is the rough, when it getsmatte with the time, that's the doors. ah, it's a bit sadwithout the art works. i mean there is a wholediscourse that i'm not giving now on the logicthen about the system, i was talking abouta type, there is also a logic of building it up fromthe basement to the top, always based on the samesystem, we would
vary the tectonicsof the ceiling which then the top floor would bringin the light as light frames. and not just from theoutside, it's again, it's pretty much the sameas the national museum. after these two museums wereally, were free persons because we havenothing to do anymore, now we are almost dead. but here it's bricks,three different types of colors of gray brickwith a [? freeze ?]
that will then beanimated, but only indirectly in a subtle waywith the led, the lights that repeat the logic of thelayering of the break with just light and shadows,quite an interesting moment. and here you get a feelingof how it would then be present on thatsmaller open space, next to the oldbuilding, i mean this is more of an indication ofwhat it could be in the future, but you guess a little bitthat pictures from italy
somehow are still there. we feel this isour palazzo site. and this is, iguess, the last image where we're lookingat it from a distance and it almost disappears,and i would repeat to close sustainableform, is informed by the heritage of architecture,it is anchored in the context, sustainable form is based ona clear typological principle, it is general and thereforeanonymous, at least at first,
and in that sense it's almostun-personal contribution to the build environment. thank you, very much. thank you, thank you very much. we still have some minutesto have some conversations and some words. normally i have towarm up the room, with some kind of proposal. is strange that you haven'ttalked about matter, in a way,
or directly. i mean, the wordsyou were using were, i mean it's just a firstcomment, were really abstract, and it's lights were sophysical, so based in-- and especially the factthat almost all of the works have been shown in underconstruction, almost evolving, i mean the imagesevolve then they begin not having the pavement,they have some pavements, i mean it was in a way, avery carefully orchestrated
to create kind of pleasurethat architects have when see the thing evolveand being materialize. so i think that therewere only at the end, you have mentionedthere were economy, but there is a kindof clear discourse on the economy of form andthe intensity of matter in the world thatyou are developing. that in a way i'm askingyou if there is something that you can elaborate on this.
i have heard thephrase that i have taken note which is in amoment you were talking about the dialogueamong the old and new, you mention that it was nota formal, but physical level the dialogue, andthis physicality-- i mean this is the thingthat i would like to hear you a little bit moreabout, the physicality of your architecture. i can also ask christoph to helpme, he is more the physical,
and i'm-- not that's nottrue, that's clearly not true. but, i mean the images theytalk mainly about this. and of course, i could also tellit, or start the whole lecture from a different-- i wastalking about the physical when i was talkingabout the cities, that we said weapproach the city, as research, observer,from the physical. and of course this is absolutelyat the center and its core, and we spend most ofour time elaborating
the projects on thelevel of construction, on finding a physical expressionfor all these for that reality that we are tryingto create, what i was talking about ofthe formal logic related to context, related alsoto that personal heritage that we are accumulating bycollecting these pictures and this knowledge. in the end, it's allabout the physical, i mean that we aretotally convinced it
is in the end thebuilding is not, in the first place, anintellectual contribution, well is just a physicalartifact and our understanding, perhaps also that perhapsyour psychological reading of our constellation. we have this swisscontext, where construction, where insistingon the physical, the celebrating of the physical, is of courseat the core of our discipline and we are not working againstthis, but we don't content
or it's not enough. it is therefore the discourseon the form that is sometimes very closely related tothe economies of also construction, of the logicthe rationale of construction, is of course very important. and all no doubt, but trueit was not the central line of the discourse, true. the questions why i don't know. yeah, is for the records.
the only thing is that ihave noticed is that, in way, i have to insistin the swiss thing, yes, in the sense that i wasclearly in europe, hearing you, i mean it's about type andcity, is again aldo rossi, is a re-elaboration ofideas that we are really familiarized with. and i like to connect thiswith the title of your books, review, because the title is agreat invention i have to say, view its many things, it'sto collect things, which
is obvious and in content,but this also to judge, and the students know it, finalreview and we need to review, so it's easy to understandthat this a judgement implicit in interviewing andthere is also the precedence of putting together things. i think that in yourwork is a lot of that, i mean you are collectors. and i think that everytypological architect is a collector.
i don't know if you wantto elaborate on this? [inaudible] whatcan say, christoph do you contradict inaki? maybe the studentswant to add something. questions? comments? critics? yes? it's your opportunity.
hi, thanks for the lecture. i see the circularmirror, apertures, or window, thatappear and reappear in some of your projects. how would you talkabout that in terms of personal desire ofcircular language and type, i know it's a minordetail of your project. i mean the circularwindow, or aperture , appears in the national museumproject, in that moment,
and there i should actually,or could not talk a lot also, but in construction, wherea massive monolithic, actually really monolithic,without any dilatation joints, concrete wall is perforatedlocally to just allow, to establish this relationship,this punctual relationship, so in terms of types ofopenings, or apertures, the circular window that sits inthe monolithic concrete wall is like the purest and mostdirect way of creating a hole-- and what we actually did--is, we build first the wall
and then we drilled it. yeah sure, and therefore,the size of the hole is the maximumsize we could have with what you can drill,which is like 80 something centimeters or meteror 110 in the outside, and a little smallerin the inside. and also, that's really wetry to convince ourselves that the circle openingis a different type, we are looking forthe maximum contrast
to the traditionalwindow, we said that's not a window it's morelike a technical opening, and in some of theseholes you would have just the ventilation, sowe tried to give it a very specific technical,but also iconographic reason, and then it reappears inthat moment where we have these three cabins, withthe technical installations behind it. so again it is referringto the world of,
let's say machinery,somehow that how we used it, but it's true it'sa formal decision. and there is onemore project i didn't show, it's a competitionwe didn't win, a nice, i have to say, butthe best ones are the ones that do not win,at least for us there's always the same. that's another thing. so it was a laboratory building,and again it reappears,
i don't know whether this wasof any related to your question, but i mean it is not, it's atype of an opening that exists, and we use it in thatsense as inaki was saying, we consider it partof our vocabulary, in our collection, so to say. i'm just thinkingof inaki's comment about every typologicalarchitect is a collector, and i feel maybethe difference is how you curate thatcollection, whether it's
from rome or from buenosaires, and i followed your work in for a long time,so i've seen very insistent researches on types,i've been thinking of maybe the broken line inthe history museum, the volta housing, the [? otto ?] house,you know versus the more fan shape projects in the toweror the new project you show. i'm curious about thistension, how does is it this typologicalinsistence differs from the earlier generation,where rossi has a type,
loos has a type, butthen the analogical part is to cloak it with contexts. where find thistension different, but i can't articulatethe difference, you know especiallythe last project. classical galleries,but the medieval shape, but then a classicaldisposition, kind of like aplateau disposition, so i don't have a questioni just have observation.
and if there is an answerto your observation christoph with thengiven it, i don't know. there is another observationor quick question. or both, i don't know. since most of us are not swiss,and i was in germany last year and got to see a lot ofswiss architecture too, and noticed that there's kindof something that ties all of it together very much. so i'm curious when youcome out of that world,
academically in the buildingculture, and come here. what are some of thebiggest impressions that have been made uponyou, with the work that's happening now? do you in here in theto school or in the us, i think us and thegsd, like things that are the most radically,things that stand out to you. you know, i have my feelingis that talking schools, one thing is that i havenot enough overview yet
on what is producedin that school, so i am very excited to seethat during the midterms and then at the finalreviews, where we are here. my feeling is in our generation,and the younger generation-- but that's perhaps not truebut that's my impression-- whether it's in switzerlandor in germany, or in the us, it's not necessarilyso different anymore also because theexchange is more, and more stronger, andstronger, you would
have internationalteachers all over so i'm not so sure whetherthe short answer is it didn't make ashocking impression on me or that i'm totallylost because i think i'm in a differentworld, i don't think so at all. we are discussingat this school here, at gsd strategies, ways ofhow to deal with urbanisation of the planet, weare discussing here in computerised production ofnew architectural technologies,
i mean this is andthis is also producing form and ways ofdesigning that are not so different than it is at gsd. so at the moment there is noobservation of a culture shock or so. what we know, i believe to know,and this is a different level, and there are also a veryrelevant level of discussion also to the students iswhere is the profession, what is the people being nowat school doing in the us,
when they are out, when youare then joining a practice, doing your own projects, imean at least the prejudice is that in the us, i meanthe good architects, there are not really involvedwith the building production industry anymore. and the tendency is in europe,unfortunately the same, and this is something weare very much at the moment, but that's beside the physical. it is where arewe as architects,
and where is ourinfluence, that's a totally differentdiscourse but that's, i think a very relevantone, and there i have the feeling the us,is different from europe. less in the academicfield, but i don't know i mean there isother people who know better. [inaudible] the gsdkind of a relative limbo in the academic world in thestates, because the heritage comes from europe,i mean from gropius,
and the bauhaus, et cetera. so also in a way, i would saythat this is the most european school even if we comparewith other in the ivy league you notice they saidkind of different. the other coast is different,one coast and the other. but i agree this is aninternational discussion and sometimes you see youthink that you are innovating in one terrain thatis super specific, and you go malaysia, orwhatever and you 20 instructors
doing exactly the same. so it's a kind of i mean, idon't know if it makes sense, i mean i'm respondingfor him because i think is a topic thati'm interested in it. but it's amazing how fashionand ideas come and go, and reproduce themselveslake in the stadium when the people make this,go and then suddenly you have paramedics--and-- [inaudible] maybe this [inaudible]is the spirit of the time
or maybe it's justfashion i don't know but it happens literally inthe last corner of the world. so it's not like i meanworld, but the other point i completely agreethe difference in that the participation in theconstruction and the building, of the object itself makes ahuge difference in the way we design, we think and weorganize the project. that's a completelydifferent thing. if you have moreand more questions
yeah, i had a questionfor you, thank you, for sharing your workespecially this one project of yours this home forthe mentally disabled was a project studypreviously, it was delightfulexample of working in the context of especiallyswiss urban environment. but my questionconcerns your tower in basel, the high densityhigh rise typology, which is almost an erraticallyintroduction to the context
of the basel urbancity space, and i wondered if you could elaborateon maybe the challenges, or your thoughts on introducingsuch a typology to basel. i think it's true thatit is not so common, but it's also on the modelit looked very isolated but there is also, i wouldsay in central europe and also switzerland,especially in switzerland, you can observe that now cities arereally, they're re-urbanized. there is a moment of apressure of the densification,
and so the challenge,of course, is to find places oran understanding of the urban environment thatis also offering let's say, the right places for that,and along the infrastructure of railroads i think this isa very interesting environment to build this sort of new scale. but which is i meanit's really not, i mean almost feela bit of embarrassed to talk about that here in theus, it's like 70 meters or so,
but i think it wasfairly accepted, i it's not thatthis was a shock, and it's not that ispolitically difficult or so. there again alsoeconomy comes into play, and i mean everybodyunderstands, it makes sense, you tripleor more of the profit, and it is on a placewere mainly the shadow is cast on the railways, it'snot the problem you know. that's pretty mucha pragmatic, it's
rather then what i presentedwith a certain satisfaction of the designer that it hasthis straightforwardness in its expression, this almostmonumental, or not almost, is very monumentalpresence, that's something which is people isnot so used to now switzerland is not so harmless, not at all. there is nastyconstructions all over, but normally itdoesn't show so much. not, true no.
ok, last one? i think this was the last one. i just want to thank youfor this great lecture.