(another) herzog & de meuron at the vitra design museum

Designed and built between 2013 and 2016, Herzog & de Meuron envisioned an addition to an existing building to complement the older structure while speaking its own language. The architects borrowed the material (bricks) and some of the form creating a minimalist and introverted facade to house a bright and cheery display of chairs. H&M also played with texture by breaking the bricks in half, longwise, and facing walls with the roughage. We missed it, but there's a clever outreach of the new into the old one of the transitions. This building is next to Zaha Hadid's fire station, so it's nice that H&M did not see the need to 'equal' the exuberance of Hadid's piece.

photo from Herzog and de Meuron's webpage

metal chair by Gerritt Reitveld

zaha hadid at the vitra design museum

Zaha Hadid's first realized project was a fire station (1991-1993) at the Vitra Design Museum commissioned by Rolf Fehlbaum after a lightning strike burned down part of Vitra's factory complex. The design is neo-Brutalist in its use of concrete and glass but also Deconstructivist in its use of random planes colliding at a central focal point. The building is a exhuberant explosion of concrete and glass, perhaps commemorating the lightening strike that burned the factory. Unlike her later use of organic curves, this building is hard surfaces and angles, brilliantly balanced and thoughtful.

frank gehry at the vitra design museum

After a fire burned down half of the Vitra campus, they hired a number of budding architects to help rebuild, including one Frank Gehry. Gehry designed the museum as well as entrances to the factories and the gatehouse, completed in 1989. These structures were not only his first European buildings but also his first use of the curving, almost nonsensical structures that would turn into his signature style and starchitect status.

One thing I love about Gehry's buildings is that they are different through all 360 degrees. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A peek over the fence at an entrance to the factory:

And here's the gatehouse: