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Coop Himmelb(l)au
Architecture must burn. Open-minded designs and undefined spaces of radical architecture
""Coop Himmelb(l)au is not a color but an idea of creating architecture with fantasy, as buoyant and variable as clouds."" So the architecture group itself defines its name and design concept. Beginning with inflated bubbles and interactive installations in the 1960s, the group, consisting of the architects Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer, began to create harsh interventions in the urban context under the headline ""architecture must burn."" The designs of the buildings are like oversized sound boxes, with dancing silhouettes and collapsing lines that are always rushing and echoing. As one of only a few groups in those early times, they are among the leading international architecture offices today, justified by their outstanding expressiveness and professionalism.
Coop Himmelb(l)au ’s most well-known projects include the Rooftop Remodeling Falkestraße in Vienna, Austria (1988); the Groningen Museum, East Pavilion, in Groningen, Netherlands, (1994); the UFA Cinema Center in Dresden, Germany, (1998); the BMW Welt in Munich, Germany (2007); the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, USA, (2007) and the Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles, USA (2008).
Among the recent projects that Coop Himmelb(l)au is pursuing throughout the world are the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark, the European Central Bank’s new headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Dalian International Conference Center in China.
""Coop Himmelb(l)au is not a color but an idea of creating architecture with fantasy, as buoyant and variable as clouds."" So the architecture group itself defines its name and design concept. Beginning with inflated bubbles and interactive installations in the 1960s, the group, consisting of the architects Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer, began to create harsh interventions in the urban context under the headline ""architecture must burn."" The designs of the buildings are like oversized sound boxes, with dancing silhouettes and collapsing lines that are always rushing and echoing. As one of only a few groups in those early times, they are among the leading international architecture offices today, justified by their outstanding expressiveness and professionalism.
Coop Himmelb(l)au ’s most well-known projects include the Rooftop Remodeling Falkestraße in Vienna, Austria (1988); the Groningen Museum, East Pavilion, in Groningen, Netherlands, (1994); the UFA Cinema Center in Dresden, Germany, (1998); the BMW Welt in Munich, Germany (2007); the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, USA, (2007) and the Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 of Visual and Performing Arts in Los Angeles, USA (2008).
Among the recent projects that Coop Himmelb(l)au is pursuing throughout the world are the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark, the European Central Bank’s new headquarters in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the Dalian International Conference Center in China.
495 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2010
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August 11, 2012
This is THE major monography on the architecture firm of Coop Himmelb(l)au and it's exceptional in every sense. For one, it's simply huge: it's nearly too large to even lift and certainly impossible to leaf through unless supported on a drafting table or something of that nature. It will remind you—just placing your hands upon it—of some lofty tome from ages of yore you might see a mage or king open in a fantasy movie. While impressive, it's overkill and could have been—should have been in my opinion—more of a standard size, because it's seriously too large and difficult to deal with in many ways. For one, you cannot compare another book of architecture next to it side-by-side because it's so damn big.
That said, its size is my only complaint at all. The book is beautiful in its photography and production values and the depth and scope of the architecture it covers could not be better. You get everything from the firm's early experimental projects to its massive showplace for BMW. Every major project is included and every project gets an ample number of pages and great photos and drawings. There are a lot of plans in here, but also many sketches and photographs of models built for the projects. When you open the book to any given project, you're greeted with a two-page spread of full-bleed photographs and then it marches onward into the text and main photos for that project. The text is presented in German, English, and French and though tri-lingual is comprehensive and detailed enough to be useful to the scholar.
Some people have wondered how art/architecture books will survive now that portfolios can be placed online, updated, and in fact take on many of the duties of the traditional monograph. This is how, via books like this, books that are in fact works of art for those who cannot have a building by the architect whom they so admire.
That said, its size is my only complaint at all. The book is beautiful in its photography and production values and the depth and scope of the architecture it covers could not be better. You get everything from the firm's early experimental projects to its massive showplace for BMW. Every major project is included and every project gets an ample number of pages and great photos and drawings. There are a lot of plans in here, but also many sketches and photographs of models built for the projects. When you open the book to any given project, you're greeted with a two-page spread of full-bleed photographs and then it marches onward into the text and main photos for that project. The text is presented in German, English, and French and though tri-lingual is comprehensive and detailed enough to be useful to the scholar.
Some people have wondered how art/architecture books will survive now that portfolios can be placed online, updated, and in fact take on many of the duties of the traditional monograph. This is how, via books like this, books that are in fact works of art for those who cannot have a building by the architect whom they so admire.
Displaying 1 of 1 review