One of the busiest and most revered architecture firms in the world, Herzog de Meuron seem to be busy as ever in building in all sizes, shapes, and typologies.
Elbphilharmonie
The architects aimed to create a concert hall where anyone can easily enjoy the philharmonic, and not just the elite. The program mix inside helped with this aim where 3 concert halls, a hotel, apartments, cafes, bars, and restaurants all live inside this structure. The upper section of the building is new, sitting above the original brick walls with its expressive glass facades. The curved windows that are divided up into rectangular grids can be illuminated individually.
Inside, more of the curved language is repeated such as the main auditorium that seems to bubble yet feels like a cave. The duality and contrasting effects are spread throughout such dark and light, concave and convex, closing-in and widening-up, all seem to occur within same space throughout the interiors.
Chelsea FC Stadium
The requirement of this new stadium from the planning board was to stay contextual to its surrounding buildings. The architects answered that by using a ribboning effect on the facade made of ribs cladded in bricks that gradually curve up and down to the different heights of brick piers that will support a steel ring. Bricks are common materials used in adjacent buildings and is the local vernacular of this area. The uniformity of the rhythmic piers and the vertically undulating facade is aimed to have the stadium stand on its own and become a landmark.
Berlin's New National Gallery
This new museum will be an extension of Mies van der Rohe's 1968 Neue Nationalgalerie building and physically connect them through an underground tunnel.
The main architecture language mimics a warehouse or a barn through its use of gables to diffuse day-lighting, with perforated brick walls. Herzog's section of the museum will house 20th Century art, while Mies' gallery will house the first half of the 20th Century, as it always has.
Vancouver Art Gallery
Once completed, this new museum will double in its current size. The architect gives a nod to a once densely wooded part of the city by wood-clad construction of each different size, however, in contrast to the existing steel and concrete buildings in the area, this building will certainly stand out. The site sits on an important connection to the east and the west of the city and will play a vital role in providing cultural vibrancy as a thoroughfare and a connector.
Vitra House
Housing Vitra's home furniture collection, this 5 story building is comprised of 5 stacks of volumes each with pitched roofs with glazed ends on each of the volume, interconnected by spiral staircases. Each stack also cantilevers outwards with black stucco playing the dominant feature in materiality.
To contrast from the exterior's black color, the interiors of these stacked volumes are painted in all white. Also inside are curved walls to compliment the furniture inside, further contrasting from the rectangular shaped volumes under the pitched roofs.
Ricola Krauterzentrum
Taking shape from the natural surroundings, this new building's elongated shape mimics paths and hedges that are indigenous to this area. The length of the building also helps with the production of this famous cough drop product where the physical process of drying the herbs to cutting, blending, and storing happen in a linear fashion.
Using local materials, earth elements were all prefabricated in a nearby factory, extracted from local quarries and mines. These materials were also used for their natural sustainability features such as earth elements being a good overall climate controller.