Herzog and de Meuron

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Herzog and de Meuron
Born 1950; Basel, Switzerland
Notes see also Herzog & de Meuron Architekten, Basel, Switzerland.
At Great Buildings http://www.GreatBuildings.com/architects/Herzog_and_de_Meuron.html

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(b. Basel, Switzerland 1950)

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron

"A building is a building. It cannot be read like a book; it doesn'thave any credits, subtitles or labels like picture in a gallery. In that sense,we are absolutely anti-representational. The strength of our buildings is the immediate, visceral impact they have on a visitor."

— Jacques Herzog

"Two architects have been chosen to share the 2001 PritzkerArchitecture Prize, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Basel,Switzerland. The two men, both born in Basel in 1950, have nearly parallelcareers, attending the same schools and forming a partnership architecturalfirm, Herzog & de Meuron in 1978.

"Perhaps their highest profile project was attained with the completion last yearof the conversion of the giant Bankside power plant on the Thames River inLondon to a new Gallery of Modern Art for the Tate Museum. It has beenwidely praised by their peers and the media.

"In the United States, they have completed a winery in the Napa Valley ofCalifornia that utilizes a mortarless wall of stones encased in wire mesh, andare currently building the Kramlich Residence and Media Collection in thatsame region. They have three other projects in work in the United States � theheadquarters of Prada in New York, the New de Young Museum in SanFrancisco which is scheduled for completion in 2004, and the Extension for theWalker Art Center in Minneapolis, scheduled for completion in 2005.

"They have projects in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan, andof course, in their native Switzerland. There they have built residences, severalapartment buildings, libraries, schools, a sports complex, a photographicstudio, museums, hotels, railway utility buildings as well as office and factorybuildings.

"Among their completed buildings, the Ricola cough lozenge factory and storagebuilding in Mulhouse, France stands out for its unique printed translucent wallsthat provide the work areas with a pleasant filtered light. A railway utilitybuilding in Basel, Switzerland called Signal Box has an exterior cladding ofcopper strips that are twisted at certain places to admit daylight. A library forthe Technical University in Eberswalde, Germany has 17 horizontal bands oficonographic images silk screen printed on glass and on concrete. Anapartment building on Schötzenmattstrasse in Basel has a fully glazed streetfacade that is covered by a moveable curtain of perforated latticework. It isimpossible to list here all of their noteworthy building projects.

"While these unusual construction solutions are certainly not the only reason forHerzog and de Meuron being selected as the 2001 Laureates", Pritzker Prize jurychairman, J. Carter Brown, commented, "One is hard put to think of anyarchitects in history that have addressed the integument of architecture withgreater imagination and virtuosity"."

— Pritzker Prize Award Announcement

"[The work of Herzog and de Meuron is] among the very few architects whose work can be interpreted as an effort to regain architecture's original grounds. A search for primariness, for direct contact with the constructive essence of architecture, characterizes their work and differentiates it from that of others of their generation, with whom they diverge in their emphasis on originality."

— Rafael Moneo, AV monograph on Herzog and de Meuron, 1996

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