Herzog and de Meuron: The Latest Architecture and News

Continuing our coverage of Herzog and de Meuron’s Elbe Philharmonic Hall, we just found some interesting news regarding the construction site. Currently around 80 meters high, the music hall still has a few years of construction left. As huge cranes rise high above the building, Michael Batz, a scenographer, has taken advantage of the cranes and turned an ordinary construction site into a tourist attraction. Usually, people come to see a finished building – yet Batz’s idea of covering the cranes with blue LEDs creates a new kind of attraction.

Check out more images of the blue cranes, and a close up shot of the skin after the break.

Earlier this year we featured Herzog & de Meuron’s VitraHaus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Now, we share with you this amazing video by Pedro Kok, a brazilian architectural photographer whose incredible photos can be seen in our Flickr pool.

In my opinion, Herzog & de Meuron has been one of the few practices pushing new forms on architecture. They always start with something vernacular, extracting its inner essence and materializing it into something new that you will immediately understand by looking at the building (or the renders). A dialog between art and the current state of our society, embodied on industrial facilities, residential projects, mixed use complexes.

Their book “Herzog & de Meuron: Natural History” is a must.

We now bring you a special on Herzog & de Meuron, with photos by Barcelona-based photographer Duccio Malagamba (previously featured on our AD Photographers section).

The internationally acclaimed Herzog & De Meuron unveiled their re-conceptualized design for the Parrish Art Museum on the 14-acre Hampton site. The new design replaces the firm’s original idea which featured a villagelike cluster of pavilions scattered throughout the site. When the museum could not seem to raise the $80 million necessary to realize the project, they approached Herzog & de Mueron for a more modest proposal. The architects took the challenge and created a new building for less than a third of the original budget. The new museum’s long profile, which measures 94 feet wide and 634 feet long, houses galleries arranged in two long rows along a central corridor. The temporary walls allow the room sizes to be adjusted to account for the changing sizes of the temporary exhibits.

More about the new museum after the break.

Yesterday, I was visiting the Skyscraper Museum in New York, and I saw an incredible aerial photo that shows the evolution of downtown Manhattan during the last century, from the water reclamation to the black towers to the new skyline without the twin towers. Undoubtedly, this city changes its shape very often.

And as of now, new residential buildings are bringing new forms to this skyline. First, we have OMA on the 23rd street with its structural facade and cantilevered volume, and now the 56 Leonard Street building by Herzog & de Meuron, which entered the construction phase.

This 57-story residential in the Tribeca area will house 145 residences, each one with its own unique floor plan and private outdoor space. This typology makes the building look like a stack of houses, away from the traditional skyscraper form. I wonder how the concrete structure works on this building, which was done by consultant firm WSP Cantor Seinuk (who also worked on the Freedom Tower).