Herzog & de Meuron: The Latest Architecture and News

The global pause of the COVID pandemic has provided an opportunity to assess present-day globalism and the architecture that has emerged alongside it. Stemming back to the broad expansion of free trade in the 90s at the end of the Cold War, globalism’s cultural promise was simple and aspirational: integrating markets globally would increase the interaction between and learning of different cultures. By normalizing such experiences in our daily lives, we would become global citizens liberated from our previous prejudices–all well-intentioned objectives.

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Herzog & de Meuron and landscape designer Piet Oudolf are collaborating to create Calder Gardens, which will house and display artworks by American sculptor Alexander Calder. Located between Vine Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, the 6,500 square meter site will house a two-story building, half of which is developed underground. Instead of developing the site as a typical museum, the team decided to transform it into a garden as an attractive alternative for the people of Philadelphia.

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The Jakob-Park Stadium, home of FC Basel, is getting an update to extend its lifespan after 20 years of use. Originally designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the architecture reform aims to provide better hospitality to visitors by restructuring the access and optimizing security to keep the stadium open even on non-match days. The proposal also contemplates replacing the iconic facade with a sweeping roof to give the stadium a unified appearance and broadcast the events outside.

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Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled their latest mixed-use development in one of Austin, Texas' most desirable districts. Dubbed ‘Sixth & Blanco’, the continuous horizontal wooden structure is nestled between vernacular store fronts, restaurants, stores, galleries, tree-lined streets, and walkable routes near the Clarksville neighborhood. The challenge of the project was to propose an architecture that takes key ingredients from its surroundings and distributes them throughout a dense yet permeable program.

Following Qatar's ambitious museum-building project to further promote cultural institutes in the country, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Chairperson of Qatar Museums has announced that OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, and ELEMENTAL will be designing three new museums in Doha that explore the themes of Islamic art, contemporary art, and evolution of the automobile industry respectively.

Hotels are a hub for commerce, transportation and culture. Today, interior designers are redefining hospitality spaces to accommodate new forms of travel, communication and rest. From historic renovations to contemporary ground-up hotels, these projects center around leisure and memorable guest experiences. In turn, they express brand identity to rethink what interior design and hospitality will be in the future.

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On the 24th of February 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine. Set to become Europe’s largest refugee crisis and armed conflict in this century, so far, this war has mobilized people across the world in order to exert pressure on authorities and put a stop to the armed hostilities. Individuals, as well as institutions in the architectural field, have taken part in these acts of solidarity, issuing statements, condemning actions, and even halting their work in Russia. From the UIA to MVRDV to Russian Institutions such as Strelka, the architecture world is denouncing the acts of violence and supporting an immediate cease of fire.

Over the past year, established practices have continued to champion the transformation of existing structures, with adaptive reuse and renovations increasingly becoming a defining aspect of contemporary architecture  From the renovation of landmark structures to the adaptive reuse of obsolete facilities, the idea of giving new life to existing buildings has been embraced as the premise for a more sustainable practice, but also as a means of reinforcing the urban and cultural identity of cities. Discover 8 designs and recently completed projects that showcase a new common practice of reusing existing building stock.

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Last year, a series of new museums, expansions and several museum renovations have opened their doors to the public, adding a new dimension to the cultural landscape around the world. From the long-awaited re-opening of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, to Ryue Nishizawa's Jining Art Museum merging with the landscape, and MVRDV's reflective Art Depot, discover the architecture of the latest venues of art and culture.

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After being selected by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) to design the new hospital of its Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights in 2020, Herzog & de Meuron and HDR revealed new images of their design, featuring a 15-storey structure clad with terracotta across a 84,000 sqm plot. The proposed design aims to change the traditional concept of hospitals and provide members of the community with a healing space that puts in place “a holistic healthcare environment that fosters wellness and recovery by combining efficient facilities with human experiences, connected to nature and the community”.

During the last quarter of 2021, Herzog & de Meuron completed the construction of three museums: M+ in Hong Kong, 433 MKM Museum Küppersmühle Extension in Duisburg, and 473 SONGEUN Art Space in Seoul. To celebrate this milestone and highlight the projects' varied approaches to the presentation of art as culturally-enriching platforms, the firm has put together a video compilation of all three projects alongside each other, showcasing the different approaches to their contexts and geographical locations, spatial requirements and materiality, and how all three of them share a collective focus to foster the exchange between people and culture.

Fotografiska Museum has announced its expansion to three new locations in Berlin, Shanghai and Miami, to be housed within existing buildings redesigned by Herzog & De Meuron, Neri&Hu and Rockwell Group. A former department store in Berlin's Jewish Quarter, a 1946 factory building in Miami and a historically significant warehouse complex in Shanghai are the future Fotografiska venues set for completion in 2022 and 2023. Together with the existing locations in Stockholm, Tallin and New York, these will form the world's largest private art museum in terms of size, number of locations, and exhibitions per year.

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In this week's reprint by Metropolis, author Mimi Zeiger explores the new M+ Museum in Hong Kong, finally open to the public. "Designed by Herzog & De Meuron, the impressive building asserts the city’s cultural ascendancy while also magnifying the region’s unescapable political tensions".

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After more than a decade of financing snags, legal scuffles, and more than a soupçon of backlash, initial work on the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Tour Triangle (Triangle Tower) is set to commence by the end of this year at a site near Parc des Expositions de Porte de Versailles in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. However, last-ditch efforts to block the project are underway.