When you think of your favorite spot to grab a beer, what architectural features come to mind? Is it the swanky furniture, themed artwork, or the heavily designed cocktail menu? Today, the aesthetics of bars are now as much a draw as the drinks themselves. From movie set inspired spaces to rooftops that offer spectacular city views, we’ve compiled a list of nine bars and beer gardens that every architect needs to cross off their list.
After conducting a concert at Munich’s Gasteig concert hall, Leonard Bernstein offered a scathing edict for the building: “burn it down.”
The Gasteig’s behemoth structure of brick and mirrored glass never met Bernstein’s decree. Instead, it has stood for decades, garnering vitriol from those who resent its postmodern aesthetic. In a design competition hosted by the Gasteig, seventeen architecture firms have attempted to change the concert hall and cultural center’s public perception with varied renovation schemes.
MVRDV has unveiled the design of an adaptable building to be located at the center of Munich’s Knödelplatz square adorned with 5-meter-tall (16-foot-tall) German internet slang words as a homage to the neighborhood’s graffiti culture. To be known as WERK12, the building will house flexible entertainment, restaurants, office space and a multi-story fitness center within a highly transparent envelope, allowing the building to become a vertical extension of the plaza.
The Austrian firm Cukrowicz Nachbaur Architekte has been selected as the winner of an international competition for the design of a signature new concert hall in Munich, Germany, beating out proposals from 30 of the world’s most notable architecture practices.
The competition tasked architects with designing a stand-alone new structure on a 5,300-square-meter site near the Ostbahnhof train station in the neighborhood of Werksviertel. The building program included an overall floor area of approximately 9,500 square meters, including a larger 1800-seat concert hall and a more intimate 600-seat venue that satisfy “the most exacting acoustic requirements.”
Renderings have been released for Hollwich Kushner’s first European project – Die Macherei, a new mixed-use business district based in Munich. Designed by the New York firm in collaboration with local practices msm meyer schmitz-morkramer and OSA Ochs Schmidhuber Architekten of Frankfurt/Cologne and Munich respectively, the financial hub will feature 64,000 square meters of rental space, bringing together offices, shops, dining experiences, a hotel and a gym.
“I could not be more excited to realize our first European project in my hometown. Designed not just as a series of buildings but as an exploration of the spaces between the buildings, Die Macherei is an innovative design for a new way of working and interacting, integrating social activity and behaviors to promote a sense of community,” expressed Matthias Holwich, principal at HWKN.
HENN has won a competition to design the new Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Building for the Technical University of Munich at the Garching research campus, which is Europe’s largest research campus. The design features four rectangular buildings encircling a central glass hall envisioned as a beacon and hub to promote interaction among students and academics.
Photographer Chris Forsyth has released the latest images from his photo series Metro. Having previously gone underground to capture the surreal beauty of Montreal’s metro system, Forsyth traveled to Europe to shoot stations in Munich, Berlin and Stockholm. His photographic style portrays the stations in their best light – bright, clean, colorful and completely absent of people.
"Seeing the design strengths of various metro systems, from the hand painted cave-like stations in Stockholm, to the well-lit modern platforms of Munich’s U-Bahn, I really began to feel the how good design can change your day for the better,” says Forsyth. “Whether it be awe-inspiring or simply bright and colorful, I can only imagine how it feels to start your daily commute in one of these metro stations."
Continue after the break for a sampling of Forsyth’s favorite photos from the series.
Spanning practice and theory in an innovative and integrative manner, “REBUILD BY DESIGN MUNICH” is oriented towards a broad audience including the interested public, practitioners, scholars and students alike from disciplines in planning and design for the built environment.
Pritzker laureate Frei Otto was best known for his tensile structures. A prime example Otto’s ingenuity, the 1972 Olympic Stadium in Munich was a collaborative work with Gunther Behnisch that connected the park’s main programs - the natatorium, gymnasium and main stadium - with a whimsical, lightweight canopy structure that mimicked the “rhythmic protrusions” of the Swiss Alps. Watch the Spirit of Space short film above to see the project in its current state and learn more about the pioneering structure, here.
GRAFT Architects has released the final designs for the APASSIONATA adventure park. The competition-winning proposal aims to become a hub for leisure and entertainment in Munich, Germany, featuring a year-round venue for relaxation, discovery, and interaction with horses.
Check out the design and watch a virtual tour of the park, after the break.
Wiel Arets Architects (WAA) has won a competition to design a cluster of four mixed-use towers adjacent to Munich’s Hirschgarten station. Each “horseshoe-shaped” building, perched upon a six to seven story plinth, will offer space for office, hotel and retail space as part of the “Am Hirschgarten” development.
Read on to learn more about WAA's winning proposal.
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