'A'A' SELECTION
CHRISTIAN KEREZ, A Swiss architect born in 1962, Christian KEREZ graduated from the École Polytechnique in Zurich and created his agency in 1993.
A long interview and a description of his recent projects (the Modern Art Museum of Warsaw, the Leutschenbach school and the single-wall house in Zurich, Swiss Re headquarters…) focus on his career and bring up the particularities of his work and the agency’s current prospects.
Circumventing and reinterpreting the many regulatory constraints in the building sector, Christian KEREZ gives the architect’s position back strength and meaning. Work far from conventions.
A feature piloted by Judit Solt
Photos by Walter Mair, Milan Rohrer and Dominique Wehrli
AA 390 – FOCUS section
'A'A' SELECTION
HERMAN DE VRIES, ARTIST BY NATURE
With his fragments of nature captured in a rigorous process, Herman DE VRIES invites us to examine existential and ecological questions of a singular interest, while elaborating on a work of magnificent formal richness.
A portrait by Régis Durand
Herman de Vries is represented in Paris by the Aline Vidal Gallery.
AA 390 – ART section
'A'A' SELECTION
MARTINO GAMPER
Martino GAMPER uses found objects and situations as his sole raw material, transforming, crossing and subverting them. A form of relayed research that leads to a generous and fantasy-filled production.
Text by Justin McGuirk
Photos by Angus Mill and Åbäke
AA 390 – DESIGN section
'A'A' SELECTION
POINT SUPREME, SURREALIST ODYSSEY
The two architects of POINT SUPREME are contemporary theorists who reveal the urban condition and invent daily life. They also defy the notion of polis. When Athens loses its way, turning the agoras into chaos. When the famous charter is forgotten in a suffocating metropolis, or crushed under the feet of the marching protestors. The duo has launched its quest for surrealism by resuscitating a hybrid mythology.
Marianna RENTZOU and Konstantinos PANTAZIS, architects in their thirties of the new Athens, are, according to the saying (Nietzsche, The Gay Science), superficial – out of profundity.
A portrait by Alexandre Labasse
Photos by Yanis Drakoulidis, Alexandros Filippidis, Giorgos Pantazis and Spyros Staveris
AA 390 – ÉMERGENCE section
'A'A' SELECTION
GÜNTHER VOGT, NATURE AND DISCIPLINES
To consider the works of Swiss landscape architect Günther VOGT, you need to immerse yourself in many disciplines related to land planning. This involves a necessary return to natural sciences, botany of course, but also geology, climatology, the observation of light and shade and the strata accumulated over the specific history of each location.
This key knowledge is the backbone of his projects. His control over the elements enables him to adapt them to the technological restrictions inherent to the design of contemporary spaces.
Interview by Dany Sautot
Photos by Christian Vogt, Vogt Ag et Olaf Unverzart
AA 390 – PAYSAGE section
'A'A' SELECTION
JEANNE GANG TAKES CHICAGO TO PIECES
A now stationary urban model, Chicago seems to need to reinvent itself by reversing the paradigm of its historical development. A radical solution, theorized and undertaken by architect Jeanne GANG, an emerging figure on the American scene.
Text by Francesco Della Casa
Photos by Francesco Della Casa and Steve Hall
AA 390 – PROJETS section
'A'A' SELECTION
PHILHARMONIE DE PARIS, Enclosed in a complex site in the north of Paris, Jean NOUVEL’s project spreads out like a defensive shell. Completing the musical vocation of La Villette, this hall with a seating capacity of 2,400 is an acoustical wager that is destined to mark its time and its territory, as the Berlin Philharmonic did.
An article by Pierre Frey
Photos by Adrien Buchet and Andrew Todd
AA 390 – TECHNIQUE section
'A'A' SELECTION
BACK FROM NEW DELHI
From colonial Delhi to the private city of Gurgaon, passing through its slums on the new metro, the impossible capital concentrates the Indian dream. With 23 million inhabitants, there is no lack of oppositions between tradition and modernity, poverty and wealth.
A travel journal by Marie-France Calle
Photos by Adrien Buchet
AA 390 – RETOUR DE section
'A'A' SELECTION
GSD HARVARD, In 1936, in Cambridge, USA, the leadership of Harvard University took its Faculty of Architecture and its Faculty of Landscape Architecture and combined them into a single Graduate School of Design (GSD).
“In many ways, the GSD is like a displaced Bauhaus”, explains GSD dean, Mohsen Mostafavi. “Each school addresses its respective contemporary issues with a multidisciplinary approach to design. The Bauhaus had its mixture of disciplines, and we have ours – architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design.”
An immersion into the school with John Gendall
AA 390 – ECOLE section
A Swiss architect born in 1962, Christian KEREZ graduated from the École Polytechnique in Zurich and created his agency in 1993.
A long interview and a description of his recent projects (the Modern Art Museum of Warsaw, the Leutschenbach school and the single-wall house in Zurich, Swiss Re headquarters…) focus on his career and bring up the particularities of his work and the agency’s current prospects.
Circumventing and reinterpreting the many regulatory constraints in the building sector, Christian KEREZ gives the architect’s position back strength and meaning. Work far from conventions.
A feature piloted by Judit Solt
Photos by Walter Mair, Milan Rohrer and Dominique Wehrli
AA 390 – FOCUS section
