PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

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P 16.17 12 actual construction, RCR’s proposal will remain a first step along the path to designing a very large building specifically meant for a place like Dubai. Climate, more than local culture, really seems to be the driving force behind the development of such practically self-contained complexes, but The Edge is big enough to be a sort of city unto itself, no longer bound by the more traditional constraints of urban life. In one of his recent pamphlets called “The Gulf,” Rem Koolhaas (OMA) writes, “Eventually, the Gulf will reinvent the public and the private: the potential of infrastructure to promote the whole rather than favor fragmentation; the use and abuse of landscape—golf or the environ- ment?; the coexistence of many cultures in a new authenticity rather than a Western Modernist default; experiences instead of Experience— city or resort?” DESIGNER BED AND BREAKFAST Just as cultural institutions have provided a good deal of the work for inventive architects over past years, the hotel business, increas- ingly interested in design, perhaps inspired by the spate of Schrager-Starck projects in the 1990s, has also employed numerous well-known architects in the hope of drawing in a chic, moneyed clientele. This phenomenon has spread beyond world cities such as New York and Berlin and now concerns less well-known destinations like Zuoz in the Engadine region of Switzerland. Though it is a beautiful medieval town, Zuoz is a few kilometers from St. Moritz and its glamorous resort life. The Hotel Castell is situated just above the old town at an altitude of 1900 meters. The Swiss art collector and artist Ruedi Bechtler bought the original building, built as a fashionable “Kurhotel” in 1912–13 by Nico- laus Hartmann, in the mid-1990s. The architect Gabrielle Hächler and the noted Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist designed their first project in the hotel, the Red Bar, inaugurated in 1998. Beginning in 2000, the Amsterdam architects UNStudio came on board and designed a new building with 14 luxury apartments (2003–04, page 502). Within the old building, they added a colorful hamam in the east wing basement, and redesigned about half of the hotel’s 60 rooms in a style typical of their work. The local architect Hans-Jörg Ruch redid the other rooms, while the Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata added a wooden terrace and walkway leading to a sauna on the grounds of the hotel. Completed recently by the construction of a cylindrical Skyspace by artist James Turrell, the Castell is in a sense typical of many “designer hotels” across the world, but, in this instance, the high quality of the different architectural and artistic interventions is particularly notable. Two mountain passes and about 300 kilometers away, though still in Switzerland, the Hôtel de la Poste in Sierre (2006–07, 12) by the young architects Savioz Meyer Fabrizzi does not have the kind of world-class art seen in the Castell, but it shows just how far the idea of the designer, or in this case architect, hotel has come. Working with a rectilinear mid-18th-century building, the architects dared to make the exterior bright orange and to paint the name of the hotel in large letters on its side façade. Situated in front of a small park that runs behind the neighboring city hall toward the railway station, the Hôtel de la Poste now has a sinuous glass dining room to the rear. The architects also redesigned the hotel rooms, using a different type of wood for each of the 15 suites and naming the rooms after the wood used. Photos of the trees concerned figure on the ceiling of each room, giving a “green” tinge to this otherwise traditional old structure. 12 Savioz Meyer Fabrizzi Architectes, Hôtel de la Poste, Sierre, Switzerland, 2006–07 Legorreta + Legorreta, architects based in Mexico City, completed the renovation of a former water bottling factory in Puebla, Mexico, creating La Purificadora Boutique Hotel in 2007 (page 308). Like their less famous colleagues in Sierre, the Mexicans renovated the existing
13 UNStudio, Hotel Castell, Zuoz, Switzerland, 2001–04 19th-century structure while retaining many of its more colorful or picturesque features. The local stone walls of the original single-story structure were kept, while the architects added three floors with masonry walls, a bar-lounge on the roof, and a 30-meter-long swimming pool with glass walls. The architects reused the wooden beams of the original water plant, employed specially made ceramic tiles that recall local cladding materials, and local onyx. Though Ricardo Legorreta is known for using saturated color schemes that bring to mind those of Luis Barragán, in the case of this hotel, it is the palette of materials, both new and old, that is allowed to fill the space without many strong colors aside from the bright purple seen in the furniture. DOING IT RIGHT Much contemporary architecture of quality is created with a compromise at its heart, since money, sometimes a great deal of it, is nec- essary to make an outstanding or innovative building. The architecture that most people live with is quite ordinary, or in any case fundamen- tally repetitive and boxlike. The poor, or those dispossessed by natural disasters or wars, obviously do not benefit much from the brilliant designs of today’s top architects. Naturally there are exceptions to this rule, and architects who have made a point of creating affordable or easily built lodgings that serve those who are most in need. The Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is one of these. Though he, too, has his share of wealthy clients, Ban has created temporary housing in India, Turkey, and Rwanda (for UNHCR). His most recent initiative of this nature, the Post-Tsunami Rehabilitation Houses (Kirinda, Hambantota, Sri Lanka, 2005–07, page 98), aimed to create a total of 50 houses for victims of the December 26, 2004, tsunami. At an approximate cost of $13 000 per house, these 71-square-meter residences are made of local rubber tree wood and compressed earth blocks. Comfortable and carefully studied to meet the requirements of local culture, the Kirin- da houses may be an exception that proves the rule that famous architects do not work for the poor, but the case is surely notable enough to figure in this volume. Shigeru Ban is also participating in the Make It Right initiative in New Orleans (Louisiana, 2007–, page 530). In this instance, the actor Brad Pitt and the architects Graft are leading an effort to rebuild affordable architect-designed houses in the Lower Ninth Ward of the city, devastated by Hurricane Katrina. With such participants as Kieran Timberlake, Morphosis, David Adjaye, and MVRDV, Make It Right surely has a higher profile than Ban’s Kirinda project, and may well have a political message. In “the richest country in the world,” it can certainly be considered shocking that some of America’s poorest people should remain homeless through long periods marked essentially by bureaucratic ineptitude, evidenced up to the highest levels of the government. Strictly observed from the perspective of contemporary architecture, it is interesting of course to see what “star” architects can do with the $150 000 budget allotted per residence. Ban’s Kirinda houses make no pretense to employ the sophisticated vocabulary for which the architect became known—rather, they are a strict, coherent effort to bring relief to those in need, using ecologically responsible methods and materials. The conditions for participants to be selected for Make It Right demonstrate that the organizers had taken into account a series of factors that may rarely come together in the high-flying world of cutting- edge architecture: – Prior interest or involvement in New Orleans, preferably post-Katrina and/or experience with disaster relief; INTRODUCTION 13
Page 1 and 2: IMPRINT PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS 8 INTRODUCTION Einleitung/
Page 5 and 6: 1 Olafur Eliasson, The New York Cit
Page 7 and 8: years, in charge of both the Akron
Page 9 and 10: 6 Peter Zumthor, St. Niklaus von Fl
Page 11: 10 + 11 Jean Nouvel, Tour de Verre,
Page 15 and 16: 15 Valerio Olgiati, Atelier Bardill
Page 17 and 18: 16 + 17 PTW Architects, The Watercu
Page 20 and 21: P 518.519 A large square in front o
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Page 24 and 25: The interiors of the building are f
Page 26: P 524.525 PEKKA VAPAAVUORI Arkkiteh
Page 29 and 30: Green-patinated copper cladding and
Page 31: PEKKA VAPAAVUORI

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Florian Kobler, Cologne - IDATBCN

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