Architectural Adventures

Coventry Cathedral /  by hugo keene

Location: Coventry, England, UK
Architect: Basil Spence
Completed: 1962

10 Photographs

Once upon a time, a friend needed something collected from Coventry, another friend was playing ice hockey in an arena had never been to, and I’d heard about this old ruin of a cathedral alongside a new one, that was apparently quite something. Armed with a triumvirate of reasons, friends, ice hockey, and architecture, it was a road trip asking to be had. And thus, we found ourselves setting off late in the day, in a small, rented Fiat 500, up and along the motorway and off into wider England.

I did not train as an architect in Britain, so at the time, I wasn’t really aware of how many buildings Basil Spence had designed, nor really of his importance to the development of 20th century design. If I’m being honest, I still don’t know a lot about his specific work, just that I like what work of his I have witnessed, most of which has been beautiful, considered, and crafted.

The old ruins, bombed during the 1940 Coventry Blitz, remain as the Luftwaffe left them, the whole spire and much of the walls remaining intact. What remains is a grand roofless space, with the new cathedral, hewn from a similar stone, nestling in from the north. The two buildings feel very much like they belong together, displaying the sort of congruity rarely seen in buildings constructed 500 years apart.

In this case, the decision to insist on the ruins being retained and the new cathedral built alongside is a masterstroke, providing the kind of unique building and space impossible in any other circumstance. Inside the cathedral does not disappoint, providing opulence, showmanship, and grandeur, suitable to this unique and exceptional building. The ribbed folded plane of the roof echoes the great European cathedrals, not in a superficial way, but deep within its very bones. It’s a very special building, full of the sort of stuff that you expect to see in a building like this, but each with its own unique twist. Like a lot of great epoch era straddling pieces of architecture, it feels like it’s simultaneously from the future and the past.

Later that afternoon, went to watch our Cambridge friends defeat the Coventry University team, and then took another stroll back through the roofless cathedral that evening before departing back to Cambridge that night.

HWLK

Rijksmuseum /  by hugo keene

Location: Amsterdam, South Holland, Netherlands
Architect: PJH Cuypers/Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos
Completed: 1885/2012

15 Photographs

The first time I visited the inside of the Rijksmuseum, we just happened to be in Amsterdam on the weekend it re-opened, after one of the longest and most publicly awaited renovation projects in Dutch history. Since I first visited the city, it had always been closed and sat quietly at the head of the Museumplein, the mix of gothic and renaissance themes intimately familiar to anyone who has spent time in the Netherlands yet presented with a composition and grandeur unmatched in the city. In a city like Amsterdam, so overflowing with great buildings and interesting things, it was easy to overlook the dark quiet stranger at the end of the park. Being designed by the same architect as the Amsterdam Centraal Station, which followed the Rijksmuseum, the two distinctly similar buildings sit at either end of the old city like an old pair of bookends, romantic revivalist celebrations of Golden Age.

I always loved the story that of the many delays and issues encountered in the renovation project, one of the most hotly contested, was down to a desire for the inhabitants of the city, to be able to continue to cycle through an existing road through the middle of the ground floor of the museum instead of around it as initially proposed. I’ve been a cyclist, in a cyclist’s city and I feel very deeply that it’s a thing that should be encouraged and protected at all costs, especially the majesty and dignity of the cyclist’s experience when it is seamless, safe, and relatively direct.

The renovation of the Rijksmuseum is brilliant. As an afficionado of fine architecture, I’ve visited many museums of the world, a building typology that would be the centrepiece in any architect’s portfolio and one of the crux architectural problems of any young architect in training, be that right or wrong. The solution here is particularly clever in overcoming the challenging problem of how to provide contemporary visitor standards and architecture, within an examplar historical building. By dropping the entry concourse below and under the road, and covering the whole courtyard with a deep, layered set of roof structures, this allows for a generous entry space filled with dappled light, while allowing the functional back of house relating to entry and security to tuck neatly under the stairs, without disrupting the existing gallery programme above. This alows the gallery spaces to function more or less as originally intended while adding a stack of new space. The original courtyard feels like it is simply dropped down and draped across the functional requirements of the building. The cycleway through the building and the campaign to retain this thing of value to the cyclist city (citizen) has been a positive design contribution rather than a constraint.

Despite the radical adjustment to the conceptual diagram of the museum, it retains much of the qualities of the 18th-century building, with the new parts fitting neatly in with the old, each part feeling familiar and unimposing on the next. The existing spaces themselves are beautifully restored and the new insertions meticulously placed and considered, such that it is not immediately apparent where the junctions are between old and new.

There are many good museums around, I have visited quite a few and waxed lyrical about some, but the Rijksmuseum is up there as one of the most interesting and unique of them. It rightly sits comfortably at the heart of a city and in the heart of its citizens.

HWLK

Maria, Königin des Friedens (Pilgrimage Church of Neviges) /  by hugo keene

Location: Neviges, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Architect: Gottfried Böhm
Completed: 1968

14 Photographs

When I tell non-architect friends about these journeys, sometimes way off the beaten path to look at often quite obscure buildings, they nearly always look at me rather quizzically, as if they can’t understand why I would devote my time to do such a thing. On those rare occasions that I take someone not otherwise inclined along, almost without fail they inevitably understand. Sometimes buildings are so special, so beautiful and so unique, that it is impossible not to be overcome by and to viscerally experience that power.

Maria, Königin des Friedens (The Pilgrimage Church of Neviges) is one of those buildings. Hidden away in an unassuming part of Germany, squeezed between narrow streets and tucked behind a bunch of things, it’s easily missed, even if you’re looking for it. The kind of building where you catch a glimpse over a roof top, around a corner, between a tree and a lamp post, like a leopard in the trees, hard to catch a glimpse of, let alone figure out what it is. Even from the piazza out front and up close, though utterly original, it does not really reveal its secrets.

It is only on entering the dark cool space, through the giant portal door, that you find yourself in another world, utterly transformed from the one outside, and impossible to describe in words. I love the pictures, especially these ones, but nothing beats standing in a building like this.

Most times, you visit a building only once, but other times, like with a garden, you want to see it in another light, another time of day or another season.

The pilgrimage church is like that, I’ll definitely be back. 

HWLK

Barcelona Pavilion /  by hugo keene

Location: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich
Completed: 1929

11 Photographs

As ‘architects in training’ during the 90s in Australia, the crisp clear buildings of architects like Glenn Murcutt and Tadao Ando played a very prominent role in our discussions and learning. From them, we can draw a line back to the obvious influence of the work of Mies van der Rohe and the evolution of construction technology he embraced in the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition (colloquially known to architects as the Barcelona Pavilion). You can see a similar influence in one of the earlier buildings in this series, the Stahl House, the structural system and the whole philosophy of the of which is constructed off the metaphorical foundations laid by buildings like this pavilion.

My initial encounter with the Barcelona Pavilion was in a competition during my third year of architecture school back in Australia. The competition brief was to design a gallery and offices for the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, perched somewhere on the hill above and behind the original pavilion. We never visited the site for obvious reasons, proposed a sweeping set of concrete curved planes, open at both ends, and did not win the competition.

I have visited the pavilion several times in the years since and photographed it twice. The photographs here are from the first visit. At the time, it was also the first time I had visited one of the more exalted of the masterworks of modern architecture. I had seen great buildings by master practitioners in Australia, some more in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, but to see one of the epochs defining buildings was another kettle of fish entirely.

I have recognised over the years that I get quite emotional when approaching and viewing significant buildings, especially ones I have long admired, but this time the emotional landscape was new and surprising to me. Here was something I felt like I knew intimately, but also not at all. I felt like I was supposed to understand it, to be able to read the architectural manoeuvres, and, most terrifyingly, to be able to verbalise it to my intrigued travelling companion. At this point, I realised that I knew nothing at all about the history or theory of modern architecture and kicked myself for not paying more attention in my History of Architecture classes with Sean Pickersgill.

I struggle sometimes to comprehend what the idea of ‘modern’ really is, to the point where it loses any kind of meaning. Coming on to almost a century since it was first built, yet the pavilion is crisp, clean, and designed in such a way that the simplicity and optimism feel contemporary and relevant, rather than naïve or old.

The reconstruction of the pavilion, more than 50 years after it was demolished, is controversial, but I do not have overly fixed opinions about what constitutes authenticity in architecture. I am happy to enjoy it for what it is and for what it represents, comfortable in the knowledge that it was years after I visited that I even remembered that it had been demolished and rebuilt.

I still don’t feel like I know a lot about the history of architectural theory, but by visiting these places and experiencing them myself, I am starting to understand at least why certain buildings are important within it. I think some buildings are more important to architects and architectural history than to the public, and this one feels a little like one of those. Not obviously spectacular or profoundly moving, just a simple, beautiful, and vitally important part of it all.

HWLK

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Kimbell Art Museum /  by hugo keene

Location: Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Architect: Louis Kahn
Ccompleted: 1937

15 Photographs

There is something timeless about the Kimbell Art Museum, almost like it could be a hundred years old, or a thousand, the way it rises out of the earth like a stone formation, left alone by the hand of the wind. It has a character quite suited to becoming a ruin, and will no doubt be a highlight in post-apocalyptic tours of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area if it survives the churn.

Henry and I had come to Texas at the end of a long road trip through the deserts of Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico and we had experienced many wonderful places, people, and events along the way. Only weeks before, we had stood in Monument Valley, admiring the mesas in the dusty purple evening light after dusty day on the road. Having lived as desert rats for the weeks leading up, it is no surprise that when we come to talk about the Kimbell so many years later, Louis Kahn’s masterpiece evokes a similar kind of connection to this place for the both of us.

In the days after our visit, Henry described it as ‘The most complete building, I have ever visited’. In the years before and since, I have seen a lot of concrete buildings, old and new, from the good to the great and all the way down to the terrible. I have been involved in the construction of a few of our own as well. Amidst all of this, I still can’t think of another building that compares. There is a level of craftsmanship in the Kimbell that makes it feel like a piece of furniture as much as a building, and when you understand how in-situ concrete of this type is made, this makes perfect sense. To make a building like this, the liquid concrete is poured into a negative formwork, made of steel or timber, and then that formwork, almost like a cabinet shell itself, is stripped away to reveal the concrete.

I have always been intrigued by how we as humans inhabit the desert. It is such a hostile but beautiful place and from Sedona to Uluru, humans have struggled with how to inhabit the hot dry parts of the world, providing protection from the elements, and embracing the beauty. There is a lot of learning from those attempts in the result at the Kimbell, both in the form of the building and its response to the elements. Like all desert dwellings, the primary objective is to bring in the light, while protecting from the sun and in doing so, this is the great success of the building, above anything else. The way the ceiling vaults reflect light is just divine, the shape and finish carefully crafted to express this as primary to the function of the building.

Like all profound artistic works, the Kimbell Art Museum feels simple enough to be drawn by a child. An architect I admire once claimed that good architecture is obvious in retrospect because where it is successful, it is drawn out of its context in such a way that it feels almost inevitable. The Kimbell is a building that does this, a perfect example of Oliver Wendell Holmes concept of ‘the simplicity the other side of complexity’, sitting neatly at the intersection of a mud hut and a Stradivarius.

HWLK

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Index of Adventures /  by hugo keene

Below is a chronological index, with links to each post, which will be updated with each new post as they come.

1 Oct-20             Neue Staatsgalerie                                    
Stuttgart, Germany        
James Stirling, Michael Wilford and Associates

2 Oct-20            Villa Tugendhat                                          
Brno, Czech Republic     
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich

3 Oct-20             San Cataldo Cemetery (The City of the Dead)                 
San Cataldo Italy            
Aldo Rossi

4 Oct-20             Olivetti Showroom                                    
Venice, Italy      
Carlo Scarpa

5 Nov-20            Stahl House (Case Study House #22)              
Los Angeles, California, USA       
Pierre Koenig

6 Nov-20            Kings College Chapel                                 
Cambridge, England, UK                                                      
Reginald Ely, John Wolrich, Simon Clerk, John Wastell

7 Nov-20            Casa das Histórias Paula                           
Cascais, Portugal            
Eduardo Souto de Moura

8 Nov-20            Musée Soulages                                        
Rodez, Aveyron , France             
RCR Arquitectes

9 Nov-20            Nordic Pavilion                                          
Venice, Italy      
Sverre Fehn

10 Dec-20          EPFL Learning Center                                
Lausanne, Switzerland  
SAANA

11 Dec-20          Walt Disney Concert Hall                          
Los Angeles, California, USA       
Frank Gehry

12 Dec-20          Tomba Brion                                              
San Vito, Italy   
Carlo Scarpa

13 Dec-20          Shelter Roman Archaeological Site             
Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland 
Peter Zumthor

14 Jan-21           Kimbell Art Museum                                 
Fort Worth, Texas, USA 
Louis Kahn

15 Feb-21           German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition (Barcelona Pavilion)
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain        
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich

16 Mar-21          Maria, Königin des Friedens (Mary, Queen of Peace)
Neviges, Germany         
Gotfried Bohm

17 Apr-21           Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam, Netherlands           
PJH Cuypers (Cruz y Ortiz Arquitectos)

18 May-21         Coventry Cathedral
Coventry, England, UK  
Basil Spence

19 Jun-21           Serpentine Pavilion & Garden 2011
London, England            
Peter Zumthor

20 Jun-21           Basílica Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain            
Antoní Gaudi

21 Aug-21           Tančící dům (Dancing House)
 Prague, Bohemia, Czech Republic          
Frank Gehry & Vlado Milunić

22 Sep-21         Bruder Klaus Feldkapelle
Mechernich, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Peter Zumthor

23 Oct-21           Sydney Opera House
 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia          
Jørn Utzon

24 Nov-21           Couvent Sainte Marie de La Tourette
 Prague, Bohemia, Czech Republic          
Le Corbusier & Iannis Xenakis

25 Dec-21           Taliesin West
 Scottsdale, Arizona, USA          
Frank Lloyd Wright

Shelter Roman Archaeological Site /  by hugo keene

Location: Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland
Architect: Peter Zumthor
Completed: 1986

14 Photographs

The whole visit to the Shelter Roman Archaeological Site in Chur was a somewhat uniquely Swiss experience. After visiting a small office near the train station and handing over 50 swiss francs as a key deposit, we ventured off up a hill and into the suburbs of Chur. Before too long, around another corner, and nestled between a series of wholly unremarkable Swiss suburban buildings (I can never quite tell what from what), we came across a simple, but familiar timber pavilion.

Entering the space with the loaned key, through a cantilevered steel portal, the darkness descends, and you step onto a series of suspended steel walkways that stretch between the pavilions and then down into each of the spaces. The whole thing is designed to be a lightweight covering over the footprints of the Roman ruins, protecting them, but allowing them to remain outdoors and untouched. Within these spaces, there is a series of information displays and a display cabinet displaying what are beautiful and no doubt likely priceless Roman artifacts.

While thoroughly impressed with what is an exquisite piece of simple, robust architecture, I was perhaps more impressed with the implicit trust of the Swiss authorities, who happily loaned a couple of disheveled rogue Australian architects a key to take a private tour of this place, all for the princely sum of 50 Swiss francs, which of course was promptly returned when we came back a few hours later.

I was pretty impressed with the little shelter.

HWLK

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Tomba Brion /  by hugo keene

Location: San Vito d'Altivole, Treviso, Italy
Architect: Carlo Scarpa
Completed: 1968

12 Photographs

I am glad I visited Tomba Brion when I did. I had just really discovered Carlo Scarpa’s work, and I was travelling at a time when I could not afford a rental car, so had found a bus and dragged my travelling companion across the Italian countryside one bright morning, on the promise of life changing architecture, in a cemetery.

The private burial ground for the Brion family, the L shaped walled garden wraps around one side of the traditionally designed San Vito municipal cemetery. Unusual, tilted concrete walls greet the visitor from afar, before one arrives at a gap in the wall, overhung by trees, which beckons one beyond.

Upon entering, I was speechless for a bit, I wandered about, I sat and stared for quite a while and I also cried a little, though i am still not sure why. A profoundly moving space, richly layered with detail. After some time alone, a funeral procession from the village made its way up the same road we walked along earlier, which we watched for a short while. After the proceedings, the mourners drained out of the old cemetery and some went back to their lives, while a number stayed behind and filtered through the unusual looking opening between the old and new and explored the unique wonderland behind.

By the time we left, the last bus of the day had long gone, and we had to hitchhike back to Venice. 

HWLK