A babelfish translation of http://www.igp.unistuttgart.de/tga/html/referat/eprinzip.

html

The Design Principles of the Office Herzog & de Meuron

The buildings and projects of Herzog & de Meuron are not characterised by self-willed however any shaping and by directly used form items and materials, where itself their relationship with the contemporary art, to whom principles "Minimal Art" and " Arte povera " betrays. The simple volumes and house forms - crate and barrack - or the unimproved manufactured products - plywood, bitumen pasteboard, Durisol disks, prefabricated concrete disks - belong to adapted vocabulary & for Herzog de Meuron to the natural, the time. The request of Herzog & de Meuron is to be invented it however not a new language, but available, in such a way to use familiar languages for the designation of trusted friends of things that these are suddenly again assumed, clear, more clearly and differently shows up than we believed to see and know it so far. They create references again and again in their designs in addition, to contents or for the use of the building: the undulation in the swimming pool design, a kupferumwickelter kubus as packing of electronics, as the signal tower 4 , etc..

Signal tower 4, Auf demWolf

In addition, the works of Herzog & de Meuron are characterised by the application of repetition as a composition technique, particularly in comparison with the vast majority of contemporary architects. This repetition makes it possible to them to approach the specificity of their works in architecturally more consistent way than it would be possible with the use of systematically different forms possible. The repetition has here quite different meaning than the object-typical in the industrial production. With Herzog & de Meuron has repetition only casually something with Vervielfaetigung to do with the system ' original and copy '. In it their work differs also from architecture, which insist on serial production, on repetition as identity. In that architecture an identical concept is always reproduced. It repeats a measure, instead of generating a rhythm.

Depot Ricola

With Herzog & de Meuron repetition is an instrument, which permits the design of a space, in which differential intensities can be expressed. As for example with the repetitions of the front detail with the Ricola factory . The curvature of the Schwitter building is exactly made visible by the repeated repetition of a facade component. With the house in the Levering Race the repetition of the carriers which are situated before the front and the appropriate supports emphasizes the modification in the escape line of the building and so finally escapes from the stupiden concentration on the form of a repeated object, the embarrassingly exact reproduction of a unit, in order to occur the Expressivitaet of the rhythm. The rhythm is opposite the measure. Its meaning must be sought out beyond the level, on which the action takes place, i.e., not in the nature of the component, which repeats itself, but rather in the manner, in which the repetition is produced.

The sensory difference: Repetition and self similarity

[. ] The factory of Herzog & de Meuron draws, especially compared with the large majority of contemporary architecture, by the use of repetitions as composition technique out. As other extreme the historizistischen, RH of gionalistischen and dekonstruktivistischen beginnings than embodiment of the concept of the difference, one of the specific categories of the today's productive and political life presents itself. In place of difference as temp-oral identity (Popper Rowe), difference as regional identity (Heidegger Framptun) and difference as linguistic identity (Derrida Eisenman) we find with Herzog & de Meuron the repetition as a sensory form of the difference, as, in the words of Deleuze, " nonrepresentative difference. Exactly the repetition makes it possible to approach to them, the Spezifizitaet of the factory in architecturally more consistent way, instead of operating with systematically ausufernden different forms. Exactly the repetition is produced it, the difference, as Lefebvre explains, by bringing textures and rhythms out as material, temp-oral and spatial things with significant Entitaet beyond linguistic codes. Operating with repetitions at Herzog & de Meuron illustrates this methodology, with which Partikularitaet maintains ground in the opposition to the generals, as alternative to represented concepts or figures within given linguis desks of a space. Repetition as highest printout of liberty and Partikularitaet, when dynamic order, which creates a space, a time, a rhythm, an temp-oral synthesis from past and future, and which both the narrativen arguments and the chaotic Sukzession of phenomena avoids. Repetition has here quite different meaning than the object-typical of the industriellen production. Their intention can be attributed to the most fundamental processes with the construction of space and territory: the rhythm of the Tam Tam, the territorial markings, the ornamentalen motives of taetowierungen. With Herzog & de Meuron has to do repetition only casually - in the effects vaguely, with the intentions never - something with reproduction, the system model copy. In it their factory differs also from architectures, which insist on serial production, on repetition as identity. In these architectures the repeated component fills an environment, by reproducing an identical concept: it repeats a measure, instead of generating a rhythm. With Herzog & de Meuron is the repetition the instrument, which permits the erschaffung of a space, in which differential intensities be expressed can. How variation in the intensity of ritual singing by body movements are there the repetitions of the front detail with the depot Ricola, which makes us sensitive to the intensity downward gradient, which constitutes the Spezifizitaet of the object. The curvature of the Schwitter building is exactly

made visible by the obsessive repetition of a facade component; it avoids the representation of the differences by program. With the house levering race emphasizes the repetition of the lying in front of it anchorage and the corresponding columns the modification in the escape line of the building and escapes from the stupiden concentration so finally on the form of a repeated object, the embarrassingly exact reproduction of a unit, in order to occur the Expressivitaet of the rhythm. The rhythm is opposite the measure, because its significance writes itself on another level than from actions. Its meaning must be sought out beyond the level, on which the action takes place, i.e., not in the nature of the component, which repeats itself, but rather in the manner, in which the repetition is produced. Repetition functions by means of contraction of statuses. It is the point, at which we find the Spezifizitaet of a rhythm, at which itself the difference sensoryly manifested. It is the opposite of the representation of difference, which occupation of space through quite particularly differentiated configuration - as in historizistischen, regionalistic or dekonstruktivistischen architectures - or the organization of a framed environment, from items filled, which a hierarchical arrangement unterlie towards - like it in High Tech architecture occurs. The architecture of Herzog & de Meuron operates effectively with contraction, with reduction on a core of material organization, of which by repetition the Spezifizitaet it composes itself architectural object. The question is not, subject in forms to obligations to out-arrange but an ever richer and closer material which is still better able to tap ever more intensive forces. Polyrhythmi material produces the Spezifizitaet territory without beforehand determined boundaries. As is the case for the vernier the sensory difference in overlapping different series, in a Polyrhythmik materialisiert itself. The architecture of Herzog & de Meuron is rich at such effects: the lattice from senkrechten staffs on the repeated constructional items of the front of the Schwitter building, which stresses the curvature of the volume; the series of lattices, spindelfoermigen columns and metal anchors before the window loading, which comprehensible the modification of the escape line of the balconies in the house levering race makes; the overlapping rhythms of construction and partitionings of the building outline of the extended Ricola factory. The mode of operation of Herzog & de Meuron indicates a similar relationship, which do not only concern the repeated items, but also configurations of other relative importance and conceptual levels. It is not geometrical or mathematical self similarity. The logic of the identity, on that mathematics - even the fraktale - makes it difficult, to introduce itself, an algorithm can actually cover the material structure of an architecture or reveal highsignificant acts over it. It is a self similarity on a fundamentally conceptual level, which manifests itself both in the syntactic structure of the architectural object and in its relationship with the context. The agreement between spatial arrangement and covering with the house in Tavole, with the Gaba area and with laboratory building the Sandoz, the formal similarity of the front structure of the Schwitter building with the detail of the lattices or the formal structure of the main haupttraktes of the Lokomotivdepots with the beams of its hangar roofs are examples of this self similarity of the material construction. It is, as if the Spezifizitaet of

each project manifested itself in each of its constituents, on everyone of its formative levels, which must be subjected to no more hierarchy, in order to be important. The individual part can, syntactically released from the whole one, now a synthesis from it become. A similar architecture is particularly effective in an unstable environment, as it exists for instance in a advanced society: it lends not only an extraordinary stability to the object against a potential Amputation or extension, but makes it also more independent of its relationship with the context, as soon as the yardstick is omitted as constituent Essenz of the project. The yardstick is always based on a reference system and been unsuitable therefore in a situation of the instability as mechanism of the Signifikation. Projects like the depot Ricola and the signal tower " on the wolf " are examples of the scalar uncertainty of the operation strategies of Herzog & de Meuron. With these projects the yardstick is not a constant, linear function as in classical architecture, but a differential function, which results from its boundary conditions. It is not like that that these projects would not have full-scale relationship with the context, but this relationship is ambiguous. It does not become indispensable for its material organization. One may not forgotten *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE ***, da Wiederholung und Selbst hnlichkeit Konstruktionen der Kolonisierung und des berlebens und nicht solche der Codierung des Milieus sind.

[ . . . ] SBB signal tower 4, Auf dem Wolf, Basel

Vorprojekt 1988-1989 Execution 1992-1995

The copper kubus of the signal tower 4, at the edge of the railway tracks

Between the new Lokomotivdepot and the old walls wolf God field from 18. and 19. Century is a high copper kubus, the new signal tower 4 of the Swiss Federal Railroads. In it the elekronische equipment for the check of the switches and signals of the Lokomotivdepots and that are accommodated to it following tracks on six projectiles. Additionally the building accommodates four workstations and the pertinent secondary rooms.

The sketches of the signal tower with basement and the three upper floors (from left to the right). The concrete bowl of the solidium is dammed outside and with 20 cm broad kupferbaendern tapes. These are opened before the windows by rotating, in order to let something daylight penetrate into the building inside. The copper taping is to let the kubus affect optically, in allusion the internal use, like an electrical coil and expresses very figurativy the physical characteristics of the solidium. It has the effect of a Faraday' cage and can so electronics against unwanted external influences protect.

The copper taping is bent upward in the area of the windows, in order to let daylight arrive the inside the building.

The yardstick of the copper kubus is open and indefinite, contrary to conventional industrial buildings, and lets no projectile division become recognizable, so that it takes up a specific relationship with the adjacent track field.

Ausschnitt aus dem Aufsatz "Beetween the Face and the Landscape " von Alejandro Zaera, aus dem Englischen bersetzt von Almut Carstens