Design Talks

Observations on design

Switch House opens at Tate Modern

Posted on June 17, 2016 by Nargess

This week saw the opening of London’s latest gallery dedicated to the display, screening and performance of contemporary art. Switch House at the Tate Modern is designed by Swiss architect Herzog & de Meuron, and is the result of a twelve-year scheme. The £260m extension to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott’s former Bankside power station is the largest cultural project in London since the British Library was opened in 1998.

Switch House is big, huge on this media unveiling day – visitors are made almost invisible by the sheer scale of this twisting and distorted, somewhat awkward, textured pyramid, clad in perforated lattice of brick and reaching high up into the sky. Inside is visually striking too, with its contrast of sensuous swirling concrete and sharp defined angles and edges. The robustness of the concrete used inside is softened by light elements entering through the perforated exterior brickwork. We recommend walking the ten floors to the viewing gallery – the journey itself is part of the charm as the staircase alters in form and proportion with the open platform offering panoramic views over London’s architectural past, present and future.

‘You don’t build museums for tomorrow, you build them for generations,’ said Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota at the inauguration. ‘This is going to be here for decades.’ He feels the aim of the gallery is to be local as well as global, and to forge relationships with communities here and worldwide. Tate Modern is a phenomenal success – with some five million annual visitors, it is the most visited modern art gallery in the world and Switch House will no doubt add to visitor numbers.

In an emotive speech that followed, new London Mayor Sadiq Khan pledged to create affordable artist studios throughout the city, clearly grasping the value this soft power offers London and the UK. ‘I’m putting culture at the very core of my policies, up there alongside housing,’ he followed. Khan said the gallery will inspire new audiences and add to London’s cultural pull. ‘I want to apply the Tate Modern thinking to how I approach my plans.’ Compelling words, and it will be interesting to see if he can achieve this.

Herzog & de Meuron’s intriguing space offers unexpected opportunities to exhibit art in new ways and for visitors to engage with art in a less formal manner with plenty of benches and quite spaces to hang out. ‘The horizontal configuration of the classical galleries in the Boiler House is now enhanced with the vertical boulevard of the new extension,’ explains Pierre de Meuron, ‘creating a kind of architectural topography through the building that will offer unexpected opportunities for both artists and curators to present art outside the official display areas of the gallery.’

This works well for Frances Morris, director of Tate Modern, who is keen to continue her mission in transforming the gallery’s collection to embrace other mediums – film and performance – and widen the international and gender representation. ‘I am delighted to now have the space to show this broader story of modern and contemporary art to the public for free.’

There is criticism amongst some circles that institutions like Tate Modern are turning art exhibitions into spectacles, more concerned with attracting numbers with sensationalist shows rather than telling the story of art. Yet perhaps there is space for all kinds of creative interpretations and ventures. Tate Modern and Switch House are free public spaces designed to be inviting, choreographed to engage a wider public rather than a small elite, art lovers who frequent other galleries. This in itself is to be applauded.

Much of the success of the new Tate will be because of the building, the design, the architecture, the space. And London’s latest cathedral of culture certainly offers visual and visceral impact.

Nargess Banks

Switch House opened to the public today and will stay open until 10pm on certain night.

All rights and labelled images are covered by ©

Archibet, from Aalto to Zaha Hadid

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Nargess

A charming little book arrived here this week. Archibet is the work of the Italian architect and graphic designer Federico Babina who has set about creating an alphabet book inspired by some of the world’s most talented architects.

Designed as postcards, each of the 26 pages is dedicated to an alphabet and a corresponding creative from Alvar Aalto to Zaha Hadid. Admittedly, even though the British architect is often referred to by her first name, we did feel putting Hadid in Z is a little bit of a cheat.

Nonetheless, Babina has created a wonderful illustrative book that pays tribute to the distinct architectural style of each of the featured practitioner – all in his unique fashion.

Babina sees a close relationship between architecture, graphic design and illustration. The architect needs to express his or her vision through drawings, and the more provocative they are, the more expressive, it helps give shape and life to a project.

He explains, ‘sometimes I am an architect with a passion for illustration and others I’m an illustrator in love with architecture.’

Archibet is published by Laurence King.

For more reviews on books on design and art visit the Design Talks Book Club.

Serpentine Pavilion by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Nargess

There is something quite enchanting, and perhaps a little sad, about a structure designed by some of the leading creative minds of our time that is commissioned to be temporary, there only for a brief few months. This has been the premise behind the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions, which sees buildings erected in the heart of London, in Kensington Gardens, each year from June through to October by leading names in the world of architecture: Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Oscar Niemeyer, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel to name a few.

The 12^th pavilion is the work of Swiss duo Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese contemporary artist/activist Ai Weiwei. This is a unique proposition that takes the visitor on an intriguing journey, beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of past pavilions. The eleven columns characterising each past pavilion, and a twelfth one representing the current structure, support a floating platform roof 1.4m above ground.

‘So many pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built that we tried instinctively to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating an object, a concrete shape,’ explain Herzog & de Meuron and Ai.

The interior is clad in cork, a sustainable material chosen for its unique qualities that also echoes the excavated earth, and silence of peace as well as leave quite a strong musty smell. The team dug five feet down into the soil of the park until they reached the groundwater where they created a waterhole to collect the city’s rain that falls in the area of the pavilion. As they went deeper and deeper, they discovered a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and former foundations.

‘Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven pavilions,’ they said before the building was unveiled. ‘Their shape varies: circular, long and narrow, dots and also large, constructed hollows that have been filled in.’

The design aims to inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures. It is more reconstruction, of course, than excavation, but nevertheless it works in creating a fun theatrical space to be enjoyed by the general public throughout the summer months.

This is the second time Herzog & de Meuron and Ai have collaborated having designed the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Nargess Shahmanesh Banks

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 will be open to the public on 1 June to 14 October 2012.

Read our reports on previous Serpentine Pavilions by Peter Zumthor and Jean Nouvel. Also read more on Ai Weiwei.

Herzog de Meuron’s Swiss adventure

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Andrea Klettner

Herzog de Meuron’s Vitra Haus is the perfect addition to Vitra’s celebrated campus in the sleepy town of Weil-am-Rhein. The town, known locally as Stuhl Stadt (Chair City), is most well known for its factories producing some of the world’s most celebrated furniture design from Charles & Ray Eames, Maarten van Severen and Verner Panton, among others.

Vitra Haus, which opened earlier this year to much critical acclaim, was built on the concept of a giant display case for all the beautiful interior design produced here. The structure itself is made of 12 individual buildings, sitting atop one another at jaunty angles, each shaped like an elongated Monopoly house.

Upon entering you are ushered straight to the top (fifth) floor, where you start to see just how well this building works its functions. The display rooms are ight and airy, giving ceiling to floor views of the surrounding countryside, and you are free to sit, bounce and play on the furniture. Vitra have really got the balance of museum and showroom right here.

Working your way down through the various levels and rooms is a joy, with every display window giving new vistas. You can even see out over the factory buildings, where the most famous is Zaha Hadid’s first structure – the fire station. Frank Gehry, Nicholas Grimshaw and SANAA have designed the rest, all warranting a visit in their own right.

Guest blogger Andrea Klettner

Read Andrea Klettner’s blog Love London Council Housing.