Herzog & de Meuron is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (1950) and Pierre de Meuron (1950), closely parallel one another, with both attending the ETH in Zurich. In 2006, The New York Times Magazine called them "one of the most admired architecture firms in the world". Herzog & de Meuron's early works were reductivist pieces of modernity that registered on the same level as the minimalist art of Donald Judd. However, their recent work at Prada Tokyo, the Barcelona Forum Building and the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, suggest a changing attitude. Though their commitment to the primacy of materiality shows through all their projects, the manipulation of form has gone from boxy modernism to volumetric prisms of equal if not greater presence. The architects often cite Joseph Beuys as an enduring artistic inspiration and collaborate with different artists on many architectural projects. Their success can be attributed to their skills in revealing unfamiliar or unknown relationships through familiar materials.

Additional Info
RIBA Gold Medal interviews (2007)
BD interview (2007)
New York Magazine interview (2006)
Icon interview (2004)
Telegraph interview (2001)
Pritzker Prize 2001
Tate Modern extension (article/another two)
ARUP on Beijing National Stadium
Walker Arts Center expansion
Prada Tokyo images
Various projects

KultureFlash photo essay

This interview was conducted in person at RIBA on 21/04/07.

Anthony Hoete: I am interviewing you on behalf of KultureFlash, which is a free weekly web-based newsletter covering contemporary culture in and around London. Given this format, in preparing for this interview I decided to undertake two forms of web research on your office: to consult your website and to consult our own network of architectural enthusiasts by sending out a single emailed question: "If you could ask Jacques Herzog one question, what would it be?" This research went out the window when I surprisingly learnt that there is no Herzog & de Meuron website...

Jacques Herzog: That is correct. We do not have a website.

AH: I find that surprising given your global visibility or perhaps it is because of this you have no need for web-based PR. Does Google act as proxy for the absent Herzog & de Meuron homepage -- when searched for, 594,000 results came up?

JH: The function of a website as I see it is purely as archive -- a potentially efficient informational store.

AH: This suggests that the architectural website is a retrospective space only...

JH: Yes, with 594,000 results there is a necessity to edit and curate information not directly generated by the architect. This means we could edit and organise this plethora of information regarding our own architecture and urbanism as it has been perceived, written about and "pressed" into existence by others. Why do our own press when you are doing it for us?

AH: In the same way as a building could be created via the perspective of its users? Let's discuss then one supporter's story -- a "fanecdote" let's say -- regarding the Allianz Arena how do you react to claims by the "ultras" of Bayern Munich that the stadium is, ironically, too good? The Ultras protested at several home games against the seats and some of the rules of the arena, which they perceive as "fan unfriendly". For example, a spectator may not enter with a megaphone or a pennant that a single person cannot carry unfurled, and pennant poles with a length of over one metre are prohibited. The complaint is that these rules and the designer seats put a dampener on the fan experience.

JH: The architect cannot entirely control how a building is used: certain conditions have been imposed that were influenced by the political culture of sports-fan "hooliganism". German football hooliganism started at about the same time as the English phenomenon but has never become as widespread as in England. German authorities have now reduced its prevalence with tougher laws. Recall now that two local rivals share the Allianz Arena -- FC Bayern Munchen and TSV 1860 Munchen. Oppositional-shared territory would be unheard of here in London: current neighbours Arsenal and Tottenham occupying the same ground -- unthinkable! Yet these large urban spaces that were designed to cater for mass audiences remain vacant every other away game week. It is more efficient to maximise occupancy, to have a home game every week. This paradoxically reduces the size of each team's capital investment yet doubles the design potential...

AH: ...as with the Allianz, which specifically uses the footballing tension born from "local opposition" to illuminating effect: the stadium glows with the colours of the respective home team (switching between red for Bayern and blue for 1860 -- or white if the German national team is playing).

JH: Effects, lights, top players are all part of football drama for which we as architects provide the appropriate stage and scenery. For the Allianz Arena we turned to traditional English football stadiums for inspiration, where the fans are as close as possible to the pitch. At Arsenal's former ground, Highbury, front row fans sat just 1m from the touchline.

AH: The space of English football architecture was formed from the compact assemblage of charming ad-hoc grandstands. In the wake of the Hillsborough tragedy in Sheffield in 1989 where 96 Liverpool fans died, yesterday's grand standing upon the terraces has been converted into today's all-seater stadiums with the removal of barriers between spectator and performer. However, the geometry of the contemporary stadium is such that the seats are much further from the touchline than with the historic grandstand. This increased "remoteness" has coincided with a shift in the drama from events on the field to events in the stadium. The crowds are the new players generating mass participation with song and dance -- the so-called Mexican wave, for example, gained international prominence during the 1986 World Cup. At the last World Cup in Germany, television cameras frequently focused on celebrity faces in the crowd: the English WAGs ("wives and girlfriends") providing more stimulus than the underperforming team.

JH: The audience creates the football stadium not just the architecture. Ever seen a game played behind closed doors? Architecture has to be a sensual intelligent medium; otherwise it's just boring...

AH: An empty stadium would kill televised football. Given the huge income generated by TV rights one can expect television to taking an increasingly significant role in the design of future stadia. Where fans attend for free (or are paid) to enhance the televised drama. Might we envisage tomorrow's "cone of vision stadium" with the stadium designed around camera angles and the televised image...

JH: Water anyone?

AH: Thanks. Architecture like football also requires strategies and high levels of organisation...

JH: Yes the organisation of urban infrastructure has to intersect with mass sporting attendances: the 69,000 seat Allianz Arena sits over Europe's largest parking structure, comprising four-storey deep parking garages with nearly 10,000 parking places. Ideally, architecture changes a city.

AH: That's approximately one parking place for every seven persons. At the recently open Wembley there is no general public parking at the new stadium. There is also no need for such an under-utilised "national stadium" in Germany, Italy or Spain where national teams play their home games around the country maximising their exposure to varying localised audiences. Football is very "terror-torialised" here in the UK. Do you still play?

JH: Yes, I admire total football. The constant switching of positions of Total Football only came about because of enhanced spatial awareness. It was about making space, coming into space, and organising space-like architecture on the football pitch. The system developed organically and collaboratively... democratically too: everyone could play everywhere! A player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team thus retaining their intended organisational structure. In this fluid system no footballer is fixed in his or her intended outfield role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. However, whatever I do play now in my advanced age with my friends cannot be described as Total Football, but rather as total "non-football"...

AH: The Dutch, who developed Total Football, also forged a reputation for modernising architecture by recognising that the increasing complexity of the city demands a reverse simplification of architecture. This is confirmed in the iconic status of today's contemporary architecture. Learning from maestro Johan Cruijff who as a winger played at the edges of the field, simple football / architecture results in the most beautiful game yet producing simple football / architecture is a difficult thing...

JH: Sometimes it's not about winning but how you play the game.

AH: Yes, although architecture shares with football a trophy culture with competitions, awards and medals. It is thus apt to close this discussion with a reflection on your own winner's medal. The 2007 RIBA Gold Medal is going to an architectural duo for only the third time since its inception in 1848. However in the previous instances -- Charles and Ray Eames in 1979 and Michael and Patty Hopkins in 1994 -- these were husband and wife couples and so for the first time we have a winning team and with this the recognition of architecture as a collaborative process...

JH: For sure this is a truly great honor. And as you know the world at large, also the media of course, need awards like this to understand the quality of your work. But that does not improve your quality, it only helps you to be acknowledged for what you do. Pierre and I know what we could do and we know when we do things which are good or which are less good. So our ambition to be the best and to constantly improve ourselves is independent from all these issues.

Anthony Hoete is a partner in the office WHAT_architecture that recently won a 2006 Regeneration Award for its Rooftop Nursery. Hoete is also the editor of the spatial mobility book R.O.A.M. (BDP, 2003) which Peter Wilson declared in his Building Design review as "deviant, frustrating yet crucial..." Next up? WHAT_architecture is currently collaborating with AKK Architects on the shared concept and execution for the "Moroccan roll" House Beirutiful soon to be completed in west London.

Image © Georg Gatsas