Born in Basel in the same year (1950), childhood friends, both graduates of the Polytechnicum in Zurich, the inseparable Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have become major figures on the international architecture stage. Their work and exemplary professional complicity since 1978 were rewarded by the Pritzker Prize in 2001. Herzog and de Meuron have turned enveloping buildings into an art form. Fascinated by everyday materials, they explore textures, before transforming them into something surprising, taking refinement to its limits: stones in cages for the Dominus vineyard in Napa Valley in California, glass with a repetitive and spectacular silk-screened pattern for the Ricola warehouse (1993) in Laufen, concrete printed with photographs for the library of the Technical School in Eberswalde (1999) or sumptuous copper leaves to clad the De Young museum in San Francisco (2005). The two architects have earned an excellent reputation for their work on museums and temples of culture, in particular the austere electrical power plant of Bankside, metamorphosed into the daring Tate Modern in London (2000) or the large disused warehouse in Hamburg, which, transformed into a fantastic building with glass scales, will house the Philharmonic Concert Hall of the Elbe at the end of 2008.

Another project at the service of art, the Schaulager museum is an impressive monolith located on the outskirts of Basel. When it opened its doors in 2003, the inaugural exhibition devoted to Herzog & de Meuron lifted the veil on their creative process.

What makes their architecture so fascinating is the sheer diversity of forms, colours and materials. Their vision of architecture is however less concerned with radical innovation than with an uninterrupted and gradual transformation of existing projects. For example, the integration of prints or photographs is a recurrent feature of the work of the Basel-based duo, radically modifying the reading of the buildings, as is the motif of the spiral, seen as an organic symbolism, or the orthogonal forms associated with industrial mechanics. The design of a building, whatever its purpose, must be read as an urban concept, an inspiring and vibrant focal point.

Today, China is the focal point of the architect team after winning the competition for the Grand Olympic Stadium in Peking (in association with the China Architecture Design Group). The design in the form of a cocoon is slightly reminiscent of the new stadium in Munich, built in readiness for the 2006 World Cup.

These photographs are copyrighted.

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron
Š Georg Gatsas
 

De Young Memorial Museum San Francisco
Of different sizes and shapes, individually embossed and perforated according to constantly changing patterns, the copper leaves are inspired by the light filtering through the canopy of the trees in Golden Gate park, which surrounds the building.
Š Tecu