VitraHaus, Weil am Rhein
Architects : Herzog & de Meuron

Overlapping volumes based on the archetype of houses, for some weeks now, the giant Mikado created by Balois architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, is hosting Vitra collections intended for housing.

Specialised in office furniture for professional clientele, the company Vitra, launched in 2004 a Home collection showcasing classical designs and products from Young contemporary designers. Barely two years later, the Herzog & de Meuron agency was charged with the responsibility to design adequate exhibition areas. In other words, a building intended to serve as reference to the Vitra site, close to the Vitra Design Museum by Frank Gehry (1989) and the Tadao Ando Conference building (1993). The concept of this new structure has combined two themes valued by Herzog & de Meuron: The stacking of spaces and the archetype house, namely, a rectangle overlaid with double-pitch roofing with familiar connotations.
The both simple and sophisticated twelve ‘houses’ are designed as abstract elements interlaced on five storeys. Assuming a deliberate chaos where floor slabs are cutting into the gable walls of the lower storey, and projections measure up to 15 metres, the result will be a type of urban assembly with a vertical stratification. The objective was to construct a building with a minimum tread contact and a good overall view of surroundings, production site and Home collection. The chosen anthracite colour used for the rough coating of the facade gives the building unity and anchoring into nature. Inside, complexity is not only portrayed by the intersection angles of the different houses, but also by the interlacing of panoramic views on the city observing from (an angle) between houses. Internal and external spaces blend like two worlds of forms, one of orthogonal polygons visible from the outside and the other an internal organic world with its unexpected spaces and volumes. According to Herzog & de Meuron, this ‘secret world’ has a suggestive character and a maze-like aspect. at night, the spaces open. The transparent facades like display windows, illuminate the surroundings.