Hans hollein

Pritzker Prize Presentation Skin and Bones October 12, 2011 Hans Hollein ! Hans Hollein was born in Vienna, Austria in 1934. He attended Academy of fine arts, Vienna in 1956 , the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago from 1958 to 1959, and University of California at Berkeley graduating with a masters of architecture in 1960. He established a professional practice in Vienna in 1964. AbteibergMuseum ! Hans Hollein was inspired by the avant-garde and Pop, challenging the idea of traditional monumental architecture. He rejected any system of overall order, conceiving this building as a collection of disparate buildings that suggest the idea of a miniature town, earthwork and ruin. Opposite to the exterior, the interior shows a more unified composition, with the idea of a “white box”required for the display of modern art. Yet the building"s interiors present surprising moments in space. Hollein took account both of the location"s historical skyline, with the abbey, and of the steeply sloping site of the abbey garden. He deployed various spatial composites in such a way that visitors can explore them from top to bottom, as a single seamless entity. He created thus an architecturalstructure whose interior arrangement and external appearance reveal an abundance of ideas, diversity and surprises: one that, in terms of its beauty, functionality and originality, easily holds its own alongside the world"s most famous museum buildings. ! "I approached the matter of planning this museum both as an architect and as an artist: as an artist who has a close relationship to the worksof art presented therein, as an artist who produces works of art (exhibited in various museums), and as an artist who interprets a built object as a work of art. I strive to create a dialogue between architecture, space and the work of art – whereby the objective is not so much to integrate these but rather to confront them with one another and thus render visible and palpable the full potentialboth of the objects and of the space. The space ought to evince complex neutrality. Flexibility here does not imply mobile ceilings and wall elements but rather, a spectrum of multilayered situations that are revealed in relation to the work of art, and to which the work of art responds. The work of art and the visitor are the primary mobile elements in this context – in the architectural setting.The responsibility of the architect is not transferred to the curator"s shoulders. The architect

creates an independent work of art – for other works of art and for human beings." (Hans Hollein) ! ! The museum is a reinforced concrete structure, supplemented in certain areas by brickwork (7,000 m# concrete, 600 t construction steel, 40,000 m$ formwork). The site drops away steeply from theEntrance Level on Abteistrasse, which (following excavation of 24,000 m# of earth) facilitated construction of an underground section, partly visible on the garden-side elevation. The foundation pit, up to 12 m in depth, was secured using 1,200 m$ of so-called Berlin-type shoring equipment plus further shoring (270 m$) comprised of 463 concrete bored piles. Earth compaction of the foundation levelstood at 1,700 m$. ! In essence four materials were used for the facades: the closed tower facade and the temporary exhibition zone are clad in light-colored sandstone (1,200 m$), the exhibition spaces on the Flagstone Level, including the shed roofs, are clad in titanium zinc sheeting (3,000 m$), all glazed facades are framed in aluminum (1,600 m$), and the “entrance” pavilion on the FlagstonesLevel is clad in white marble. The terraced zone of the abbey gardens and the exterior walls of the amorphous exhibition spaces were built of brick, so as to merge with the adjacent remains of the original city walls. Sandstone was used also for the flagstone forecourt, the web section and all exterior stairways. ! Daylight falls directly into the exhibition spaces thanks to the north-facing (and...