The relationship between the private developer and the architect is generally considered to be difficult. Blame it on the architects that have created an Image of your profession, which is somewhere between “precious whore” (quote by the late American architect Philip Johnson), and gestrengem style dictator in the mould of Oswald Mathias Ungers oscillates.
By Günter Behnisch, the designer of the Munich Olympic stadium, comes the sentence: “If someone needs comfort, he can buy a cat.” And anyone who has ever experienced in one of Richard Meier’s pristine white villas, like the lady of the house begins three hours prior to the visit of the master in a panic, with the clean-up, in order to liberate the interior from the traces of its inhabitants, to understand why only a minority get involved in the adventure with an architect, and prefer a house from the bar buys.
How enriching working with a good architect, however, can be, is just to visit again in the German architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt. The one with the houses-of-the-year-Award-winning 50 single-family homes prove, all fearful of prefabricated house and property developers-advocates, in Spite of that there is a culture of building with architect. Callwey-Verlag, DAM, and trade associations are praising the price.
There are mostly younger architects who do not comply with the builders cliché of the elite builders of the old shock that are here now already for the eighth Time. And it’s the same architects that are here are not again and again, because you’re too bad to earn less money than their for commercial Building plan colleagues, and instead, with vigor, patience and good nerves this challenging task.
One of them, Thomas Kröger. Of the Berlin, and Foster’s students, has developed in just a few years by the imaginative Reanimator Brandenburg barns to the whizz kid of the international architecture scene as well as one of the outstanding representatives of critical regionalism. A style that interprets the local building culture in a modern and smart.
His first price, with the Kröger now already for the second Time in the houses Award will be awarded, is an original re-discovery, as well as a continuation of the traditional East-Frisian Gulfhauses, a farmhouse form, the in 16. and 17. Century in Northern Germany was spread.
From the distance, the stately house, with its facade of Wittmunder Klinker with the deep drawn-down roof on the outskirts of the village of Ostrhauderfehn as if it had always been behind the dike. The typical kröger cal Aha-effect only upon closer inspection.
As from a fish-eye, the house looks to its visitors. The large, round, torähnliche window allows the young family of four, the view to the Green expanse of the adjoining conservation area and helps to brighten up the long Frisian Winter.
Unmistakably the handwriting of the architect in the Interior of the house: One single, huge, sacred-seeming space that welcomes the visitor, based on a powerful beam construction, we also Krögers barn houses the Uckermark. What looks at first glance like wood, is, in reality, a rough, heavy reinforced concrete.
on The first floor, reached via the open stairs, the two under the roof of the opposite bedroom, and a plurality of narrow, directly under the First adjacent window openings arranged in a row, you can enjoy views of the Vastness of the marsh landscape.
thanks to That not only the Jury of the houses Awards was unanimous in their enthusiasm of Krögers “imaginative fireworks in the province” (DAM-Director and jury member Peter Cachola Schmal), but also its inhabitants, is also the Conviction of the architects of the commitment and courage of the builders.
Originally, the architect had been rejected by the Contracting authorities / entities to him, brought to their attention, Please, to till a next to the plot of the grandmother lying land. The Budget didn’t simply handed to you, says Kröger, also due to the long trip from Berlin to East Frisia. However, the tenacity with which the couple courted each other across the your dream architects, and the “good chemistry”, which was from the beginning between the builders and architect, have finally convinced him.
the inhabitants of acquisitions, construction management
As Kröger had his small office the ability to appoint a project Manager to East Friesland, acquired the two teachers, the construction management itself, with the support of a Webcam, with the help of the Berlin-based control of the current state of things at any time and, with the help of a local construction company, also were able to correct it.
Previously, Thomas Kröger, admits there have, however, also difficult moments, to the imminent demolition of the project. So the couple fremdelte initially sharply with the unfamiliar language of architecture, which led to a prolonged exchange of letters and a few sleep-less nights with the builders, before they proclaimed the design “horrible”.
You realize Thomas Kröger today, how happy he is that he managed to motivate his clients, a new way of living. Regret not, have the family of their decision for the house anyway, tells her architect.
such A roller coaster ride of emotions, Axel Steudel not experienced probably its builders. They know what to expect when you contact his office in Cologne – predictable high quality, a “classic Modernism”, which tends more to the classic because the Modern to be without ever seemed pretentious or retrospectively.
The “white Bauhaus-box” objecting to its customers, he says. Already for years to be a Habitué at the houses-Award, is not only the architect, but also its single-family homes, which are usually in the bourgeois districts of the big cities, and never on the green Meadow, just as elegant and satisfying, but never pretentious.
plastic window are off-limits>
it is Important that all materials could age with Dignity and, if possible, for several generations. Compliments were not only from the Munich-based builders, but also of their neighbors – in new buildings so-called architect of the houses are often the exception.
The sensitive handling with the Genius Loci dominated in addition to the stylistic Calm and simplicity of the 50 best single family houses – a welcome development. Also, Alexandra Bub, with your young Hamburg-based office of architecture, which seem to be more than wants to be.
“I would imagine the Porsche to the owner, to drive”, it is contrary to a widespread cliché. Your office maintains Hanseatic Understatement in the guise of a very modern form of language, acts in spite of flat roof purism is always individual and never industrially-monotonous.
After you’ve analyzed the environment, think about it: “How do you live yourself?”, Alexandra Bub, describes the planning process. She has rebuilt a few years ago an old half-timbered house in the Elb suburbs for the house and office for yourself and your family.
And also the yellow-brick, elegant and minimalist, and generously glazed Bungalow consists of two against each other provided cubes for a family in the neighborhood that is now one of the best houses of the year 2018, is the product of a harmonious collaboration with its clients, where “above all, the chemistry must be right”, as she says, and exactly how their architect, “authenticity and authenticity and the staging of the self reject”.
Apparently, the relationship of architect and private Builder is not yet as bad as its reputation.
The exhibition “houses of the year 2018 – The best single family homes” is 6. October to 25. To see the November 2018, the German architecture Museum.
