The exhibition centres on a single theme — multicoloured façades. Sauerbruch Hutton make frequent use of colour and the designs showcased are illustrated only with models — no drawings and no photographs — to convey their research approach and focus. Walls in bright contrasting colours, primary colours and subtly changing shades commonly feature in the architects' unusual interpretation of an uncommon and decorative palette that manages to define and characterise the way their constructions and architecture are perceived. Those who actually constructed the models on show also deserve a mention an in-house team comprising Jörg Albeke and Sandra Peters for the Brandhorst Museum and Werk5 directed by Karsten Kröger. Sauerbruch Hutton projects currently in the pipeline are a sustainable quarter for the city of Helsinki and a Museum of the 20th Century in Venice.
Luisa Hutton: Normally first ideas come when we acquaint ourselves with the programme and the site, as well as through conversations with both the client and amongst ourselves.
How do you physically represent your early idea of a project: drawing on a notebook, bringing together materials, making a written note? Do you draw by hand first and then at the computer? Tell us about the process.
Approaching ideas and schemes with different media is very important to us. Anything can lead to an idea: digital or hand sketches, notes, mock-ups, songs, poems, models with sugar cubes: anything that forms a base for a fruitful discussion between us, our staff and possibly the client is helpful in addressing a project and creating a basis from which to start taking decisions. However, we continue to interrogate these first moves during the following phases and make sure that we always keep our minds flexible. We make a lot of hand drawings, they are quick to do and usefully offer reinterpretation by oneself and others unlike the frozen appearance of digital work. But in the end everything we discuss will of course be translated into the computer sooner or later.
The quality of the client, the complexity of the brief and the characteristics of the site (in this order of importance).
Is there a particular masterpiece of the history of architecture, a project that you would like to have created yourself?
The Berlin Philharmonic Hall (and many more).
What is your personal definition of architecture? What is your personal relationship with it?
Architecture is what surrounds us. We - like everybody else - spend our lives in it.
For us, colour is an absolutely integral part of space-making; we consider colour to be a building material just like concrete or brick
For us, colour is an absolutely integral part of space-making; we consider colour to be a building material just like concrete or brick.
Tell us of your relationship with Munich? when the first project etc...
Munich calls itself "Italian city north of the Alps" and there is indeed a curious mix of German efficiency and Mediterranean dolce vita. Architecturally speaking there has been a great deal of influence from Italy (think of Southern German Baroque) and there is a tradition of colourful architecture. Maybe that is why in Munich we have realised more projects than in any other city so far, and a particularly varied spectrum of typologies. The very first project was a series of five bee houses in the Botanical Gardens in 2002, while the most recent one is the headquarters building of the German Automobile Association (ADAC) that was finished in 2012. So within a decade our projects have grown a from 1,2sq m to 130,000 square metres gross floor area.
A roof and a pencil.
Who are the masters from the past/present that have inspired you?
We draw inspiration from a wide range of sources, not necessarily just other architects, but if you want us to name architects who continue to inspire us it would probably be Bruno Taut and le Corbusier as a (contrasting) pair. But both were also very different from us.
We think — whatever one's various pre-occupations are — that our generation will be measured by the sustainability of what we leave behind to an increasingly overpopulated planet.
Do you think the history of architecture has to be taken into consideration when creating a new project or you prefer to look to the future than to the past?
History is an important inspiration, benchmark and source of knowledge, but you cannot make something that is old. It simply isn't possible to build the same city twice.
Architekturgalerie München
Türkenstrasse 30, München
Through 30 March 2012