Start here: Herzog & de Meuron
Published on 15 June 2023
Find out what you’ll see in our latest exhibition, which looks behind the scenes of architectural practice Herzog & de Meuron.
Based in Basel, Switzerland, Herzog & de Meuron has been an architectural pioneer since the practice was founded by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in 1978.
Whether they’re working on car parks, clinics or cultural centres, the practice is focused on redefining what a building can be. Their priority is to respond to the needs of the people who will use the buildings – to make places where people can flourish and act socially.
...the drama of architecture is that without people nothing works. Crucial to our work is the idea that architecture is a kind of stage for human performance.
Jacques Herzog, co-founder of Herzog & de Meuron
Inside Herzog & de Meuron’s Kabinett
The Kabinett is Herzog & de Meuron’s laboratory for research, design and collaboration. Located within a contemporary warehouse in an industrial area of Basel, the practice meticulously arranges its archive of models, prototypes and drawings alongside collections of art and photography.
The first gallery of our exhibition recreates this unique archive space. Vitrines, identical to those at the Kabinett, are filled with objects that illustrate the ideas and processes of key buildings by Herzog & de Meuron, ranging from early projects to those that are still in development.
Discover four of the projects featured in the Kabinett by clicking on the images below.
The Kabinett reveals the meticulousness with which we think about and try out details.
Christine Binswanger, Senior Partner at Herzog & de Meuron
Tate Modern transformed London's urban design and cultural life. The repurposed power station opened in 2000. Its second phase of development, the Blavatnik Building, opened in 2016. Herzog & de Meuron describe this extension as “a vertical city, with squares, streets, lanes and steps”.
The new glass structure of Elbphilharmonie sits above a 1966 brick warehouse. Its main concert hall is influenced by three different types of performance and gathering spaces: the ancient Greek amphitheatre, the contemporary football stadium and the festival tent.
The National Stadium in Beijing was Herzog & de Meuron’s first collaboration with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The building is conceived as a large public sculpture with façade, structure, decoration and public space all in one.
1111 Lincoln Road reinvents the idea of a car park. Herzog & de Meuron took a seemingly utilitarian structure and created a playful building which combines public parking with retail spaces and a penthouse residence.
Explore the exhibition in augmented reality
Visitors to Herzog & de Meuron can explore projects from the practice’s archive in augmented reality (AR), using an app which has been developed especially for this exhibition.
REHAB on screen
Bêka & Lemoine are visual artists whose innovative and witty cinematic work explores the daily life of buildings through the people who use them. An edit of their new documentary, featured in the second gallery of our exhibition, explores the relationship between architecture and healing at the REHAB Clinic for Neurorehabilitation and Paraplegiology in Basel.
REHAB reimagines the role that architecture plays in the healing process. Bêka & Lemoine’s film Rehab from rehab explores this unique space from the perspective of patients undergoing treatment at the clinic. It charts the way patients interact with the building as they recover. It also draws on Louise Lemoine’s experience of spending time in rehabilitation centres as a child when her father was in a car accident that left him unable to walk.
We very much try to capture people’s awareness of their experience of space and time.
Louise Lemoine
A project in focus
The exhibition's final room takes a detailed look at Herzog & de Meuron’s working methods by exploring a project which is still in progress – the Universitäts-Kinderspital (meaning University Children’s Hospital) in Zurich. Find out how the practice designs complex spaces, and follow the transformation of ideas into physical reality over the course of the building process.
Visitors can use the exhibition app to step inside a typical patient’s room of the Kinderspital and to see 360-degree views of the streets, gardens and public spaces of the hospital ahead of its completion in 2024.
The project typifies Herzog & de Meuron’s sensitive, people-first approach to architecture and their meticulous attention to detail at every stage of the design process.
Herzog & de Meuron
Look behind the scenes of Herzog & de Meuron and immerse yourself in one of the most revered architecture firms in the world.
Explore their open archive shelves, sit on their latest furniture design, walk around life-sized architectural mock-ups, and use augmented reality to experience a new children’s hospital in Zurich.
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