Hansjörg Göritz  Studio - Works

Stones and Sketches

Exhibition

Hansjörg Göritz

Wechselraum Stuttgart, Germany

2011

 

Without compromises and independent from any trend is the architecture. Profound questions in architecture, elementary volumes with timeless materials, the mis-en-scènes of spaces, meticulous craft: the benchmark is high when Hansjörg Göritz grabs the pen. He represents a rare breed of architects who develop designs without digital gadgets, and work the building entity through all phases down to the smallest detail sketching. Of this design process with a pen the exhibitions talks, on show at BDA Wechselraum Stuttgart.

 

In January 2001 Göritz won the international competition for the Liechtenstein Parliament in Vaduz. In 2008 the buildings were dedicated. The ensemble is composed of high pitched High House for the senate, a flanking Long House, and a square; its finalization is not part of this exhibitions; photographs are were excluded. Rather, it reveals a holistic work and design process with 600 original hand drawings. Chronologically, it makes one comprehend the entire development, from an initial approach to the competition project to working details.

 

The drawings in purple ink, pencil, and water color, on plain white letter paper, are a means to an end: one witnesses Göritz reiterative explorations of new variants, perpetually in quest, for its utmost solution, for the right space, for the appropriate detail. For which he tests and tosses numerous variations. Hence the exhibit displays interesting design schemes for the parliament that remained unbuilt. Its materialization with 680 thousand custom made bricks is a composition of curved and parallelogram shapes, calling for a mastery of complex brickwork solutions, revealed in a later sequence of geometrical investigations. Göritz, a trained fellow craft mason, was awarded the international Brick Award 2010 for this materialization with a pitched facing brick roof. Two models show the project in its urban configuration, whose interpretation can be traced to a 1987 master plan by Luigi Snozzi. Plan plots of the built project are the quintessential centerpiece.

 

The exhibition was introduced with statements and a panel discussion on the topic Material - How much Hold do Humans Need? Dialog partners were architects David Cook, Jórunn Ragnarsdóttir and psychologist Alexander Müller, moderated by journalist Friedrich Dassler of XIA.

 

Exhibition

Peter Krebs, Ute Schüler

 

Text

Jan Schildknecht

 

Photography

Kamran Sardar Khan