Monday, July 20, 2015
The multiple award-winning architect Wolf D. Prix will be the star guest at DOMOTEX 2016. The spectacular buildings designed by the renowned planner, who heads the Viennese architecture practice Coop Himmelb(l)au, have attracted worldwide recognition, admiration and debate. Visitors can now experience Prix for themselves at the world’s leading trade fair for carpets and floor coverings in Hannover. Together with other celebrities from the international architecture and design world, he will be discussing the latest flooring trends and their impact on the work of designers on 16 January at the Innovations@DOMOTEX area in Hall 6.
As the special guest of DOMOTEX, Prix will be a real inspiration for the visiting trade public. The innovative planner and the Coop Himmelb(l)au practice have become synonymous with passionate spatial designs and an emotionalized architecture. Wings, steel branches and flying platforms – the dividing line between form and material is constantly being explored and redefined. In their designs roofs become clouds and houses become crystalline sculptures.
Coop Himmelb(l)au is regarded as one of the inventors of the deconstructivist style of architecture (where shapes are pulled apart and put back together in a different configuration). The practice became world-famous for this style in the 1980s. One of its landmark buildings is the BMW World in Munich – a sculptural building whose individual parts, such as the roof, appear to be suspended in space. Other renowned structures include the Museum in Groningen in the Netherlands, the UFA Crystal Palace in Dresden, Gasometer B in Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio (USA). More recent projects include the new building for the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, inaugurated in March 2015, the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, opened at the end of December 2014, the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark (2013) and the Dalian International Conference Center in China (2012).
Coop Himmelb(l)au has won many national and international awards for its work. Its prizes include the German Architecture Prize (1999) and the Grand Austrian State Prize (1999). Alongside their architectural projects, Prix and his partner Helmut Swiczinsky have also designed furniture and various other products, including the “Vodöl” armchair for Vitra (1989). Prix was also appointed to a professorship in the Department of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
Tags: DOMOTEX 2016, Wolf D. Prix
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