Von Bart Lootsma.
Von Bart Lootsma.
The collective AllesWirdGut started out with a series of projects that confessed to modernity in the most outspoken way. With their installation turnOn, which was shown in many exhibitions, they paid lip service to the experimental and optimistic architecture and design of the nineteen sixties and seventies that was inspired by space travel and films like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. A polyester cylinder of three meters’ length contains different pieces of furniture, so that by rolling it, the rooms can change from living room to bedroom to kitchen to bathroom. Other conceptual projects glorify the aesthetic of asphalt and infrastructure in a way that puts one in mind of the school of Rem Koolhaas. Very soon however, AWG managed to win some competitions and realize the ensuing projects. They never completely gave up their modern beliefs but in the execution milder elements were soon introduced, particularly in the choice of materials. Atmosphere, introduced in a way that is often reminiscent of the way atmosphere is introduced in advertising, became an important element of their work. This seems no coincidence in the series of fashion shops AWG designed for the franchise chain Don Gil. Style and atmosphere are important aspects of fashion. It is intriguing, though, that AWG distanced itself from a more modernist, open concept for these shops in favour of a concept that emphasizes the intimacy of a kind of walk-in cupboard. From the entrance way, one can perceive the size and scale of the shop as a whole but one does not have a complete overview. One has to go in and lose oneself in the many cabinets. Of course, this concept perfectly fits the commercial idea behind Don Gil that demands all clothes to be always immediately available in all sizes and all colours inside the shop, which accordingly needs lots of storage space. But at the same time it seems a return to a more traditional kind of men’s fashion shop, which is underpinned by the predominantly dark wood and deep colours that have been used.
Intriguingly, the development in which atmosphere becomes more important in the work of AWG goes hand in hand with the introduction of more intimate, closed spaces in the larger modernist structures they still borrow from Koolhaas and his followers.
The KIGA Kindergarten in St. Anton am Arlberg balances even more carefully and convincingly between a hardcore modernist approach and the willingness to compromise. Indeed, the building allows two readings. Formally, the building consists of a flatter, lower part – a box with shed roofs – with a bended rectangular tube next to it. On the other hand, because of the way these elements are positioned, it is almost an example of contextualism. The highest part of the tube almost works like a pitched roof and blends in with the pitched roofs in the surrounding village. The lower building, with its reference to the shed roofs, so typical of industrial buildings, blends in with the small industrial and agricultural buildings that can be found in these villages just as well. The grey abstract panels that cover the façades are clearly modernist, but they are countered by oversized window frames in wood, as a kind of Baudrillard-like simulacrum faintly reminiscent of the traditional window frames and balconies in the neighbourhood and at the same time suggesting a warm cosiness on the inside of the building.
Once inside, this cosiness does not quite as immediately come from the materials (such as wood) as it is suggested on the outside. Again, there is a subtle play with both modernist abstraction and atmosphere-suggesting simulacra. The corridors suggest, again, a factory-like typology: After all, the kids go to work here! White walls and wooden floors produce a light atmosphere, sometimes brightened up by coloured walls, furniture and lamps. Indoor winter gardens with bamboo, gravel and informally placed stones faintly suggest a Japanese tradition reminiscent of some of Francine Houben’s work for Mecanoo; while at the same time functional elements such as a climbing wall play a decorative role as well. The latter reminds one of the work of NL Architects, notably their WOS 8 building in Leidsche Rijn in the Netherlands. It is at such moments that the work of AWG becomes almost eclectic.