If architecture is only a making of space, what then has become of architectural surface?
within the body / beneath the skin Tonkao Panin
Nordic Embassy Complex, Berlin
reflections
between layers
U biquitous green wall is our first impression of the Nordic Embassy Complex in Berlin. It is a wall of apertures that allows us a glimpse of its interior through occasional flips of its skin at various locations.Yet at a closer inspection, what we see underneath is not the building’s interior but layer upon another layer of walls. Upon entering, it becomes clear that the green aperture wall is only a dressing that wraps itself around five separate buildings inside. Belonging to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland, five embassy buildings share the wrapping walls whose apertures accommodate the buildings’ voids.To heighten our curiosity even further, each of the five buildings wears its own dressing on top of what is conventionally considered an architectural wall. The question of categorization becomes oblivious. It is as if we encounter a person. But what is he wearing? Is it clothing, a mask, a covering or just his own skin?
Provocative surfaces seem to subordinate architecture’s precious and majestic notion of space making. Has architecture become a making of beautiful surface? Has skin become the kernel for the creation of the entire body? Architectural skin such as that of the Nordic Embassy Complex is far from ornamental. It operates within functional, formal as well as spatial framework of five buildings within its perimeter. It is both detached and attached to the buildings. It is a dressing, deviating itself from most assumed definitions of architectural wall, neither dependent nor independent of the body. Cases from Herzog & de Meuron Several projects by Herzog & de Meuron pose similar questions concerning the connectivity between architectural body and its surface.
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ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY
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