On the Haus

Words by Nicole Stock
Photography Iwan Baan

Designed by Herzog and de Meuron, Pritzker Prize-winning architects based in Basel, VitraHaus is a showroom for Vitra’s residential ranges.

The building takes its form almost directly from its name. Stacked one on top of the other are long extruded gabled house forms, their box base and triangular roof as simplistic as a child would draw, but the proportions – each slightly different to the other and taken from measurements of local houses – gives the blocks a true regional form.
What is successful about this is that from a simple house form, the stacking, cantilevering and floating of the forms on top of each other creates a complex interweaving of spaces both within the building, creating distinct rooms of different sizes and atmospheres, and outside, with dramatic crevices, overhangs and angles. urbis

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