It is a very complex shape, because we took wind as the generator of form. It is made from stainless steel and it is shaped, let's say, like a cloud. There is a metal part inside that is the brain of the whole building. Right now we're negotiating how and when we will start this new kind of production on site.Īmy Frearson: What parts of the construction will the robots be responsible for? The whole building or just certain parts?
Wolf D Prix: When we built the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, which was finished one year ago, I said to the company working on the skin of the building, "why don't you use robots?" They said, "we don't need it, it's too complicated". This is the usual explanation when people don't want to innovate.īut in China, when we started to build MOCAPE, we looked for a company that could do it. The stainless steel volume proposed inside the Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning ExhibitionĪmy Frearson: How did you become involved with this robotics company? They don't only do it for the Chinese market, they are preparing to bring these kinds of new possibilities to Europe and Africa. Now we need eight workers on site, and it takes 12 weeks. The company we are working with is also building submarines and parts for cars. Normally this part of the building would take eight months with 160 workers on the site. So that opens up a really great possibility for investigating a new aesthetic.
But now, using robots, we can construct buildings like this in a very short time and very economically. Normally these forms are more expensive and take more time. And this is amazing! Because it gives us the possibility to build more complex shapes. Wolf D Prix: So part of this building will be built by robots.
Read on for full transcript of our interview with Wolf D Prix:Īmy Frearson: I understand you're using robotic construction on your museum project in Shenzhen. The architect previously hit the headlines in 2012 when he launched an attack on the Venice Architecture Biennale, claiming that it places too much importance on celebrity.
He established Vienna-based Coop Himmelb(l)au in 1968 alongside Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer, both of whom have now left the firm. Prix credits himself as being of the founders of the Deconstructivist movement in architecture – a strand of Postmodernism concerned with distorting and fragmenting traditional forms. That is the expression of our time." Model view of the proposed stainless-steel volume "There should be traditional conservative shapes next to the most progressive freeform. "The simultaneity of systems is what our complex world needs to have," he added. "We have to find a way out of the standstill of our profession – there must be no more boxes," he said. Prix insists that eradicating traditional forms of architecture is not his aim, but he called for an end to what he dubs "cheap boxes". Robotic fabrication of the polished stainless-steel mock-up Related story Venice Architecture Biennale "cannot get any worse" says Wolf D PrixĬoop Himmelb(l)au has a reputation for creating complex buildings, with examples including the contorted steel Dalian International Conference Center, also in China, and the Martin Luther Church in Austria, which features a whirlpool-shaped roof.