Baku Crystal Hall by GMP Architekten

These previously unseen photographs show the faceted modular structure of the Baku Crystal Hall in Azerbaijan, which was designed and completed in just eight months (+ slideshow).

by Dezeen

Our ideal is to design in such a reduced form, that the results endure content and time. Formal restriction and uniformity of materials contribute to this standpoint because we understand obviousness as a categorical imperative.arrow right

GMP Architekten. “We want to design a house simply as a statement, to form it as a durable cover for the variety of human existence. With a critical distance from recent architectural expressions, we try to avoid expressionist forms which are only derived from artistic caprice, without reference to use, construction and functionality. The media renames this traditional simplicity as “new” simplicity. This purism carried to extremes, expressed as a denial of information in drawings and as severely barren buildings, remains alien to us. We want a reduction which is based on plausibility and self-evidence and has to integrate supposed stylistic inconsistencies provoked by building task and site. For the conception of buildings and interiors the positions of dialogical design are relevant as the guidelines of our architectural understanding.”

“The development of appropriate and acceptable answers and solutions for problems demands an openness for dialogue and the adaptation of one‘s standpoint to changing conditions. Society and its complex political and economic mechanisms decide what is being built in what fashion. We architects have not only the obligation, but the responsibility to lay ourselves open to this dialogue and take part in the discussions with a firm conviction.”