Project: The Story Behind the Facade

Project: The Story Behind the Facade

7 Episodes

Project takes a brief and intensive look at modern architectural projects and gives the creators a face. The architects themselves explain their underlying idea, explain the choice of materials and report on the challenges. How do you give a concrete shape to an abstract idea? That is the central question of Project.

Project: The Story Behind the Facade
  • City of Culture of Glacia

    Episode 3

    City of Culture of Glacia - Santiago de Compostela, Spain by Peter Eisenman Architects. The architect Peter Eisenman created a landscape made of buildings in the Spanish Pilger town Santiago de Compostela.

  • Highline 23

    The architect‘s office Denari constructed a building that cantilevers from the base. The property, built on stilts is positioned over an old railway line that now forms part of New York's Highline parklands.

  • Carrasco International Airport

    Episode 2

    Uruguay, a country with a flat, gently rolling landscape. The architect Rafael Vinoly was concerned with finding an appropriate form suitable for the airport site. "A distinctive style is secondary... but an airport also has something magical about it," says Vinoly. "It is more than the sum of it...

  • Oslo Opera and Ballet House

    Episode 7

    The Opera House in Oslo was awarded the EU prize for contemporary architecture, the "Mies van der Rohe Prize", in 2009.
    Tarald Lundevall, project manager of Snøhetta Architects talks about materials and backgrounds during an 8-year construction period.

  • Artfarm

    Episode 1

    The building was designed together with Ai WeiWei, the Chinese artist and human rights activist who has frequently collaborated with architects. For the art depot, he collaborated with the Swiss architecture studio HHF. Working with prefabricated elements they rearrange ready-made components in a...

  • Labels 2

    Episode 6

    Labels 2 was built on the Berlin Spree river in 2010 – a building, that would offer exhibition space for different fashion labels. The swiss team mastered this challenge with startling stairs, the building’s central element and showpiece.

  • Festival Site Roman Quarry St Margarethen

    Episode 4

    A quarry becomes an open-air festival venue for the Passion Play and Opera. Herwig Spiegl from the architectural office "Alleswirdgut" explains the approach to the task, strategies for digging in as much as possible and using ageing materials.