HANS HOLLEIN

 (1934- 2014)

An architect of great renown, winner of the Pritzker prize for Architecture in 1985, he studied in the USA and in Vienna where, starting in the 50s, through drawings and photomontages he questioned the assumptions of functionalism in architecture, opening the way to the search for new interpretations in the field. In the drawings and models exhibited in Hollein Pichler Architektur (Vienna 1963), he proposed a visionary conception of mega-structural building-cities that already showed signs of the complexity and technoid perfection of many future works, while the collages and photomontages in Transformations (1963-64), among which Valley City and Airircraft Carrier in the Landscape, through a figurative language, irony, monumental and sacral aspects, the contrast between the ‘transformed’ object and its environment, were examples of the multiple interpretations that could be attributed to architecture. The works of this period, like the essay Alles ist Architektur (1968) in which Hollein symbolically expressed the idea that architecture is everywhere, can be expressed through pure thought or solely through technology, and how it invests and can also express sentiments and values, will be a constant reference for the future research in architecture. Of the many architectural, design and urban decoration works created throughout his  long career, the Museum of Mőnchengladbach (1972-82) was the first great example of functional synthesis and contraposition of languages, the complete representation of a deliberate cross-contamination of fields, architecture, art, design, technological media, environmental interventions. Between 1964 and 1970 he directed the magazine ‘Bau’ that hosted contributions from the most vivacious experiments even on an International level. In parallel to his professional activity, Hollein was also a professor and a critic, developing theories through his essays, stagings, installations, performances and participation in exhibitions.