Sauerbruch Hutton: Sense and Sensuality

Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton are the Fall 2005 Kenzo Tange Visiting Design Critics at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Having founded their architectural practice in London in the late eighties, they opened a second office in Berlin in 1993, where Juan Lucas Young and Jens Ludloff became partners in 1999. Today there are some sixty-five people working in the practice.

With large-scale projects completed in Berlin and elsewhere, sauerbruch hutton has started to redefine the notion of ecologically aware building. The concern for the economical use of resources — both natural and urban — is juxtaposed and extended into the idiosyncratic treatment of spaces on all scales. The application of up-to-date technology and the employment of passive energy devices coexist with the use of rich bodes of color, materials and textures, designed for the wellbeing of the individual and their sensual enjoyment of the built environment.

The exhibition shows overall views of twelve buildings — built or in the process of being constructed — as well as more detailed conceptual and technical explanation of one of the most recently completed work, the Federal Environmental Agency in Dessau. A wall of color running the length of the Gund Hall gallery has been specially conceived for the exhibition. The projects represented are:

GSW Headquarters, Berlin 1999
Municipal Savings Bank, Ober-hausen 2007
Museum for the Brandhorst Collection, Munich 2007
Fire and Police Station for the Government District, Berlin 2004
Experimental Factory, Magdeburg 2001
Photonic Centre, Berlin 1998
West Arcade for the KfW banking group, Frankfurt 2008
Pharmacological Research, Biberach 2002
Town Hall, Hennigsdorf 2003
Federal Environmental Agency, Dessau 2005
Offices on the Rhine, Cologne 2008
ADAC Headquarters, Munich 2009