The American architect Steven Holl’s key European debut was the
Kiasma
Museum of Modern Art, erected with the help of Juhani Pallasmaa
opposite the Parliament Building, Helsinki in 2000. But now he,
like Peter Cook, has been persuaded to build in Austria, in Holl’s
case to make a winery for the village of Langenlois. Wine is about
celebration, and Holl’s new building, a reflective, metallised box,
graphically celebrates the vine. Perhaps the use of aluminium cladding
makes one think too of the bottle tops. Internally, cork tiles are
used to line the three-level space. Somehow the building seems compressed
externally and yet, in contrast, voluminously spatial internally.
One only needs to be reminded that various architects of distinction
have had a go at a winery; Herzog and de Meuron, Calatrava and Siza.
Alvar Aalto would certainly have loved such a project for many good
reasons, including the essence of celebration. Now there’s an idea.
Someone should trace the history of the engagement of architects
with wine, and wine with architects. When you think of it, it has
changed architectural history. Skol, Holl.
