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Swiss rigour: a new exhibition on Swiss rationalists Diener & Diener is a thoughtful distillation of their utterly rigorous approach.


Covering an oeuvre that spans the past 26 years, this new exhibition in Munich's Architectural Museum is the most comprehensive yet on the architecture of Swiss partnership Diener & Diener. The statistics are impressive out of the 72 competition entries documented in the show, 28 are winning proposals, with 15 second prizes and two thirds. A remarkable success rate for the stringently neo-rationalist style of architecture that has become the hallmark of Roger Diener's work. The practice, which operates from Basel and Berlin, already has a place in architectural history This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject.
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 with its European projects. Diener & Diener's sparse, rectilinear rec·ti·lin·e·ar  
adj.
Moving in, consisting of, bounded by, or characterized by a straight line or lines: following a rectilinear path; rectilinear patterns in wallpaper.
 designs hark back hark  
intr.v. harked, hark·ing, harks
To listen attentively.

Idiom:
hark back
To return to a previous point, as in a narrative.
 to the uncorrupted Swiss Modernism of the '50s and early '60s. Since the office's founding in 1976, this awareness of an unconventional purity and directness has pervaded every one of their projects. The exhibition, which has been designed in close collaboration with the architects, captures this spirit to a highly effective degree.

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From the museum rotunda rotunda

In Classical and Neoclassical architecture, a building or room that is circular in plan and covered with a dome. The Pantheon is a Classical Roman rotunda. The Villa Rotonda at Vicenza, designed by Andrea Palladio, is an Italian Renaissance example.
, a huge angular mirror draws you into the exhibition space. The mirror throws a bright light into a moderately lit room with walls of blackest brown. High above the visitors' heads hang large-scale photogrammetric photographs. One wall shows a complete facade, counterpointed by the view from one of its windows on the opposite wall. This dialectic play on the point of view gives the exhibition its poetic title Von Innen und Aussen Bewegt (roughly translated as 'Moved from inside and outside'). The room itself is filled with 24 monolithic wooden plinths which support site models of the same colour and texture. Photographs, models and site plans convey the urban context which is so instrumental in Roger Diener's credo of city, site and building.

The second room is a metaphorical study where every single one of the 72 competition entries is meticulously documented on frugal Egon Eiermann Egon Eiermann (born September 29, 1904, Neuendorf; died July 20, 1970, Baden-Baden) was one of Germany's most prominent architects in the second half of the 20th century.

Eiermann studied at the Technical University of Berlin.
 tables. The precision, the immaculate work ethic work ethic
n.
A set of values based on the moral virtues of hard work and diligence.


work ethic
Noun

a belief in the moral value of work
 and the dedication to the smallest detail is evocatively conveyed in this chambre d'architecture. Single, bare light bulbs suspended from the ceiling illuminate and probe deeply into the plans. The final room is devoted to work in progress, structured around three topical projects: the Swiss Embassy in Berlin (1995-2000), the Novartis Pharma Headquarters, Basel and the National Gallery of Modern Art This article is about the institution in India. For other uses, see National Gallery of Modern Art (disambiguation).

The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) was established in 1954 by the Government of India, with a gallery in New Delhi.
 in Rome (both currently ongoing).

Both formally and experientially, the exhibition spaces are as uncompromisingly clear cut, simple and precise as Diener & Diener's architecture. Their latest competition win is a proposal to build on the site of Mies van der Rohe's iconic Glass Skyscraper skyscraper, modern building of great height, constructed on a steel skeleton. The form originated in the United States. Development of the Form


Many mechanical and structural developments in the last quarter of the 19th cent.
 in Berlin's Friedrichstrasse. You sense the master would have approved.

Von Innen und Aussen Bewegt, Architectural Museum, Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne is a modern art museum, situated in the city centre of Munich, Germany. Together with the Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek it is part of Munich's "Kunstareal" (the "art district"). , Munich, until 9 January www.pinakothek.dc
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Article Details
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Author:Brensing, Christian
Publication:The Architectural Review
Geographic Code:4EUGE
Date:Nov 1, 2004
Words:447
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