{"id":1741,"date":"2015-09-29T09:25:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-29T09:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.delightfull.eu\/en\/inspirations\/?p=1741"},"modified":"2015-09-29T09:25:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T09:25:42","slug":"top-architects-wiel-arets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delightfull.eu\/inspirations\/2015\/09\/29\/top-architects-wiel-arets\/","title":{"rendered":"TOP ARCHITECTS | WIEL ARETS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\nWiel Arets<\/strong><\/em> is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist, industrial designer and the Dean of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Arets\u2019 work is generally characterized by a minimalist, geometric and austere approach that responds to local contingencies in a flexible way, with Arets explaining:<\/h4>\n

\u2018We want our buildings to fit into the existing context, yet remain flexible and open to change\u2019.<\/p>\n

Biography<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Wiel Arets was born on 6 May 1955 in Heerlen, Netherlands to Wiel Arets (1929) and Mia Heuts (1931). His father was a book printer and his mother was a fashion designer, both from whom he learned respect for the tradition of craft and a love of books and reading.
\nHe briefly studied engineering, and then physics, before ultimately deciding on architecture. He divides his time between Chicago, Maastricht, Berlin, Amsterdam and Z\u00fcrich, living and working in each city. He is married and has two children.
\nDuring his studies at the Technical University of Eindhoven Arets became fascinated by the works and words of Paul Val\u00e9ry, Giorgio Grassi and Cesare Cattaneo, quickly developing his admiration for \u2018the dialogue\u2019 as an operative method, best exemplified by Val\u00e9ry\u2019s \u2018Eupalinos\u2019 and Cattaneo\u2019s \u2018Giovanni e Giuseppe\u2019.
\nWhile studying Arets co-founded the architectural journal Wiederhall and organized a series of visiting lecturers at the TU\/e that included the architects Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando and Peter Eisenmann<\/strong>, among others. Subsequently, Arets organized the first European exhibition of Tadao Ando\u2019s work. It was during this period that Arets \u2018rediscovered\u2019 the work of Dutch architect Frits Peutz, who transformed the city of Heerlen from an industrial coal mining hub and into a modern city through his many built commissions funded by the coal industry, most recognizably the Glaspaleis. With the decline of industry the city lost most of its status as an industrial area in Limburg and Frits Peutz faded from architectural prominence.
\nAs a student Arets undertook extensive research in the archives of Peutz\u2019s office, eventually producing the monograph \u2018F.P.J Peutz Architekt 1916-1966\u2032 (1981) and an accompanying traveling exhibition. After graduating from the TU\/e in 1983 Arets travelled extensively throughout Russia, the USA and Japan. While in Japan Arets visited and interviewed several prominent architects including Fumihiko Maki, Kazuo Shinohara, Itsuko Hasegawa and Tadao Ando, later publishing these interviews and articles in the Dutch architecture magazine de Architect.
\n\"TOP
\nIn 1991 Arets published his first theoretical text, \u2018An Alabaster Skin\u2019, in a monograph of the same title. The text merged Arets\u2019 fascinations of his studies and early career, including: cinematography, photography, the \u2018city\u2019, technology of the 20th century, the membrane or skin of a building, biology and the act of cutting and editing (in regards to cinematography), as well as the Postmodern architecture of the 1980s. Greg Lynn interprets the piece as so:
\nIn 2004 Arets completed the library of Utrecht University, situated in the Uithof area of the campus designed by OMA which dictated a strict orthogonal requirement for all buildings. The library\u2019s exterior glazing is screen printed with an image of bamboo shoots created by the photographer Kim Zwarts, returning as a tactile imprinted surface pattern on the library\u2019s interior prefabricated concrete panel walls, which are painted black. This \u2018tactility\u2019 has since returned to more of Arets\u2019 projects in the form of imprinted-concrete or screen printed glass exteriors.
\nIn 2011 Arets\u2019 studio won an international competition to design the IJhal at Amsterdam Centraal Station, part of the city\u2019s plan to revitalize the waterfront by reconnecting it to the river IJ., and recently finished construction on the Allianz Headquarters in Z\u00fcrich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wiel Arets Architects<\/strong>\n<\/h4>\n

Wiel Arets Architects (WAA) is a globally active architecture and design firm, whose work extends to education and publishing, with studios located in the Netherlands and Switzerland. Comprised of an international team of architects, designers, thinkers, and administrators, the firm is currently involved in large number of projects throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa. Its architecture and design emerges from research and a balance of hybrid-programming solutions, which adapt to and anticipate future contextual change. The output of WAA is acclaimed for both its craftsmanship and tactility.
\nSee also:\u00a0Top Interior Designers | Karim Rashid<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Inspiring quotes by Wiel Arets<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Architecture is therefore a between, a membrane, an alabaster skin, a thing that is at once opaque and transparent\u2026 It can only become part of the world by entering into a marriage with its surroundings.
\nOn his line of Dot bathroom fittings for Alessi: We were very clear that we didn\u2019t want to do something fashionable, we wanted it to still look new in ten years.\u201d \u2014 Wallpaper*, 2007
\nOn his idea of the emerging global metropolis: To understand the world we are living in at this moment, we have to redefine the \u2018Map of the world\u2019, a mental construct which at least since 1492 has undergone many reinperpretations. We could read the world anno 2020 as a collective living space for us all, in which all the continents are in reach within 288 minutes, and the maximum travel distance at each continent will be 72 minutes, the time in which every city on each continent will be able to be reached.\u201d
\nAwards<\/strong><\/p>\n