Architecture and Design | GERMANY
The secretive nature of the construction all the more arouses curiosity about the underground realm.
Stephen
The visitor glides through a true dream landscape with the object of desire.
Architect Stephen Williams was born in 1963 in Port Talbot, South Wales, U.K. He studied at Birmingham Polytechnic and Canterbury College of Art, graduating in 1988. From 1985 to 1986, Williams worked in London for CZWG and OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture). Since 1990, he was a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and from 1993 to 1999, Williams worked for Ingenhoven Overdiek Petzinka, Alsop and Störmer and Bothe Richter Teherani in Germany. Striking out on his own in 2000, Williams founded Stephen Williams Associates, Hamburg, Germany.
The Autostadt Premium Clubhouse designed by Stephen Williams Associates
In front of four factory chimneys, the former Bentley Pavilion, now the Premium Clubhouse, of the Autostadt is burrowed into an artificial hill. It does not seem inviting, but the secretive nature of the construction all the more arouses curiosity about the underground realm. This is, after all, where the premium of all automobiles is concealed: A very special Bugatti is displayed, exerting a strong pull on visitors.
The Premium Clubhouse is a symbiosis of art, design and architecture, all interlinked inseparably. Stephen Williams translated the exhibition concept into a sophisticated architecture, attaching great importance to high-quality materials and details and demanding high-standard workmanship and precise finish, exactly as is applied in Bugatti construction.
Visitors enter the pavilion through a glass door, traverse an adjoining ramp and ascend to the exhibition area through a mirror façade. The mirrors afford visitors a glimpse into the construction of the Bugatti exhibition area, teasing them with a taste of the splendor awaiting. A second glass door leads to
Williams
the exhibition zone at the highest point of the ramp, but a gallery leads around a wall element, initially blocking the view into the room and increasing the mounting tension. Then, the view opens up across an unusual landscape, and as the visitor’s eyes wander across the valley, she/he can hardly comprehend the mirrored landscape: a serpentine curve leads down to the exhibition area, past the exhibition and art installation to a fully functional mirrored Bugatti Veyron 16.4 housed in a mirrored room.
This “Après vous, Ein Arrangement” installation by artist Olaf Nikolai presents the completely chromed premium vehicle on a mirrored podium in front of a curved and equally mirrored wall. The visitor rounds the object and moves through the reflective space. A new perspective opens up with every step. Attention is again and again directed toward the exhibited car – a fetish that radiates a strong fascination – and the view is reflected and directed into the infinite mirrored space. This is a play that misleads perception, that lets the boundaries of the true space dissolve into an illusory world. In the architecture, the reflections are worked out with contrasts: The dark floor covering and dark ceiling dissolve the spatial boundaries. The light, curved walls and the arc of light above the podium add strong conflicts.
The textile wall installation by artist Peter Zimmermann forms another strong contrast against the cold mirror faces. Due to variously shaded white and colored rectangles, the curtain’s fabric appears like a city silhouette at night, reflecting infinitely in the mirrored enclosure.
For the light installation “Untitled”, Anselm Reyle assembled curved fluorescent tubes as a seemingly hovering sculpture, which arouses associations with luminous advertising. The curved mirror faces slightly distort the reflections, thus
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