The Viennese architecture and design firm Coop Himmelb(l)au was founded in 1968 by Wolf D.Prix and Helmut Swiczinsky. The name Coop Himmelb(l)au (Heavenly Blue Cooperative or Heavenly Building Cooperative) is a play on words that reflects the linguistic and philosophical nature of their work best expressed through the postwar international deconstructivist movement.

The roots of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s work are markedly futuristic and organic. Well- known early projects include the Reiss Bar (1977) and the club café Roter Engel (1981), with its fractured and fissured facade in the First District of Vienna, as well as the inventive Humanic shoe store branches (1979–81) in Vienna and in Mistelbach. The Kon’yo Arts and Crafts Shop in Tokyo (1986) and the two Funderwerk factory-glazed- entry additions in St. Veit/Glan (1988) are also significant statements of their design thinking.

The Falkestrasse rooftop addition of 1988 in Vienna, with its winglike winter garden roof and aquiline attitude, created an international sensation, raising the international community’s awareness of Coop Himmelb(l)au as an established design entity.

Coop Himmelb(l)au’s 1987 competition-winning entry for the new town of Melun- Senart, located on the southern periphery of Paris, is an urban-planning scheme to connect three small settlements. The three-phase proposal defined a triangular region composed of a dense settlement node completed by radial “force lines” created by the TGV railway lines and the N6 emanating from this center. A “web” of streets of small houses would be built, and two dense “beams” of loft apartments would be interlaced with the scheme, activating the urban environment. Finally, the long housing blocks would also be vertically separated and horizontally interconnected to allow for enhanced public circulation.

In 1987 Coop Himmelb(l)au developed a challenging scheme for the renovation of the classical Viennese theater, the Ronacher. A modern and flexible theater facility was to be located in a strictly historically protected 19th-century theater facade. Coop Himmelb(l)au created the perfect inwardly turned “black box” environment—high-tech and accessible for both the public and its personnel. The opening of a multilevel interior volume and utilization of a flexible assembly system for the stages ensured that spaces of differing sizes could be custom configured. Additionally, two restaurants and bars were planned to alleviate high-traffic conditions. The tension and the counterbalancing forms to ease this transition are clearly evident in the execution of the added facade elements that function as vertical circulation to the roof terrace with its open-air stage, videothek, and café/ bar. The rooftop theater, with new stage house below, cantilevers and pivots over the classic Ronacher’s roof, sheltering the terrace and adding to the drama of the interplay of old and new.

The Groniger Museum’s East Pavilion (1993–94) was Coop Himmelb(l)au’s contribution to a tripartite museum scheme with overall design by Studio Mendini, Milan, Italy. In the museum the need for spatial exhibition volumes using natural light and artificial lighting was combined with the primary intention of providing multiple viewpoints from which to experience the art. The flexible exhibition system that comprises the “interior skin,” as well as the varying levels of the interior circulation, allows the possibility of several viewing platforms from which a given work of art can be experienced. The museum was prefabricated and was assembled economically, using computer-directed shipbuilding methods. The original architectural sketch was greatly enlarged to create the evocative signature graphic on the exterior.

The commanding UFA Cinema Center (1998) in Dresden, Germany, sited on an unusual polygonal area, directly addresses with its crystalline lobby void the solid drum- shaped kinetoscope of the former UFA Palace. The building, which houses eight cinemas in its solid mass, acts as a foil to the glazed atrium volume of the lobby with its circulation canyon of staircases and lift shafts. The café spaces located on the ground floor, combined with the hourglass-shaped suspended bar composed of tension cables and rings, provide quiet zones in the public interior, allowing the lobby to be reacted to in an urban manner as one would a “passage.” The constant movement of movie patrons and casual visitors electrifies the space, as persons are in perpetual movement through the lobby as if in a clockwork.

Located in the southern Simmering district, the Gasometers (the original natural gas depot for Vienna) now stand void of their equipment. In 1999 one of four aligned cylindrical brick masonry buildings with spacious interior atrium volumes was developed for adaptive reuse. Coop Himmelb(l)au’s proposal includes commercial space and maintains cultural activities in areas that attend the new residential spaces. The multipurpose utilization, combined with spatial density, creates a complex urban node on the periphery that is strengthened by its prominent historical reference. Buried in the body of the Gasometer volume is an encapsulated theater rising in height to the equivalent of three adjacent levels. Adjoining the theater is commercial and entertainment space that includes a café with an underground garage directly below. From this base the 15- story apartment tower grows. The semicircular plan is concealed behind a clamshell- shaped curtain wall that allows light penetration whereas atrium views allow sunlight to penetrate through the dome of the Gasometer.

Showcased under a great arcing roof floating above the spacious plaza level, Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Entertainment and Shopping Complex is one of nine buildings being developed by a team of prominent international architects for the JVC Center in Guadalajara, Mexico (in planning). Sixteen cinemas, along with diverse restaurants and clubs, exist as independent solid elements punctuating the volume between the ground plane and the protective sun-filtering roof. Vertical circulation in the solids is clustered with restaurants and clubs, and a series of connecting cross-decks unites the multiple solids on a variety of different levels. One of the most prominent of the structures, a structurally complex twisting “beak,” dramatically cantilevers over a serenely expansive reflecting pool, mirroring its arc in reverse and providing a respite from the center’s activities. In addition to architecture and design, Coop Himmelb(l)au has developed a portfolio of household products and furnishings, thus completing a diverse and comprehensive architectural practice.

CELESTE M.WILLIAMS AND DIETMAR E.FROEHLICH

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.1. Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.  

Wolf D.Prix 

1942 Born in Vienna, 13 December;

Attended the Technische Universität, Vienna;

1968 Founding partner of Coop Himmelb(l)au;

1990 Professor of a master class of architecture, Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna;

Visiting professor, Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles;

Visiting professor, Architectural Association, London;

Visiting professor, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts;

Helmut Swiczinsky 

1944 Born in Poznan, Poland, 13 January;

Attended the Technische Universität, Vienna;

1968 Founding member, Coop Himmelb(l)au;

Visiting professor, Architectural Association, London;

Frank Stepper 

1955 Born in Stuttgart, Germany;

Attended the Technische Universität, Stuttgart;

1989 Partner, Coop Himmelb(l)au;

Studio instructor, Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles;

Coop Himmelb(l)au 

1968 Established in Vienna in May by Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Rainer Michael Holzer;

1971 Rainer Michael Holzer resigned;

1987 Office opened in Los Angeles;

1988 Exhibited in London;

1989 Frank Stepper joined the firm;

1989 Honorary member, Ehrenmitgliedschaft bei dem Deutscher Bund;

1989 Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York;

1990 Exhibited in Osaka;

1993 Exhibited in Paris;

Selected Publications

GA Document, 45 (December 1995)

“Coop Himmelb(l)au: Gasometer B2, Simmering, Vienna, Austria,” GA Houses, 48 (March 1996)

“Coop Himmelb(l)au: Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands 1993–1994,” A+U, 310/7 (July 1996)

Coop Himmelb(l)au: Offene Architektur Entwürfe 1980–1984, Berlin: Aedes Galerie für Architektur und Raum, 1984

Coop Himmelb(l)au. Sie Leben in Wien, Eine Ausstellung und ein Buch, Vienna: Galerie im Taxispalais, 1975

Coop Himmelb(l)au: Architecture Is Now: Projects, (un)Buildings, Actions, Statements, Sketches, Commentaries: 1968–1983, translated by Jo Steinbauer and Roswitha Prix, New York: Rizzoli, 1983

Blaubox/Blue Box, 1988

Coop Himmelb(l)au: 6 Projects for 4 Cities, 1990

Die Faszination der Stadt, 2nd edition, edited by Oliver Gruenberg, Robert Hahn, and Doris Knecht, 1992

Coop Himmelb(l)au Austria—From Cloud to Cloud. Biennale di Venezia, 1996

Out of the Clouds. Wolf DPrix: Sketches 1967-2020 

Architektur muß brennen, Technische Universität Graz, Graz, Austria: Galerie H, 1980

De Sessa, Cesare, Coop Himmelb(l)au: Spazi atonali e ibridazione linguistica, Turin, Italy: Testo e Immagine, 1998

Entwürfe 1980–1984, Hamburg, Germany: Galerie Kunst + Architektur, 1985

Feuerstein, Günther, and Christiane Feuerstein, Visionary Architecture in Austria in the Sixties and Seventies: Inspirations, Influences, Parallels; L’Architettura visionaria nell’Austria degli anni sessanta e settanta: Ispirazioni, influssi, paralleli; Visionäre Architektur im Österreich der sechziger und siebziger Jahre: Inspirationen, Einflüsse, Parallelen (trilingual English-Italian-German edition), Klagenfurt, Austria: Ritter Verlag, 1996

Freireiss, Kristin, and Hans Jürgen Comerell (editors), Die Wiener Trilogie + Ein Kino. Drei Wohnbauten in Wien und ein Kino in Dresden, Berlin: Galerie Aedes East, 1998

Frischzellen für die Stadt. Konzept für Erholungs- und Freizeitanlagen in Wien und München. Eine Studie im Auftrag der MA19, Vienna: 1973

Giovannini, Joseph, “Art with Attitude: Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands,” Architecture (September 1995)

Noever, Peter (editor), Architecture in Transition: Between Deconstruction and New Modernism, Munich: Prestel, 1991

Noever, Peter (editor), The Havana Project: Architecture Again, Munich and New York: Prestel, 1996

Papadakis, Andreas, Catherine Cooke, and Andrew Benjamin (editors), Deconstruction: Omnibus Volume, New York: Rizzoli, and London: Academy Editions, 1989

Pearson, Clifford, “Ten Top Firms Shape a Brand New Town at the Edge of Guadalajara,” Architectural Record (June 1999)

Skyline: Projekt für das Hamburger Bauforum 1985, Berlin: Aedes Galerie für Architektur und Raum, 1985

“Wie es Euch gefällt: Theaterprojekt Ronacher, Vienna,” Deutsche Bauzeitung, 125/6 (June 1991)

Construire le Ciel, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1992

MORE BOOKS