Peter Haimerl is an exceptional figure on the German architecture scene. The Munich-based architect always impresses with his unusual solutions.
Peter Haimerl is an exceptional figure on the German architecture scene. The Munich-based architect always impresses with his unusual solutions. Even more exciting are the processes involved in their creation.
Peter Haimerl is probably familiar to most Baumeister readers. His projects have been regularly discussed here – be it the unconventional renovation of a semi-derelict farmhouse (see Baumeister 6/2007) or the sensational concert hall in Blaibach in the Bavarian Forest (see Baumeister 11/2014). The latter even made it beyond the specialist media and into the feature section of “Die Zeit”. So the man is definitely present in the media. Nevertheless, it is worth taking a closer look at his work and, above all, the attitude behind it. Because that is exactly what characterizes the Munich architect: an architectural attitude combined with the will to manifest it in buildings.
A visit to Haimerl’s office makes it clear that everything works a little differently. It is located in the tranquil Munich district of Haidhausen, directly above the Lothringer-13-Halle, an alternative exhibition space for art. There is no sign. You find yourself wandering around the backyard at a loss until one of the creatives takes pity on you and explains the way: through the exhibition rooms, then to the right and somewhat hidden through a white-painted metal door. Next, up a creaky wooden staircase to the second floor, through a second metal door – and suddenly you find yourself in the architect’s office. A large, bright room, industrial windows to the left and right with a view of the idyllic Haidhausen backyard. This is what real estate advertisements call a loft. However, it is less reminiscent of the glossy brochures of various Munich investors than of the studios of the New York artists who invented the term in the 1970s. The employees sit at white, sculptural plastic desks. Their somewhat yellowed retro-futurism is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s films – above all “2001 – A Space Odyssey” or “A Clockwork Orange”. The conversation takes place at Haimerl’s conference table, which he built himself from a segment of an airplane wing and a few metal tubes.
Understanding architecture differently
Haimerl studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Munich, a place that doesn’t exactly have a reputation for producing avant-garde architects: “I never wanted to study architecture, the whole thing was intended as a stopgap. At the beginning, I had no idea what architecture actually was,” he says, pausing for a moment. “I then studied epistemology in an amateurish way and came across a book in the fourth semester that I thought was about graphically presented epistemology. But it was actually about House X by Peter Eisenman. That was my initiation. From that day on, my motto was: architecture is what you can think.” He then talks about his time at the UAS and the requirement to orientate himself on the architecture of Tuscany because all the professors had a vacation home there: “If you come from the Bavarian Forest like me and then have a regional style imposed on you that has nothing at all to do with your own origins, it’s really strange.”
He continued with Günther Domenig, Raimund Abraham and Klaus Kada, in whose offices Haimerl subsequently worked: “Back then, stars like Domenig or Abraham didn’t count for much. It was mainly student stars that counted, even if you can’t imagine that in Germany. That’s why I didn’t actually go to Abraham, but to Andreas Gruber,” says Haimerl. “He was a legend as a student because he designed the famous Steinhaus for Domenig – or at least parts of it.” Haimerl spent a total of almost two years in Austria before returning to Munich with two Austrian colleagues in the early 1990s: “Where the Mercedes high-rise by Lanz Architekten is now, there used to be the Wetsch high-rise. It was empty because it was about to be sold. We then rented the penthouse at the top and sat up there to think about architecture for two years.” It was a formative time for him: “In the summer, we flooded the roof, invited people and talked, talked, talked. That’s when all the ideas were born. Everything that I implement today is based on that.”
You can find out more in the latest Baumeister 7/2016
