Un éclairage complet et intime sur les coulisses de la pratique et de la vie quotidiennes du couple d'architectes Trix et Robert Haussmann.
From the very outset of their collaboration in 1967, Trix and Robert Haussmann subjected the principles of modernist functionalism to a reductio ad absurdum. It all started with the Swiss Werkbund's Chair Fun exhibition (also in 1967) of Haussmann objects like their "Anti-Chair": a chair made of fluorescent tubes that would likely collapse if anyone actually tried to sit on it.
This spoof of functionalism eventually led, in 1978, to the first of their so-called "Lehrstücke". They reinterpreted the stylistic devices to be found in Mannerism— the estrangement of materials, spatial illusions, accelerated perspectives, anamorphoses, and literarizing forms—and applied them to a dozen experimental objects, e.g. an imitation column segmented into drawers as a "Disruption of Form through Function". Their "Didactic Pieces" questioned modernism, the reigning paradigm of their own architectural training, and took it to its logical—and absurd—conclusion. Their Lehrstücke critically, ironically and playfully subverted the contemporary discourse on architecture and design, which had ossified into a reductionist obsession with "good form".
This book provides the first comprehensive and personal look behind the scenes at their planning, design and working processes. Trix Haussmann herself retraces the genesis and elaboration of their twelve Lehrstücke in twelve chapters, accompanied by drawings, sketches and reference images. And in a conversation, art and architecture historians Gabrielle Schaad and Achim Reese place them in their historical and contemporary context.
Trix (née en 1933) et Robert Haussmann (1931-2022) comptent parmi les architectes suisses les plus importants du XXe siècle. La façon qu'ils ont eue de s'approprier une modernité spécifiquement suisse pour mieux lui tourner le dos est aujourd'hui d'autant plus d'actualité qu'on observe depuis quelques années dans ce pays l'émergence d'une tendance néo-moderniste en architecture.
Trix et Robert Haussmann ont développé une œuvre complexe et variée qui va de l'architecture à l'urbanisme en passant par le design et la théorie de l'architecture.
