Richard Meier's Stadthaus Project at Ulm: Fid-Bau Portal

Richard Meier's Stadthaus Project at Ulm

Barthelmess, Stephen Nicolaus

Since the late 1960s, architectural practice has increasingly been confronted by urbanistic demands, and architects have been forced to consider that the isolation of architecture from the realm of city planning can no longer be legitimated. The question of representation in architecture arises i this context against the background of the tradition of abstraction, and it is precisely in projects for cultural buildings in the center of the city as an architectural task that this development can be traced. The adoption of historical form plays a crucial role in this development: architectural projects of recent years have shown that construction can embrace the wide spectrum from ‘quotation’ to ‘allusion.’ They have also demonstrated that the architect's persnoal, visual experience can be renderd available and public. The present paper addresses the problem of the architect's attitude toward historical form, how this is related to the abstract tradition in building, and, how it can be ultimately lead from indifference to interest.