Review | Tom Emerson opens November Talks 2017 in Stuttgart
8 November saw the start of the eleventh prestigious November Talks at Stuttgart University. As in previous years, the lower lecture hall started to fill 20 minutes prior to the beginning of event. Students, architecture buffs, professors and architects were still feeding into the hall with minutes to go, with only a few scattered places still free as the annual event started. Professor Peter Cheret welcomed all the architecture devotees and also greeted Jochen Stotmeister and his daughter. The audience then waited in anticipation for Tom Emerson's presentation. Co-founder of 6a Architects in London, Tom Emerson also taught architecture and construction at ETH Zurich.
Established in 2001 by Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald, the office is renowned for its exciting designs and realisations of contemporary art galleries, artist studios, educational buildings and residential projects, which are often implemented within a historic context. This delicate understanding of creating structures in sensitive places that cautiously and very attentively integrate into an existing landscape has received numerous awards. Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald have not only collected the RIBA Award multiple times, but also the Schelling Medal for Architecture.
From the very beginning of the presentation, it becomes clear how important the harmony between architecture, culture and nature is for the office. The very fact that the buildings 6a design blend perfectly into surroundings encompassing meadows, trees and shrubs. This almost sensual approach to architecture is also evident in the office's projects. For example, the student accommodation 'Cowan Court' at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. This new building is the first expansion of the campus since the founding of the college in the early 1960s as a monument to Sir Winston Churchill. The college was not only a pioneer of the radical, post-war expansion of university education at the time, but also a spearhead of British architecture in general. With its modern interpretation for the new structure, 6a architects have catapulted the campus into the 21st century. They carefully and innovatively applied the existing materials and instead of using bricks to mirror the existing building stock, opted for untreated, recycled oak cladding. Despite the different materials, the reference to the original buildings is distinct.
This considerate handling of prevailing circumstances, reinterpretations and the relationship between old and new is also clearly apparent in other projects: for example, a residential project for wheelchair-adapted occupation, the 'Tree House' in London, the 2018 design for the planned 'MK Gallery' in the middle of the art quarter in Milton Keynes and also the residence and studio of photographer Jürgen Teller.
Another exceptional feature and thus characteristic of buildings designed by Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald is the direct association with flora and fauna. For the 'Cowan Court' hall of residence project and Jürgen Teller's studio, the office designed inner courtyards and natural gardens that interplay with the architecture. In the process the architects created a flowing and yet barely perceptible transition between the inner and the outer. Tom Emerson also passes on to his students that certain sensitivity, which not only interconnects architecture with the landscape, but also forms a whole that quite simply could not have been otherwise.
Interview with Tom Emerson
The Video can be found on our YouTube-Channel.
November Talks
The successful “November Reihen”, a lecture series on contemporary architecture, has been funded by the non-profit Sto Foundation since its launch in 2006. Stuttgart, Graz, Milan, Paris, Prague and London are the six venues . Exciting work reports by renowned architects can be experienced there.
