Film Alltagsräume – Interim report 1992/93
Hansjochen Schwieger:
When I look at the history of architecture, I have a preference for the Romanesque style. Durable and geometrically simple. Squares, circles, of course it’s also a bit in keeping with the times to work with simple shapes. But a lot of what we see here in our built environment is decoration. And I really dislike decoration. We always try to do justice to the specific location and also to serve the client, so that the client gets the feeling that he has received his building, his dwelling, so to speak, his dress, his solution for a specific task. Nevertheless, when you see our buildings, you can see that there is always a bit of Schwieger in them.
Brass turning shop Täfler Dransfeld
If we follow the view from the elevated road to the Täfler metalworks below, we discover a building that nestles into the main topographical lines of the landscape and whose gabled roof-like bands of light seem to trace the landscape as contour lines. The scale of the landscape has been found. The gentle hills and the roof of the work, visible from afar, speak a related dialect. The familiar gable motif of the region brings a pleasant domestic scale to the industrial building, perhaps even the impression of a settlement. “Your house grew in proportion with the landscape, no taller than the nearby tree.” Stefan George, the esoteric poet, wrote this in 1900. At the time, he certainly did not believe that this thought-provoking demand would become so relevant. Here, as rarely in other industrial buildings, measure and empathy are validly formulated in expressive images.
Adams Ladenbau GmbH, Göttingen
Hansjochen Schwieger:
“I want to be durable. When I walk past a building in 20 years’ time, I want to be able to vouch for it and not say, well, that was built in 1966 or 1972. Today, it would be done very differently. I deliberately don’t want to be fashionable. Even when we plan store interiors, we tend to aim for the restrained, the timeless, the durable, to use sensible materials. Genuine, honest, simple.”
Heinz Peter Adams (client):
“We not only have our production facility in these rooms, but also a permanent exhibition of ultra-modern, dare I say it, shopfitting equipment. And we also have several administrative departments behind the façade. You can see into the exhibition here. Jochen Schwieger’s architecture makes it easy for our interior designers to create a good permanent exhibition in his building, just like a trade fair stand.”
Hansjochen Schwieger:
“A very important aspect of architecture is to incorporate the human scale, integrate it into the architecture and use it to shape its message. One tendency of our buildings is to make the shell so attractive that you don’t need much in the way of finishing. Of course, this means that you have to design and construct a very careful shell. For the wall surfaces, we like to have exposed brickwork on the inside. With plasterboard walls, there is no wallpaper on them, no woodchip, no glass frieze, nothing at all. It’s smoothed and stays smooth. That saves money and looks nicer for my taste. This idea of building timelessly also means that you can use what you’ve built for longer and don’t have to tear it down after ten years and build something new, which is a huge waste of energy and material. My clients have very specific ideas, they want to build inexpensively, on time and it should also look good, but always under the dictate of a sharp pencil. We try to add a personal touch and make a statement for each building, because we also think that the people who work there spend a large part of their lives there and that should also be beautiful, and that actually plays an increasingly important role in modern industrial construction.
Hansjochen Schwieger:
This new research building of the Geological Institute is an extension. Functional, sober, economical. You could call it Prussian if it weren’t for the playfully interspersed 45-degree diagonals. Dietrich Bonhoeffer House: new and old become an urbanistically composed figure. Distance and bridging. The self-confident change of direction of the new building creates a connection that is accepted and pleasing.
Protestant parish hall, Bovenden
Hansjochen Schwieger:
A rural estate? Only the small, pointed ridge turret indicates the function of the building. Extensive pitched roofs, embedded under large roof overhangs, a lively, physical interplay of façades.
The welcoming gesture of the house is for the visitor.
The harmonious combination of hall, hall and group rooms gives the building a climate in which public events and private celebrations can assert their own identity and invite people to live and experience together.
Kindergarten Stadt Göttingen-Wende
Hansjochen Schwieger:
Perceptions in childhood are considered to be one of the most important forms of human imprinting. The kindergarten in Weende looks like a small settlement. Five houses are grouped around a mother, the central hall.
The shelter of the quiet, differently pitched roofs offers a place to seek refuge. The gently splayed position of the houses gives children a safe place to go when they are playing and conquering their world. Different buildings, structurally connected, assert their physical individuality.
This is impressively clear in the play area.
The scale is the most important criterion of this building for small people. He sets a comprehensible order to the measure of things. Bricks, apartments, houses and settlements, and later the world.
Residential buildings
Hansjochen Schwieger:
If you walk down the street here and say, this is a residential building designed by an architect? You can recognize this by the fact that there is a place for a garbage can and a letterbox that is not stuck to it afterwards.
So also the attention to detail and empathy for the task, what does someone who lives in a house like this need? And of course we try to apply this in the same way to industrial buildings or residential and commercial buildings.
Adams am Wall, Göttingen
Heinz-Peter Adams:
In 1985, Jochen Schwieger rebuilt the house in Wenderstraße for us. This beautiful listed building was in a desolate state. We were awarded the BDA prize for the conversion and renovation of the house. We felt honored by the sentence said by the Minister President of Lower Saxony, a gift to the citizens and a bow to the neighborhood.
Reitemeier, Rosdorf
Hansjochen Schwieger:
Building with old structures is a hobby in itself. It’s a lot of fun for me. And the best job I could imagine would be to renovate an old castle or palace. It can be a ruin, the ruin can be rebuilt. That would be a task I could well imagine. But not in the historicizing sense, to see what that was like. How do I restore this? Rather, how can something new and contemporary be created with the old building fabric without violating the character of the monument and without destroying witnesses to the past.
