One unnerving challenge for an architect is adding onto a revered master’s work. In 2014, architect Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei (LRO) won a competition to design an annex to a choir school abutting Gottfried Böhm’s Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Cologne, Germany, completed in 1970. Böhm, a cult figure who won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1986, is known for his poured-in-place concrete Brutalist buildings of sculptural virtuosity. Additionally daunting for LRO is that Böhm, who just turned 101, lives in this city, where his grandfather, father, wife, and three sons were and are architects. (Not a bad gene pool.)
LRO, based in Stuttgart, has won a reputation over the years for modern buildings that refer to the architectural vocabulary and materials of the region, as seen dramatically in the firm’s crafted, idiosyncratic sandstone Historical Museum in Frankfurt. “How do you react when designing an addition to a building by someone you hold in such high esteem?” asks Arno Lederer, principal of the 41-year-old practice. “The only way to succeed, or fail,” says Marc Oei, another principal, “is to follow one’s own personal notion of architecture.”
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.