Ben van Berkel, principal of the Amsterdam-based architectural firm UNStudio, is known for his breathtakingly swoopy designs of sleek surfaces that never seem to end. The gleaming, aluminum-clad Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, with its double-spiral-ramped concrete structure, convincingly argues the case [RECORD, November, 2006, page 128].
After completing that nine-story-high, 270,000 square-foot building, you might think that a 5,840-square-foot (gross) residential loft would be too rinky-dink a commission. Van Berkel argues otherwise: “I’m not interested as much in the scale of a project as with the program,” he explains. In this case, he was asked to design a loft in New York City for a collector of Modern and contemporary art, which he found fascinating. “It’s as if you’re making a portrait of someone and how he might live with his art,” van Berkel adds.
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