The Lightness of Stone
When Ansgar Schulz first visits Adorf, a small town in Saxony, it is raining. For centuries, freshwater pearl mussels have been fished from the Elster river here; a local heritage museum earmarked for expansion documents their rich history. Watching rainwater trace its way across the existing roofs, the architect imagines the same for the facade of the new building. With its double-curved canopy, the Mother-of-Pearl Museum connects two existing structures. Clad in waterproof concrete, the building lets water run quietly down its surface – as if it were always meant to. Outside, the performative detail becomes a sensory echo of the pearl mussels inside.
Solid construction is associated with weight, permanence, and immobility. This issue argues otherwise. Hand-pressed bricks, wax-treated rammed earth composed of demolition material, cyclopean concrete from limestone and rubble, hemp lime as a renewable material for the future – each detail explores what masonry can do when it is rethought. Does the heaviest building material have the lightest future?
A research team at TU Braunschweig combines clay and brick for loadbearing exterior walls. The architecture faculty building in Hasselt by Bovenbouw Architectuur and David Kohn Architects forms a collage of Baroque and contemporary building culture. Two interior materials databases map a path toward a shift in material practice. And ETH Zurich Professor Elli Mosayebi introduces “temperature landscapes”, where energy sources become perceptible.
Everything flows – if you let it.
Jeanette Kunsmann