COOP HIMMELB(L)AU
Complete Works 1968 – 2010

Architecture must burn!

The monograph shows everything and deals with open-minded designs and undefined spaces of radical architecture. Every project, whether built or merely dreamed of, is documented in detail in words, sketches and photographs. ​“Coop Himmelb(l)au is not a color but an idea of creating architecture with fantasy, as buoyant and variable as clouds.”So the architecture group itself defines its name and design concept. Beginning with inflated bubbles and interactive installations in the 1960s, the group, consisting of the architects Wolf D. Prix, Helmut Swiczinsky and Michael Holzer, began to create harsh interventions in the urban context under the headline ​‘architecture must burn’. The designs of the buildings are like oversized sound boxes, with dancing silhouettes and collapsing lines that are always rushing and echoing. As one of only few groups of that early times, they belong to the leading international architecture offices today, justified by their outstanding expressiveness and professionalism.