colour

The white of modernism stands for a new beginning, for purity, for abstraction in architecture. HVP allow their buildings to glow with colour, in rich black that is never just black but appears in various shades of grey, in brilliant red, which combines particularly well with the pale grey of concrete. Whether in the interior of the Congress Hall in Saarbrücken or in the primary school in Lallange – HVP are courageous lovers and providers of colour. They prefer clear, unbroken shades that they contrast with each other or combine with a light touch. Colours are also used to articulate the different volumes on the site of the former Kabelwerk in Vienna and help to organise this impressive new development district in a clearer way. Housing is perhaps the architect’s most important task. A dwelling is a place to withdraw to and a home. But where people are looking for a sense of home grand design gestures are inappropriate. Good living spaces are characterised by appropriateness, naturalness and serenity, by painstaking care and variety. They allow the soul to breathe and people to feel well. This is easier to achieve in the numerous single-family houses that HVP have built than in rented apartments. Where the client is a person with a face and a name who expresses his or her wishes personally one can agree on unusual constructions such as in the Marxen pair of houses or the Hirtt single-family house. In the large housing projects in Vienna the future users are anonymous. Generally speaking, here the architects do not supervise the construction, the exact implementation of the design down to the last detail demands a great deal of (unpaid) commitment from the architect. “Preserving and carrying out original good ideas that threaten to get lost demands one hundred per cent involvement.” (HH) As extravagant forms rarely have a chance in rented housing construction, materials, colour and atmosphere become all the more important. “In building housing you have to be extremely flexible. Good ideas are difficult to implement, at times one really has to barter, to give in at one point so that somewhere else, where it is really important, you can remain firm.” (HH) The Vienna office of HVP grew to its present format through housing construction projects.