E2A Architects

Overview

The studio was founded by brothers Piet Eckert and Wim Eckert in 2001 in Zurich, Switzerland. Since its beginning, E2A has designed and built exhibitions, industrial buildings, cultural and public buildings, and housing which have received acclaim for their inventiveness and resourcefulness, while also developing numerous urban and architectural studies. Their built work is a significant factor in discussion of architecture and the urban situation in Switzerland and beyond and their research and teaching focus on future development both in Zurich and in other modern cities.

E2A Architects were the architects for the conference center of the Heinrich Böll Foundation (2005–2008) in Berlin, the Pavillon Nouvelle DestiNation (2002) for the Expo.02, Switzerland's national exhibition.

Further noted projects include the Broelberg Housing in Zurich’s suburb of Kilchberg (2003), the Auditorium and Library in Stäfa (2011), and the new school for the Center for Hearing and Language in Zurich (2008). Notable studies that inform their work include Miesology, which is a series of collages that juxtapose images from Mies van der Rohe’s buildings to speculate about architectural and contextual strategies. The projects for Europaallee, Baufeld H, which integrates new construction with the surrounding district and addresses issues of sustainability with unusual foresight, and Escher Terraces, both in Zurich, will push the urban fabric and skyline of the city. In all of these projects, E2A Architects deals with the current situation and inherent incoherencies and conflicts to give vitality to their projects.

Throughout the work of E2A, there is a clear interest in classical concepts as these ideas can be revisited today. At the Heinrich Boell Foundation, E2A drew from their collage studies of Mies’s works. Here, they juxtapose two of Mies’s icons – the Farnsworth House, which stretches into landscape, and the Manhattan skyscraper, the Seagram Building. Modernism and an enthusiasm for technology successfully join in a building for a green-oriented foundation. In the Center for Hearing and Language, E2A clearly recalls Semper's proposition that a building consists of podest, roof, and posts. At the Auditorium and Library in Stäfa, an idea of monumentality is explored in the concrete slabs imprinted with a pattern reminiscent of the local fruit trees. The façade gains a sense of monumentality as it references and remembers that which was there before.

Awards

Notable Buildings and Designs, Selection