1. The Nolitan

Lobby

Lobby

The Nolitan has to the one building that we have visited that blends such a high number of different materials in such a small space. As soon as you walk in through the front door, the viewer is presented with Cement, wood, leather, metal, glass, and fabric. The materials all presented different types of textures, however, the most versatile of these materials was cement. The Cement was treated differently throughout the whole lobby. For example, the columns of the lobby were made out of cement that was creamy, ribbed, reflective and polished, however, if you walk toward the restaurant in the lobby, you are faced with a cement railing that is shorter, a more darkish grey, very rough and not reflective, as a matter of fact, this block of cement also had pebbles or small rocks embedded inside of it. All this mixture of materials made me feel uncertain about the type of presence that the lobby wanted to have, I wasn’t sure if it was a classy or quirky lobby. I say this because some of the materials, like ebony wood, leather and cow skin, make the lobby feel high end or classy, where as, the abundance of contrasting materials make it seem tacky.

 

2. Sperone Westwater Gallery

Entrance/Elevator

Entrance/Elevator

When walking into the Gallery, the visitor first enters through a thick and heavy metal door and is introduced with a lobby with plenty of natural light provided through the glass facade and surrounded by cement walls with a elevator made out of metal directly above. Much like the Nolitan, what interested me about the Gallery was the different types of cement used all through out the building and the decision making involved. The cement walls that cover the left and right side of the lobby is made in panels with large holes in them, the walls seem to be polished, yet aren’t really reflective. As soon as the visitor passes through the first threshold, the visitor is introduced to large curvy cement walls that are painted white and are extremely polished and seem somewhat reflective. Finally, the staircase features a more rustic sort of cement look that seems unkept. What all three of these different types of cement castings do is divide spaces up for the viewer even if that maybe wasn’t the architects intension.

 

3. 40 Bond Street

Facade

Facade

Even tough I only saw the front facade, I got a pretty good sense of the materials used by Herzog De Meuron. The building features a green tined metal frame with green tinted windows and a cement sculpture that surround the lower part of the building. The materials used in the material seem very cheap, while the windows and the metal could be worth a fortune, it doesn’t feel like it is because the metal frame seems hallow due in part to its rounded shape, the cement sculpture also does nothing to improve the feel of the building and makes it seem weaker because the cement isn’t structural at all and seems very easily breakable.