Innovators Interview: Jürgen Mayer

To coincide with the completion of Jürgen Mayer’s latest project, the Metropol Parasol in Seville, the AR’s Rob Gregory spoke to the Berlin-based architect, exploring comparisons between his 2002 ar+d prize-winning installation, which operated at the scale of an exhibition room, and the Metropol Parasol, a glade of giant, man-made ‘trees’, that responds to the scale of a historic civic plaza.

AR You first grabbed the AR’s attention in the 2002 ar+d Awards for Emerging Architecture, when you won a prize for Stylepark, a corporate exhibition stand. That scheme was praised for being an innovative piece of exhibition design at a relatively small scale. Now, you have created a major piece of civic infrastructure in Seville. What links the two projects?

Jürgen Mayer Stylepark was conceived as an architectural landscape that took the ground as a starting point to articulate a series of territories. All the elements of the programme were sucked into that surface, from information terminals to a bar, storage and seating, making what we saw as a meeting point rather than a simple information platform. We called it a ‘programmed ground’ that could also be occupied.

AR The ground certainly looked appropriate for occupation, with people lounging about on its ergonomic form, built in relation to human scale. But how did you derive the form?

JM First we considered what needed to be contained within the landscape, underneath that surface. For instance, what installation equipment did we need? Then from the other side, we wanted to know how we could comfortably sit on these things. So it became an issue of how we could make a landscape that is not only prescribed for one way of use, but that allows for multiple uses. It was the first project where we actually sent digital files to a carpenter to create the formwork, which was subsequently covered in linoleum. We were trying to use an old material in a new way, with Lino being perfect for a seating and desktop material.

AR It’s interesting that you use cutting-edge technology to shape low-tech old materials. Is there a tension in that relationship between high and low technologies? A decade on, are design tools still more advanced than the manufacturing/construction industry today?

JM Not necessarily. But a significant challenge still remains, in relation to the process of moving from 2D to 3D, and often lies in the software. For example, in Seville we had a real challenge in relation to the interface between our digital files and the manufacturer’s software.

AR Was this the biggest challenge?

JM No. There were many more, specifically in relation to the construction method, the choice of material. In the end, the key challenge emerged in relation to the bonding technology required to glue steel rods into the timber. We had to find a way of inserting the rods into the wooden planks, up to a depth of 1m in some places, to ensure that the forces were transferred properly. In the end, it is the glue itself that helps achieve structural integrity.

AR And was gluing, as opposed to screwing, used to simplify the detail, to reduce the need for a thread? Or was it because the glue would ultimately be stronger?

JM The glue provides full integrity. It would have been too difficult to screw these things on site. The module is 1050mm and the thickness changes according to the forces being transferred. So at the edges, they are finer and only 70mm thick, whereas at points of higher stress, this increases to 140mm, 210mm and 280mm, simply by layering up the Finnforest Merk Timber sections.

AR How many formal iterations did you consider for the parasols themselves?

JM Well, shade was the first element that we wanted to bring to the site. We then had five or six key points, where we could bring forces down to ground, due to the existing archaeology.

AR It is not dissimilar to the first project that we published in the way you have integrated a number of programmes into a singular unified form.

JM There are six cores, two of which are the main concrete ones with stairs going all the way up, and then there is one as a delivery core, serving the market from a delivery/loading point. But there is a comparison between the two projects, where in Seville distorting the ground plane has produced an elevated plaza that is like the landscape referenced in the Stylepark installation.

AR What is the nature of the upper levels, where you have a large restaurant space?

JM Initially, it was envisaged as a high-end restaurant, but since then it has been re-imagined as something for everyone, with between five or eight tapas bars, serving different local specialities.

AR I see that public access is provided to a skywalk.

JM Yes. There is a limit to the number of people, but the panoramic view is very popular. It is the only other high point, other than the cathedral tower, where you can look out over the city.

AR Michael Webb compares your projects to Calatrava buildings, saying they are less puffed up and more humane. Is this a fair comparison?

JM I went to see them a number of years ago and thought they were enormous and extra-terrestrial in character. Our building is smaller and responds specifically to the historic architecture that surrounds it. As such, it becomes more complex, with its relationship between the archaeology, the materials and even the roof and the landscape on the horizon. In that case, it’s a different context.

AR Despite the basic structure and language being relatively generic, as a distorted gridshell, clearly this building could not exist anywhere else. What were the key drivers in its final expression?

JM The cathedral roof was a clear reference to how we shaped our canopy, with its undulating stone form. We even took on that building’s name, referring to ours as an open democratic urban cathedral, rather than an enclosed institutional one. So we have taken the spatial and architectural qualities from Seville and tried to update them for the 21st century.

AR Michael also referred to the paint finish of the timber, which he suggests neutralises the qualities of the timber, making it uniform and stating that this building could be made from cement board. What’s your response to that?

JM It’s funny you always get this response when you use timber. In the case of timber, people always ask, why can’t you see the timber; you rarely get that response with concrete or steel. But in a way Michael’s comment is true, as we wanted to have this rendered more as a sculptural object than a tectonic project. To this end, by losing a sense of the timber’s grain, it becomes more of a unified object. In addition, the polyurethane coating plays a key part in the protection of the material, eliminating the need for any metal flashes or weathering details, or to re-paint or re-treat it every three to five years. It also saves on material, as typically the outer layer of timber that would naturally weather is seen as sacrificial in terms of structural thickness. With the coating we were able to use much thinner sections of wood.

AR A decade ago, you were an ar+d Awards for Emerging Architecture winner. With hindsight, now you are a more established architect with major projects under your belt, do you have any advice to the current emerging generation or comments on how significant early recognition has been?

JM The key is to remain serious about your architectural interests. We were lucky that our early projects attracted attention, which was encouraging. But there were difficult years in between then and now, when we had to maintain our focus on what we thought our buildings are about. There is a clear thread between that early installation and our latest built project in Seville.

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