An Expressive Detour

architects Alberto Veiga, Fabrizio Barozzi
project Mieczyslaw Karlowicz Philharmonic Hall, Szczecin, Poland
written by Jose Zabala

 

It is difficult to determine the style of the Philharmonic Hall in Szczecin, Poland, a work by architects Fabrizio Barozzi and Alberto Veiga. This difficulty is the result of fragmentation and dispersion in the architectural panorama of today. Moreover, it might be better not to determine the style, in harmony with the manifest declaration by German architect Karl Schneider in relation to expressionism: Expressionism was over when it turned into a deliberate style.1 In addition, it might seem contradictory that this lack of stylistic positioning goes hand in hand with the materialization of a building that in itself might be considered a manifest form or a threshold that separates the present from the previous, heroic time of works such as the theory of Alpine Architecture (Alpine Architektur, Bruno Taut, 1919) or the essay Glass Architecture (Glasarchitektur, Paul Scheerbart, 1914).