Architecture for nature

IBN-DLO Wageningen, the Netherlands                     by  Stefan Behnisch
Building - Form

The IBN building is not what by conventional standards one would call 'beautiful'. It is neither impressive nor seductive, not does it strive to represent the status of the organization. Elegant structural solutions, noble materials and slick details are conspicuous by their absence. The scanty touches of color that it bears are not intended to make specific functional or structural feature ' legible', as it usual in architecture. The apparently arbitrary colored rectangles seem rather to ignore or vitiate rational structure and constructional logic.

Stefan Behnisch's building is a form of non-design. The welfare of its users and of the environment are clearly more important than architectural 
beauty. Indeed, the very informality of this 'aesthetically imperfect' building is meant to serve the convenience of the users and visitors and put them at their ease. All the same, the building does possess a special beauty of its own, a beauty that reveals both utilitarian and picturesque traits. Its 'utilitarian beauty' lies in the unpolished character of the detailing and in the elementary materials used. The building is at the same time picturesque, to the extent that it avoids - as it so adeptly -does - an outward show of perfection.

 

 

 

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