Hitting the High Notes

Cultural and spiritual spaces soar above the European landscape

Annie Block -- Interior Design, 5/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Theis and Khan Architects

project Lumen United Reformed Church, London.
standout A white form, an enclosed skylit space for contemplation, descends like a ray of light in the center of a 1960's church that no longer needed space for a large congregation.
photography Edmund Sumner/View.

Ateliers Jean Nouvel

project Danish Radio Concert House, Copenhagen.
standout Changing colors and images light up the surface of a glass box containing four music halls, a restaurant-bar, and shops.
photography Christian Richters.

Jan De Vylder Architecten

project Contemporary Ballets of Belgium—Lod, Ghent.
standout This five-story practice studio, built for dance and musical-theater companies, combines an all-revealing street-facing curtain wall and facades clad in cement slates with gaps left for the eventual growth of greenery.
photography Filip Dujardin/OWI.

Behnisch Architekten

project Ozeaneum, Stralsund, Germany.
standout Near the shores of the Baltic Sea, sheets of steel recall billowing sails on the exterior of an 186,000-square-foot oceanographic museum that's largely open-plan.
photography Johannes-Maria Schlorcke.

Enric Miralles—Benedetta Tagliabue/EMBT

project Biblioteca Pública Enric Miralles, Palafolls, Spain.
standout Typical of the late architect Enric Miralles's use of undulating forms and raw materials, this 7,700-square-foot library has a vaulted steel roof punched with tubes topped by circular skylights.
photography Jordi Miralles.

UNStudio

project Haus für Musik und Musiktheater der Kunstuniversität Graz, Austria.
standout A building that houses performance, rehearsal, teaching, and public spaces has an exterior sheathed in stainless-steel mesh and an interior that centers on a massive yet lyrical concrete twist of a staircase.
photography Christian Richters.