[USA] Raimund Abraham

[jparchitectus]

Raimund Abraham was born in Lienz, Tyrol in 1933. He studied architecture in Graz and had an architectural studio in Vienna in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Abraham emigrated to the United States in 1964 and first taught that year at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 1971 he moved to New York, where he has taught at Cooper Union ever since. In addition to his professorship at Cooper Union, Abraham has taught at Harvard and Yale, and at prestigious universities in Graz, Houston, London, Los Angeles, and Strasbourg.

This academic life has enabled Abraham to pursue his artistic and scholarly interests in architecture with an emphasis less on building than on thought expressed through an extraordinary body of drawn work, sometimes accompanied by poetic texts. Over the decades, he has built a comparatively small number of structures. His architectural drawings and unrealized winning designs for various competitions, however, reflect the roots of a concise architectural theory, that centers around the unchanging archetypal condition of humankind.

Abraham has received various awards for his architectural designs, among them first prizes for the Rainbow Plaza in Niagara Falls, NY, the International Building Exhibition in West Berlin, for the Times Square Tower, NY, and for Lungo Lago, Ascona.
In 1985 he was awarded a Stone Lion at the third Biennial for Architecture in Venice.

[jparchitectus]

Raimund Abraham
Austrian Cultural Forum Tower
New York, NY
"My intention with the building was to resolve the extreme condition of smallness of the site, its void, its lateral compression."
Raimund Abraham

[jparchitectus]

Under construction
Raimund Abraham
JingYa Ocean Entertainment Center
Beijing, China
“Since the designated site in Beijing, only a few blocks from the Forbidden City, had been voided of its urbanistic memory, I was forced to create my own site, my own memory, in order to provide the essential perimeters for the architectural intervention.”
Raimund Abraham

[jparchitectus]

World Trade Center Proposal-

[jparchitectus]

A weekly DOSE (http://www.archidose.org/Jan01/012901.html) of architecture

Micro-Skyscraper (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3575/is_1267_212/ai_92587902)

Yes that project is under construction (http://www.arcspace.com/architects/abraham/jingya/jingya.html)...

Bank for Lienz (http://www.floornature.com/worldaround/articolo.php/art298/3/en#)

Archinform listing (http://www.archinform.net/arch/2558.htm?ID=J7JVJ8XSTok3j0sy)

Austrian (http://www.nyc-architecture.com/ARCH/ARCH-RaimundAbraham.htm) architect gets interview

Conversation (http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.3/abraham_interview.htm) with Raimund

[heavyweather]

The Austrian Cultural Forum from bottom to top.

[heavyweather]

The entrance

[heavyweather]

First level in the back of the building.

[heavyweather]

Concert Hall (room :D )
Thun-Hohenstein, the embassador. showing us around.

[heavyweather]

Bibliothek 1

[heavyweather]

Bibliothek 2

[heavyweather]

the produsion from inside

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the upper room in the producion

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staircase oriented to the back of the building.

[heavyweather]

looking from the groundfloor (entrance hall) to the half level right to the back of the building...the elvator is to my right.

[heavyweather]

another room

[heavyweather]

the Schanigarten...roofgarden :D
where they do their BBQs

mind you...the whole building is about 7m wide onyl!!!

[heavyweather]

This was my most rediculous moment in ny...I tend to hurt myself doiung stupid stunts...
here you see me catching that edge with my foot...I don`t know if that sheet was already wry before I hit it :P

[heavyweather]

last pic.

[Gonzo]

really nice fish-eye photos!

[heavyweather]

I had that sections somewhere but cant find it anymore.
You can take a tour through levels on the website.

I can remeber that it was regarded as the most significant building done in NY in the last decade or something.

http://www.acfny.org

thanks...sigma 8mm...nice tool for NY-C :D

[shikatoi]

great photos, and that building fascinates me.. i have to see that next time I visit!

[heavyweather]

great photos, and that building fascinates me.. i have to see that next time I visit!

We have heared a little about the construction.
The Austrians that comissioned the building had problems with the constructors who refused to stop working when they told them they didn`t do it right.
Apparently in America they will only listen to the next person in the hirachy even if their work is pointless when it is done wrong.
They also hat great problems keeping tolerances...compared to Austria where things tend to be more anal and tolerances very low.

[kleinjakob]

thanks for the very interresting pics, I'm plaaning to visit ny this autumn and the acf-ny is on my list for sure...

Jakob

[Jimmern]

I stumbled across this one when I was there just last week. There is currently a Coop-Himmelblau exhibition in the lobby space. Not earth shattering, but interesting if you are a fan.

[joHanneum Z]

After initial co-operation with Walter Pichler in Vienna (1960-64, there architecture and Designstudio) removal to New York, training activity with John Hejduk:) at the Cooper union School and architect's office.
///

After 1970 break with designs of technical utopias and turn to poetic fantasies: "house of the curtains" (1971), "Nine Houses" (1972-76), "The Cosmology of the House" (1974) among other things. "architecture must be first idea, and then the idea carried out... A possibility is the design... It is one of the largest errors mine, one can the design as intermediate product classify. If the design really comes as finished architecture idea, it is the final product "(Abraham).


////
Abraham stands thereby in a tradition which determined the architectural drawing.

[joHanneum Z]

Books about him:
# Elementare Architektur | Architectonics
R. J. Abraham, B. Clausen, C. Nielsen, J. Dapra, M. Strand
Verlag Anton Pustet; 2001
#
Elementare Architektur
R. J. Abraham, J. Dapra
Residenz Verlag; 1963
#
Raimund Abraham
obras y proyectos, 1960-1983 - Museo Español de Arte Contemporßneo, Escuela T.S. de Arquitectura de Madrid, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
R. J. Abraham
Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid; 1983
#
Raimund Abraham: interview
in: Columbia University. Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Newsline, 1/1991
R. J. Abraham, K. Frampton
p. 4–5
- interview
#
25 Jahre Verweigerung und Ideen Kennen Keine Hierarchie: Raimund Abraham im Gespräch mit Vera Purtscher
in: Architektur & Bauforum, 1991,145
R. J. Abraham, V. Purtscher
p. 7–9
- interview
#
Negation and reconciliation
in: Perspecta, 1982,19
R. J. Abraham
p. 6–13
#
Site: the meaning of place in art and architecture
in: Design quarterly, 1983,122
D. Libeskind, P. Eisenman, R. J. Abraham, V. Acconci, K. W. Forster, R. H. Bletter, S. Burton, D. Hayden, W. Insley, M. Pittas, S. Armajani
p. 4–34

[joHanneum Z]

Wohnanlage (housing) Traviatagasse
Vienna-District 23; 1988-91.
just a small pic