Raimund Abraham, Real and Imagined
Slideshow by Matt Chaban
As an accompaniment to Lebbeus Woods' tribute to Raimund Abraham, here is a slideshow of his work, built and unbuilt.
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Raimund Abraham's greatest success is arguably the Austrian Cultural Forum, a building of unusual proportions and striking shapes. (Courtesy ACF)
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Raimund has described the building as "a deliberate manifestation of the utmost formal reduction, challenging the indigenous variations of the surrounding buildings." (Courtesy ACF)
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Raimund created a stack of loft-like spaces within the building's 24-stories, each with its own distinctive flair. On the 20th floor, a balcony, while the 7th houses the director's offices, with a form clearly discernible from the street.
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Prior to the Forum, Abraham's only other project in the city was the theaters of the Anthology Film Archives, on Second Avenue. (Courtesy AFA)
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The theaters are an austere space, though far more expressive than their Megaplex siblings. (Courtesy AFA)
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Another celebrated work is Abraham's musikstudio in Hombroich, Germany, part of an "architecture museum" of cultural buildings being designed by some of the best known architects, including Frei Otto and Tadao Ando. (Stefan Heßling)
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The project has lain dormant for some years, never having been completed beyond its concrete shell, though even that showcases the brilliance of Abraham's form-making. (Stefan Heßling)
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Light plays uncannily of the building's exposed surfaces. (Stefan Heßling)
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Abraham's most recently completed project is in Beijing, the JingYa Ocean Entertainment Center. (super.heavy/Flickr)
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The building's rippling facade turned out strikingly close to the way Abraham rendered it. (Courtesy ArcSpace)
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As was the case with this drawing of the Austrian Cultural Forum. (Courtesy MoMA)
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This is not surprising, given that Abraham is often classified among the many "paper" architects who came to prominence in the 1960s. This is one of his many drawings in the MoMA collection, his "Times Square Tower" from 1984. (Courtesy MoMA)
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While some of Abraham's drawings were realistic, like "Times Square Tower," others, particularly his early work, was far more radical, such as this perspective for "Glacier City" (1964). (Courtesy MoMA)
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Amidst this radicalism there always remained a certain reality, though, either real locations, like "Continuous Building Project" (1966) in New York... (Courtesy MoMA)
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... or real structure, as in "Universal City" (1966). (Courtesy MoMA)
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Even at his most cerebral, Abraham's buildings had true purpose, such as the "Hospital: House of Hope, Houses of Birth, Houses of No Return" (1974). (Courtesy MoMA)
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While he may have won few competitions, Abraham took them seriously, including his evocative proposal for the World Trade Center, which met the demands of creating a commercial hub with all the imposing poetry the architect became known for. (Courtesy Library of Congress)
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Of the 9/11 competition, Abraham once said, "From day one, the project was a disguised commercial site plan." So that's what he created, albeit with the attended horror he believed the events of 9/11 required.
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Abraham's first built project was a plaza at the convention center in Niagra, New York, known as the Rainbow plaza and designed with Giuliano Fiorenzoli. (Courtesy Giuliano Fiorenzoli)
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Despite his limited output, Abraham's work is no more immune to the wrecking ball and the paver than his more prodigious partners... (Courtesy Giuliano Fiorenzoli)
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The plaza was eventually paved over for a parking lot. (Courtesy Bing Maps)