Before our field trip to Southern Italy we had the pleasure of inviting Hans Kollhoff to come to studio to talk about his work. His projects as an architecture in Germany and Europe span all scales, ranging from civic to residential. As a former student at Cornell University, Kollhoff had studied alongside Rem Koolhaas, amongst the competitive atmosphere stimulated by the academic rivalry between architectural historian Colin Rowe and architect and theorist Oswald Mathias Ungers. We felt nostalgic and inspired at the same time having a Cornell alumni come talk to us about what he had achieved since he graduated.
As a representative of Postmodern, and New Classical Architecture as well as a protagonist of New Urbanism, Kollhoff gave us a deeper insight into the ideas of classical architecture. After introducing some of his work, we learnt that Hans Kollhoff’s architecture is characterized by a classical building style and the use of solid traditional materials, such as stone and brick, incorporated into the building through traditional methods. He explained that during his career, he had developed in the direction of a more traditional form, often using classical motifs. It was interesting to see how the traditional elements we had learnt about in history class were applied to buildings in a modern context. In addition his work also pays attention to detail within the interior space.