Fluid Meaning

At the legendary Vitra Campus in Germany, a winding open-air pavilion realizes a poetic vision by the late great B. V. Doshi

- KOMAL SHARMA

OPENED IN OCTOBER, THE DOSHI RETREAT AT THE VITRA CAMPUS IN WEIL AM RHEIN, GERMANY, COMPRISES CURVED WALLS OF WEATHERED STEEL. BELOW KHUSHNU PANTHAKI HOOF AND SONKE HOOF OF STUDIO SANGATH

Memory.

Contemplation. Ritual. Movement. These were among the many words that the late architect Balkrishna “B.V.” Doshi, at home during the pandemic, scribbled on a piece of paper along with a drawing of a building and landscape. The illustration responded to an invitation from Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman emeritus of Vitra, to design “a shrine” for the brand’s headquarters in Weil am Rhein, Germany—a campus home to structures by Tadao Ando, Frank Gehry, SANAA, Herzog & de Meuron, and more. Doshi’s sketch, realized posthumously, now joins them, its snaking curves of weathered steel leading to a circular room, open to the sky through a perimeter aperture, where a mechanized gong releases a recurring flow of sound.