The Nominees – DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Architecture 2007

Description

The DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Architecture, won by Heinrich Wolff in 2007, is the seventh Arts Award bestowed by DaimlerChrysler. The company has, since 2000, sponsored different art disciplines and recognised artists within the fields of contemporary art (Kay Hassan), jazz (Themba Mkhize), sculpture (Jane Alexander), choreography (Sbo Ndaba), creative photography (Guy Tillim) and poetry (Gabeba Baderoon).

This publication, issued in connection with an exhibition held June 15-Sept. 2, 2007, DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Haus Huth, Berlin, and at four other institutions in Berlin, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, features the works of the young architects nominated for the award.

Heinrich Wolff (37) became a partner in Noero Wolff architects in 1998. In the nine years leading up to this award, he was involved in teaching design, construction and theory at various universities. He says: “I grew up on the privileged side of an unfair society and I feel compelled to contribute in effort and in ideas to the physical and intellectual reconstruction of the country. For me this means purposefully engaging in projects that go across boundaries of race, income group, received or constructed culture or historical categories. It would be unsatisfactory to think that great architectural opportunity would lie only with wealthy clients or international commissions where South African social-economic realities do not exist.”