FAMILIES In ten years time, Pezo von Ellrichshausen made a very

Kersten Geers compact and powerful oeuvre. Against the fashion of the day

they spend a lot of time in making buildings to stay. Solid, and

brutal, simple and simplified, each of their buildings celebrated

the ambiguity inherent to the build artifact as a complex spatial

construction, even despite the simplicity of the plan figure.

The office has always used a limited set of tools to make the

buildings. Plan, section and axonometric are revived as the

main ingredients of a reduced universe. More importantly, they

chose to take time to make buildings, rather than desperately

longing for an all to easy place in the spotlight of five minutes

of fame. From the very beginning, the complex relationship

between desire (of the plan, of the project) and approximation

has been investigated; not so much on a theoretical level, but

simply through empiric exercise, by building slowly. In Pezo

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

and Sofia’s practice buildings take time. They are allowed to, represent different building types. These groups of buildings

there is no rush. Because of that, evolution is slow, fixations can only be recognized in retrospect, in hindsight. It is as if in

are precise, elements are well considered. As a result, the the slow development from one project to the other, small

buildings they develop never come alone, they come in series, transgressions happen, until something entirely different is

in families. born: another family, another group of buildings, another type.

Pezo von Ellrichshausen care a lot about families. Like family Ultimately their work is an exercise in typology.

members, each building has a name, always made of four Because of their focus on typology, Pezo van Ellrichshausen’s

letters. It is but one of the many incarnations of the rigid architecture appears as very simple, almost simplistic. Still,

frameworks they apply to organize their work, to organize their their simple things are always inherently complex. As a curious

time. Systems, grids, elements, squares: It is all there, direct exercise in economy of means, their complex buildings and

and visible. That is not a surprise, it is only within these very even their complex solutions —eg their window plans, their

rigid frameworks that certain, very precise deviations can facades—appear after investigation fundamentally simpler,

develop over time; they make each project particular in the dryer and more considered as one would ever guess.

end. Like a full grown family member, a building shows its Ten years time shows an exceptional oeuvre. A set of simple

character only once the project is completed. Different families iterations and modulations of architectural language that is

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

systematically invested in its most tactile and tectonic

incarnation: the building: architecture (here) is building

typologies.

* Kersten Geers (OFFICE Kersten Geers David Van Severen),

Families: text published in the digital introduction of 2G, n° 61,

Editorial Gustavo Gili, 2012, may 15.

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN