published in: Deutsches Architektenblatt 06/22, May 30th, 2022

What fascinates you about your favorite house?

It’s a thing with favorite houses. Let’s say it was a special event for me to visit Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao for the first time on March 30, 2019. It was like meeting an old acquaintance after a very long time.

I took photographs there that address the irretrievable moment, chance in art and the possibilities and impossibilities of spatial projection: each moment is unique, it is defined by a particular place, the time of day and the unmistakable daylight. Each of the photographs thereby reproduces only a very limited section of this unique moment. The entire abstract composition of the images remains open to meaning.

Who do you particularly appreciate and why? Do you have a favorite style?

In addition to Classical Modernism, I have always been very fascinated by the Deconstructivists. But that was probably due to the time when I was allowed to study at the Vienna University of Technology. I got to know Coop Himmelb(l)au personally after they left my university early. Unforgettable for me is a long evening with final projects of their master class at the University of Applied Arts at that time. We often visited the TU Graz and were guests at Günther Domenig’s institute. Exactly 30 years ago, at the end of March, beginning of April 1992, I was one of the participants in a wonderful architectural excursion to sunny California as a young student assistant at the Institute for Interior Design at the TU Vienna. Among many other fascinating projects, we visited the Gehry Residence, the home of Frank O. Gehry, in Santa Monica on April 1, 1992.

Why are you attracted to the Deconstructivists’ approach?

From my point of view, until now it was the last generation of architects who were able to successfully implement experimental, theoretical and artistic approaches in their architecture. After that, the environment and the requirements changed. When I was a student, I very much enjoyed and intensively studied the theoretical background of deconstructivist architecture. That was very appealing to me then and still is today. I enjoyed reading the positions of Jacques Derrida, Aura and Excess by Peter Eisenman, and The Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.

What do you love most about your job – and why?

Being a generalist and experimental scientist. I don’t know nothing about anything. But that gives me a broad horizon and a deep understanding of processes and structures. And every day I can learn something new.

Wolfgang Höhl, architect, Munich

Ambiguity in the utopian image
Computer generated imagery and analogue photography . 2013 – 2015 | 1990

This book deals with the complex ambiguity of utopian images. Why are we fascinated by these portrayals? They are open spaces for our fantasies, dreams and wishes.

Utopia exists exclusively somewhere in between. Spatially it exists between viewer and illustration, and temporally in a short, irretrievable moment of our own perception, between past and future – between here and now, between sometime and somewhere, nowhen and nowhere.

This book closes with illustrations on the subject. There are six computer-generated illustrations accompanied by selected literature quotations and twelve analogue black-and-white photographs.

Now available at epubli.de

Light Space and Moment (2019) was awarded with a honorable mention at International Photography Awards 2020

The artwork will be featured in the IPA Annual Book of Photography.

Ideal Architecture is Utopia

It never leaves the space of image and text. Only there is it alive and present for a fleeting moment. “Ou-topos”, the non-place, becomes an open projection surface for our dreams and wishes, not to be localized, neither in time nor in space. The utopian ideal stands for a distant, unreachable country and at the same time for a distant, not yet reached future and an irretrievable past. The ideal exists somewhere in between – between text and image, between viewer and content. The utopian ideal is simultaneously never and nowhere.

Wolfgang Höhl (2020): Ideale Architektur ist eine Utopie, in: Deutsches Architektenblatt 10/2020

[uˈtɔpɔs] ou-topos | οὐ-τόπος
ein ausstellungskatalog für eine ausstellung, die nie stattfand von Wolfgang Höhl

now available at epubli.

Summer Day #1 (2020) – Abstract Architecture Photography

This artwork belongs to my “Light, Space and Moment” series of architecture photography.

Every moment is unique. It is defined by a specific surrounding space, the time of day and the respective lighting. A photograph can only reflect a very restricted section of this unique moment. In an abstract way it will stay open in significance and meaning. Thus it can touch all people´s minds in the world.

The original photograph was taken on July 28th, 2020 at 13:08 local time at Lake Starnberg.

Find more Artwork at Saatchi Art

Light, Space and Moment #2 (2019) . Series of Architecture Photography

This artwork will be shown at Swiss Art Expo 2019 in Zurich from 15th-19th of August.

Every moment is unique. It is defined by a specific surrounding space, the time of day and the respective lighting. A photograph can only reflect a very restricted section of this unique moment. In an abstract way it will stay open in significance and meaning. Thus it can touch all people´s minds in the world.

This photograph was taken on March 30th, 2019 at 11:25 local time in Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.

Find more artworks on Saatchi Art