First Architecture of

the Star-architects
Pameran Virtual Sketsa Arsitektur

AR. FRITZ AKHMAD NUZIR, IAI

Le Corbusier's first project:
Villa Fallet

Le Corbusier’s first commission, this house features

medieval elements within the context a traditional
Swiss chalet. The architect was only 18 when he was
assigned this project, so his teacher, Charles
L’Eplattenier, partnered him with the more
experienced architect Rene Chapellaz for it.
Norman Foster's First Project:
Willis Building, Ipswich

Not long after founding Foster Associates in 1967,

Norman Foster and his partner wife Wendy
Cheesman began to design a “garden in the sky” for
the ordinary office worker of Ipswich, England.
Oscar Niemeyer's First Project:
The Church of Sao Francisco
Assis

Niemeyer’s first major project was a series of

buildings for Pampulha, a planned suburb north of
Belo Horizonta. His work, especially on the Church of
Saint Francis of Assisi, received critical acclaim and
drew international attention.
Philip Johnson's First Project:
Philip Johnson House, Cambridge,
Massachusetts

The house he completed in Cambridge,

Massachusetts in 1941 for his Masters of
Architecture thesis was his first built project. He
designed the house as a rectangular volume with a
tall fence that wraps around a large outdoor
courtyard. A door in the fence provide access from
the street into the yard.
Herzog and De Meuron's First
Project:
Blue House, Oberwil, Switzerland

Since their first building (the tiny “Blue House”

completed in 1980 in Oberwil, Switzerland) their
design approach has always been characterized by
an original combination of great formal
inventiveness and subtle references to architectural
archetypes, especially those of central-European
architecture; and by a thorough, almost maniacal,
attention to details, materials, and textures.
Antoni Gaudi's First Project:
Lampposts at Placa Reial,
Barcelona

Gaudi’s first commissioned projects were simple –

lampposts designed for Barcelona’s Placa Reial, and
the unfinished Girossi newsstands.
Mario Botta's First Project:
Parish House

First contruction of Mario Botta 1961-1963, Parish

house in Genestrerio.
Michelangelo Buonarroti's First
Architectural Project:
Facade of the San Lorenzo Basilica

The first architectural work that Pope Leo X gave to

Michelangelo was a huge project. San Lorenzo’s
simple facade was planned to be decorated. Twelve
marble statues larger than height human, golden
bronze figures, and seven large reliefs were planned
for the facade.
Mies Van Der Rohe's First Project:
The Riehl House, Postdam,
Germany

The Riel House was the first building that Mies van
der Rohe designed, at the age of 21, while he was
working for Bruno Paul. The design and construction
of the house were completed in 1907. The design of
the house drew inspiration from English cottages
and Japanese architecture.
Alvar Aalto's First Building:
Alajärvi Youth Center, Finland

His first commission for the local Youth Center in

Alajärvi seem like a fitting beginning, considering its
pastoral setting and natural connection with outdoor
activity.
Jean Nouvel's First Project:
Val-Notre-Dame Clinic, Bezons,
France

Extension of a private clinic in the suburb: a neo-

functionalist cube covered with dressed stones
amidst houses, garages and public housing units, all
scattered. An outline and a site strictly dictated by
local regulations. A recommended technology (the
curtain wall) to regain a net floor area of 50 m². This
extension had every chance to be a new cubic
building, this time in woven glass panels.
Lina Bo Bardi's First Built Project:
Glass House, Morumbi, Brazil

In 1951 Bo Bardi designed the “Casa de Vidro”

(“Glass House”)to live with her husband in what was
then the remnants of the Mata Atlantica, the
original rain forest surrounding São Paulo. Located
on a 7,000-square-metre plot of land, it was the first
residence in the Morumbi neighborhood.
Joäo Filgueiras Lima's One of His
Early Projects:
Apartment Building of UnB
Professors, Brasilia

The apartments for professors of the University of

Brasilia (1965), the Tauatinga Hospital (1968) and the
Sarah Kubitschek Brasilia Hospital, Brasilia (1980),
are just some of his outstanding works.
Eladio Dieste's First Independent
Architectural Commission:
Cristo Obrero Church, Uruguay

The Church of Cristo Obrero was completed in 1960

with a very low budget, and became Dieste’s first
independent architectural commission. The double-
curved roof is supported by the two undulating brick
walls, which meet in a level plane while the end
walls seem to be structurally independent from
them, a condition that is articulated by the
introduction of a crack through which light comes
into the space.
Santiago Calatrava's First
Structures:
Jakem Steel Warehouse,
Switzerland

His first two projects were in fact warehouse type

structures; Jakem Steel Warehouse, Munchwilen,
Switzerland1983-84 and the Ernsting Warehouse,
Coesfeld, Germany 1983-85.
Rogelio Salmona's First Project:
El Loco Residential Complex,
Bogota

El Polo broke the boundaries of the architecture of

the time. Besides introducing an innovative housing
typology, “this building proposed a controversial
arrangement of volumes for time, moving away
from orthogonal regularity and rigour of pure forms.
It attained an expressive space with interesting
perspectives and angles.” (Téllez, 2006) This project
changed the face of housing in Bogotá by achieving
both good quality and systematic forms.
Filippo Bruneleschi's First
Architectural Comission:
Ospedale degli Innocenti,
Florence, Italy

The building was commissioned in 1419 specifically

to house and care for the city’s orphans and
abandoned children. It was designed by Filippo
Brunelleschi, considered by many the most
important architect of the Renaissance, having
designed and engineered the imposing dome of the
city’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The Spedale
was in fact Brunelleschi’s first architectural
commission.
Buckminster Fuller's First Dream:
Dymaxion House, Future

Buckminister Fuller’s Dymaxion House represents

what was once seen as a reach for the future and
what can now be regarded as a form of cutting edge
technology. Now more than ever, the environment
and efforts towards sustainability are necessary
efforts that cannot be ignored. Looking back, it is
quite poignant that Fuller heavily considered these
factors in his vision of the Dymaxion House. Through
its design and ethos, Fuller’s Dymaxion House
should ultimately be more relevant today than it
originally was in the 1930s. Consider it no
coincidence that society often looks to the past for
future inspiration.
Zaha Hadid's First Major Built
Work:
Vitra Fire Station, Germany

Zaha Hadid’s first major built work, one that

affirmed her international recognition, was the Vitra
Fire Station in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1993). The
structure was originally used as a fire house, but
now serves as a space for exhibits and events, and
continues to be a highlight of contemporary
architecture on the campus.
Shigeru Ban's First Building:
His Mother's Atelier and then His
Own Office, Tokyo

After graduating from Cooper Union in 1984, Ban

returned once again to Japan. He worked part-time
as a gallery curator while also designing his first
building — an atelier for his mother that he later
converted into the headquarters for his architectural
practice.
Richard Roger's First Self Design:
Lloyd of London Building

The first commission that he got in his new practice

was for the construction of the Lloyds of London
Building in London. His design for the building not
only established him as a major architect in England
but also in the world.
Luis Barragan's First Home:
Casa Barragan

Luis Barragan House is a master piece in the

development of the modern movement that merges
traditional and vernacular elements, as well as
diverse philosophical and artistic currents
throughout time, into a new synthesis.
Frank Lloyd Wright's First
Independent Project:
W. H. Winslow House, Illinois

The William H. Winslow House was Wright’s first

independent commission. While conservative in
comparison to work of a few years later, with its
broad sheltering roof and simple elegance, it
nonetheless attracted local attention.
Louis I. Kahn's First Residential:
The Jesse and Ruth Oser House

This Elkins Park house was Kahn's earliest residential

commission. It was designed in 1940 for Jesse and
Ruth Oser; Kahn and Jesse Oser went to Central High
School in Philadelphia together and remained
friends.
Felix Candela's First Concrete
Shell:
Pavilion of Cosmic Rays at UNAM

Candela’s first hypar shell was the Cosmic Rays

Laboratory. The laboratory was well received by the
general public as well as by the architectural and
engineering professions, and it was widely
published.
Moshe Safdie's First Architecture:
Habitat 67

Theorist, architect, and educator Moshe Safdie (born

July 14, 1938), made his first mark on architecture
with his master’s thesis, where the idea for Habitat
67 originated.
Renzo Piano's First Turning Point:
Italian Pavilion at Expo '70 in
Osaka

He would have continued down that path, but then,

he grew up; winning a commission in 1969 to build
the Italian Industry Pavilion at Expo '70 in Osaka may
have been the key turning point.
Francis Kéré's First Building:
Gando Primary School, Burkina
Faso

With the support of his community and funds raised

through his foundation, Schulbausteine fuer Gando
(Bricks for Gando,) Francis began construction of the
Primary School, his very first building.
Peter Zumthor's One of His First
Works:
Rath Twin House

The twin house Räth in Haldenstein is one of the

early works of the famous Swiss architect Peter
Zumthor. With this design, Peter Zumthor won an
award for good buildings in Grisons in 1987.
Frank Gehry's First Project:
Davin Cabin

The David Cabin, named after client Melvin David,

came at a time when Gehry was beginning to shift
directions, starting an evolution that would turn him
into one of the defining architects of his time.
First BIG Project:
8 House

Between 2006 and 2010, BIG also dedicated itself to

the design of 8 House, Scandinavia’s largest private
construction project to date. The ten-story building
houses a total of 476 apartments on a total area of
61,000 square meters, as well as offices and a green
roof. Ingels and his team received another World
Architecture Festival Housing Award for 8 House in
2010.