Discover Germany | Special Theme | German Architecture 2017
Allude store in Kitzbühel. Photo: © Kilian Bishop
Inspiring architecture between user-friendliness and fairy tale The Düsseldorf-based architect Dr. Regina Dahmen-Ingenhoven has a special approach to design. Influenced by nature and living environments, she creates spaces where people can feel at home, relaxed and safe. Since founding her own office for architecture and design in 1992 Regina Dahmen-Ingenhoven has become an award-winning architect.
be formed for me to feel comfortable, in a good mood and inspired, an environment where I feel protected and secure.”
TEXT: JESSICA HOLZHAUSEN
Regina Dahmen-Ingenhoven has, for example, worked on various projects for Swarovski. With‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’ for example, she created a 300-metrelong and ten-metre-high veil that stands like a modern, fairy tale-inspired hedge of roses in front of Swarovski’s headquarters in Wattens, Austria. It turns the Swarovskistraße, the street named after the manufacturer, into a magic boulevard with changing colours, a playful display of light and shadows. During the day, the sunlight reflects on the veil’s surface, changes it when clouds are passing by, constantly glittering and glimmering. Seen from a different perspective the veil seems
“Ingenious is something that embodies the Zeitgeist and also has depth,” says Regina Dahmen-Ingenhoven, the founder of the architectural office.“It is our philosophy to create spaces that function as energy sources, have sensuality and create a state of wellbeing. I think that places of beauty make people happy and have healing properties,”emphasises DahmenIngenhoven. A soulful architecture can have great impact on peoples’ wellbeing, helps to release emotions. That is the architect’s firm opinion. “My perception of architecture is what we in Germany call 82 | Issue 50 | May 2017
a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, an overall art form, where every aspect – components, colours, materials, light and design vocabulary – is put into a greater context,” she says. “The contrary to form follows function”, so to speak. Regina Dahmen-Ingenhoven’s main source of inspiration is the beauty of nature, as well as the constant dispute with modernity: “The built environment, that in many parts is far too unemotional, too mundane for my liking. And then I start thinking, how the environment should
Dreamlike architecture for public spaces