![Mark Hemel portrait september2010](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Mark_Hemel_portrait_september2010.jpg)
Mark Hemel (born 1966 in
Emmen, Netherlands) is a Dutch architect and designer, and co-founder (with
Barbara Kuit
Barbara Kuit is a Dutch architect. In 1998, together with her partner Mark Hemel, Kuit founded Information Based Architecture (IBA).
IBA has won some of the most prestigious international competitions among which the competition for the world’ ...
) of the
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
-based architectural practice
Information Based Architecture
Information Based Architecture (IBA) is a partnership between architects Mark Hemel and Barbara Kuit, set up in London in 1998.
:''"Using the newest technologies the practice challenges conventional thinking and seeks to exploit new opportuniti ...
. He is best known as an architect of the
Canton Tower
The Canton Tower (), formally Guangzhou TV Astronomical and Sightseeing Tower (), is a -tall multipurpose observation tower in the Haizhu District of Guangzhou ( alternatively romanized as ''Canton''). The tower was topped out in 2009 and it ...
in
Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
.
Mark Hemel's view
Mark's focus is on "global architecture". His main interest is to play a role in the expression and development of our contemporary culture. In his view, architecture can play an important and positive role in shedding light on potential routes "our" global culture could take.
Mark Hemel: "The next generation of planners, architects and designers will have to get used thinking big, so making reference to big environmental challenges and major expected world population dynamics. Architects in particular will find themselves less and less powerful. We therefore have to focus on making our work more "information based" or we might get side-lined and more and more irrelevant".
His solution is to strive for 'TRUE' integration of the different aspects of design and planning, starting with small steps at the time. He pleads for getting rid of the modern valuation-system of measuring everything in terms of money, efficiency and functionality, and instead calls for a more holistic valuation system that weighs small but essential and strategic influences against the more superficial obvious influences. Mark proclaims that "recent decades of science have shown us that we should not ignore the small, and that we should focus on the interrelationship of seemingly independent things. The world is a global world: everything in it, including the people, form one holistic whole. We should go beyond Modernism's mayor fault: splitting problems into sub-sets in order to solve them independently, in the process destroying the interrelationship."
He therefore pleads for "biological intelligence" to be introduced in the architecture and planning professions. Hemel is currently working on a book in which the term "biological intelligence" will be introduced.
Influences
Hemel was educated by American theorist Jeffrey Kipniss and UK architect
Zaha Hadid
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid ( ar, زها حديد ''Zahā Ḥadīd''; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centu ...
as well as Dutch architects Herman Herzberger and Carel Weeber. He was particularly influenced by the books of
Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...
(
The Selfish Gene
''The Selfish Gene'' is a 1976 book on evolution by the ethologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's ''Adaptation and Natural Selection'' (1966). Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene ...
1976)
Kevin Kelly (
Out of Control 1995),
Ilya Prigogine
Viscount Ilya Romanovich Prigogine (; russian: Илья́ Рома́нович Приго́жин; 28 May 2003) was a physical chemist and Nobel laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.
Biogra ...
(Order Out of Chaos 1984) and
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, an ...
(
Gödel, Escher, Bach
''Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid'', also known as ''GEB'', is a 1979 book by Douglas Hofstadter.
By exploring common themes in the lives and works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, t ...
). After his post graduate studies at the
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
in London, Mark began teaching at the AA.
Besides an interest for everything that evolved or subconsciously developed, Mark also has a great interest in mathematics and geometry. During his studies in Delft, he pursued mathematical courses in
chaos theory
Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of scientific study and branch of mathematics focused on underlying patterns and deterministic laws of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, and were once thought to have co ...
. The reason for his interest in this is that chaos theory seems to explain why Modernism, in its purest form, is doomed to lead to disaster, and that the alternative "synthesis and integration" bears much more prospect.
:"In contemporary architecture you see lots of forms that refer to nothing. And indeed, we want to make designs that are more 'informed'."
Hemel was chosen as one of Design-Build Network's "New Young Architects to Watch for 2010".
Biography
Mark Hemel was born in 1966 in Emmen, Netherlands. Hemel graduated in 1993 from the
Delft University of Technology
Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...
, in the Netherlands and in 1996 from the
Architectural Association
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...
in London in the Graduate Design Program. After his studies in the Netherlands he received a scholarship for a 1-year research project in Africa and Asia from the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture.
During this year he traveled through
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
,
Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
,
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...
,
Senegal
Senegal,; Wolof: ''Senegaal''; Pulaar: 𞤅𞤫𞤲𞤫𞤺𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭 (Senegaali); Arabic: السنغال ''As-Sinighal'') officially the Republic of Senegal,; Wolof: ''Réewum Senegaal''; Pulaar : 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, and
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
concentrating his research on organic city-developments. Beside this he also developed an interest in vernacular tactics to cope with the omnipresent harsh environmental circumstances which he came across in Africa and Asia. His studies focused on the
Dogon
Dogon may refer to:
*Dogon people, an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, in West Africa
*Dogon languages, a small, close-knit language family spoken by the Dogon people of Mali
*'' Dogon A.D.'', an album by saxophonist Juliu ...
in Mali, the cities of
Djenne, the people on the island of
Nias
Nias ( id, Pulau Nias, Nias language: ''Tanö Niha'') (sometimes called Little Sumatra in English) is an island located off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago () of which the island is the centre, ...
, Indonesia, and the southern temple cities of India.
Hemel worked and lived the first 9 years (1995–2003) of his professional life in London, United Kingdom. In 2003 he returned to the Netherlands to set up his practise in
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
.
Hemel is a tutor and educator. He has been a Unit-master at the Architectural Association in London from 1999 to 2008, and design-tutor of the post-graduate Environment and Energy program at the AA in London, since 2002. Over these years, he experimented with developing performance-based architectural projects. Some of his students became very successful, executing his new approach to architecture, and were awarded various prizes. In 2003 Hemel was awarded the
RIBA
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...
tutor prize.
Hemel has been active in multi-disciplinary groups, trying to reinvigorate the dried-up architectural debate. He is a member of the do-group; an international inter-disciplinary research-group, and participates in the Performing Arts Labs; a UK-based architectural research group sponsored by the United Kingdom's
National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts
Nesta (formerly NESTA, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) is an innovation foundation based in the UK.
The organisation acts through a combination of programmes, investment, policy and research, and the formation of part ...
.
Hemel is registered as an architect at the ''Stichting Bureau Architecten Register'', The Hague, the Netherlands.
Professional practice
Hemel co-founded the firm 'Information Based Architecture' together with his partner
Barbara Kuit
Barbara Kuit is a Dutch architect. In 1998, together with her partner Mark Hemel, Kuit founded Information Based Architecture (IBA).
IBA has won some of the most prestigious international competitions among which the competition for the world’ ...
in 1998 while they were still based in London. The office is called "information based" in order to clearly break with the common state of architecture at that time that was producing uninformed "blobs". In 2003 they moved their office to Amsterdam, while they focus their work currently on Europe, China and Africa. They have won several high-profile competitions, the most important being the design for the tall
Canton Tower
The Canton Tower (), formally Guangzhou TV Astronomical and Sightseeing Tower (), is a -tall multipurpose observation tower in the Haizhu District of Guangzhou ( alternatively romanized as ''Canton''). The tower was topped out in 2009 and it ...
which has recently been opened to the public. Hemel's attitude to architectural work can best be explained by the following statement: he believes that "architecture should be valued only after the physical form of architecture has come into being, and we should get away of valuing architecture on the basis of conceptual text. Architecture cannot fully be photographed, nor be fully described in text, and cannot be fully captured in an image."
Publications and reference material
Hemel and Kuit's work has been published and exhibited widely. In 2002 they were shortlisted for the Young Architects of the Year Award in the United Kingdom. They have received support by the Dutch Department of Trade and Industry and received several encouragement grants by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture.
Hemel is the author of a book entitled ''Supermodel, the making of the world's tallest TV tower'' (2011).
References
External links
IBA websiteCanton Tower National Geographic Documentary on the Mark Hemel's workProfile of Mark Hemelon Archined.nl
Canton Towerin ''Wired'' magazine
in ''ND Daily''
Article on Hemel and the Canton Towerin ''Nanfang Daily''
on XinHuanet
Hemel's Biographyon Information Based Architecture's website
Hemel receives RIBA tutor prizeHemels major achievement as a professional designer and architect is the Guangzhou/Canton Towerin ChinaWorld Architecture News WAN- news article website on opening on the Canton Tower
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hemel, Mark
1966 births
Living people
People from Emmen, Netherlands
20th-century Dutch architects
21st-century Dutch architects