07172015 Architect Wolf Prix is Special Guest Speaker at Domotex 2016

HANNOVER - At the next edition of Domotex, running from Jan. 16 to 19, 2016, star architect Wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au, will be the show's star speaker, leading a discussion of the role of floor coverings in design. The multiple award-winning Prix, who heads the Viennese architecture practice Coop Himmelb(l)au, earned worldwide recognition for his cutting edge structures and he, along with a roster of other celebrities in the field of international design and architecture, will discuss the latest floor covering trends and their impact on the work of designers on 16 January at the Innovations@Domotex area in Hall 6.

With the growing tendency to treat floor coverings as an exciting design element in their own right with the power to transform the character of a space, the discussion will discover the new and the unusual and how to draw inspiration from it. The roundtable will show how these design heavyweights come up with fresh ideas and stimulating suggestions. In fact, the Innovations@Domotex areas showcase a curated selection of new products from flooring manufacturers, which also serve as fodder for the various talks given by experts and as the starting point for guided tours of the show, which are led by noted architects and designers.

As the special guest of Domotex, Prix bring his vision of deconstructivist architecture to the visiting trade public. His practice, now synonymous with passionate spatial designs and an emotionalized architecture, continually explores the dividing line between form and material, creating wings, steel branches and flying platforms. Coop Himmelb(l)au is regarded as one of the inventors of the deconstructivist style of architecture (where shapes are pulled apart and put back together in a different configuration). The practice became world-famous for work in this style in the 1980s.

Some of Prix's landmark buildings include the BMW World in Munich, the Museum in Groningen in the Netherlands, the UFA Crystal Palace in Dresden, Gasometer B in Vienna, the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Akron Art Museum in Akron, Ohio. More recent projects include the new building for the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, inaugurated in March 2015, the Musée des Confluences in Lyon, France, opened at the end of December 2014, the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark (2013), and the Dalian International Conference Center in China (2012).

Coop Himmelb(l)au has won many national and international awards for its work. Its prizes include the German Architecture Prize (1999) and the Grand Austrian State Prize (1999). Alongside their architectural projects, Prix and his partner Helmut Swiczinsky have also designed furniture and various other products, including the "Vodöl" armchair for Vitra (1989). Prix was also appointed to a professorship in the Department of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

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