A Friendly Alien

Within the scope of "Graz 2003: Cultural Capital of Europe," the city of Graz provided the possibility for London-based architects Peter Cook and Colin Fournier to transform a visionary concept into built reality. From which came the Kunsthaus Graz, a new and unique site for international exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. With this radical architecture project, Graz received a futuristic-looking building highly satisfactory to both the psychological and the functional demands of a visitor-oriented international art museum. The unusual biomorphic forms of the Friendly Alien make for a suspenseful dialogue with the historic old town, especially with Graz's century-old landmark, the cubic clock-tower that sits high up on Castle Hill. The documentation published here presents the development of the Friendly Alien from a Utopian concept to a highly complex functional body. The extensive photographic material includes first-rate computer simulations and sheds light on the urban environment and its history, shows the unique architectural features of the building, and investigates the complex network of static and technical utilities in the "skin," the nerve center of the Friendly Alien.