RSHP leaps out

摘要

Taking a walk around a hotelier friend's estate in Provence, Richard Rogers found a site for a drawing gallery, 40 minutes walk from the main buildings, where the Roman road rose up to the edge of a ridge. The gap in the trees would be a good spot for a look out - over the estate towards the Luberon Mountains. That was in 2011, then three years ago the friend and sometime client, Paddy McKillen, came back to Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners, ready to add a Rogers building to his collection at the Chateau La Coste. You need to know Chateau La Coste (and McKillen) to understand the building. Around half an hour from both Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, it is a vineyard and hotel with a live architecture and landscape experience, and high class food and drink to match the work of international starchitects. There the Tadao Ando Arts Centre, a gallery dug into the terroir by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and a wine cellar clad in mirrored red metal by Jean Nouvel. You can sleep in one of Jean Prouve's demountable houses, adapted with pods by RSHP. McKillen himself has a track record in redeveloping luxury hotels and RSHP has collaborated with him on projects at Berkeley Hotel in London's Knightsbridge since 2006, where it is currently working on a major overhaul.