Herwig Baumgartner introduces Bill Kreysler of Kreysler & Associates as a pioneer of fibre-reinforced polymers (FRP) in architecture, collaborating on many of the outstanding projects of the last decades.
Kreysler begins by contrasting the industries (ship building, sports equipment) that have been developing applications of composites and FRP since the 1990s, with the construction industry, which has been declining in productivity in that time.
He discusses his beginnings, with a homemade CNC milling machine in 1987. Continuous experimentation with materials and digital fabrication a series of projects which prompted technological innovations:
•Claes Oldenburg, Inverted Collar and Tie, Frankfurt, Germany (1994)
•Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, CA (1992)
•Robert Graham, Plumed Serpent, San Jose (1994)
•Lawrence Argent, I See What You Mean (a.k.a. “the Blue Bear”), Denver, Colorado (2005)
•Ennead Architects, Bing Concert Hall, Stanford, CA (2012)
•Lawrence Argent, Water Tree, Vail, CO (2010)
Kreysler concludes with some notable fibre-reinforced polymer projects by Zaha Hadid, Rafael Viñoly, Studio Pei Zhu, Tom Wiscombe, Testa & Weiser.
