Mathias Klotz

This office exists since 1988, making different types of projects. First they have worked on private houses, especially in the country. Mid 90', they had some scenographic projects, installations and commercial projects, such as theatres and restaurants, besides still projects of houses, in and outside of Santiago. End 90', the office has opened its range, developping projects of very different scales, from urban furniture, to cultural programmes such as events halls, and other more complex programs, like industrial buildings, schools, clinics. For each of those projects, all over the past ten years, the emphasis has been put on the search of simple solutions, with a clear issue. It consists in finding the way of giving the project its particularity, associated to the programme, the client and the given location. Their method is the conformation of working teams for each of those projects, developping in the same time plans, drawings, and models for each step, that can be wooden, metallic or virtual, to keep the mind conscient of the context and the interior spaces. In his introduction to the GG Portfolio 1997, Horacio Torrent wrote about Mathias Klotz : "The south american landscape opened up the possibility of a yet more significant poetic art. This long country at the end of the world has seemed a promising place for untroubled exploration of modern style designed of the dual lines of abstraction and nature. A renewed continuation of that research seems to be present in the shapes and treatment of spaces and materials in the architecture of Mathias Klotz. This young architect as so far had a short career with a limited output, in many ways his work belongs to that mad geography wich lies, some former attempt at synthesis, along a long, narrow strip of land to the west of The Andes, combining the most sublime of places, from a dry desert to a wet southern forest. Mathias Klotz seems to want to revel nature's lavishness, and he does so, in a seeming contradiction, following in the footsteps of a revived modern style. He is ideologically far from the vernacular ; a born innovator, daring and contradictory. His vanguardist approach resonates in the coherent shaping of his works, which reveal the architectural desorientation of the subcontinent and bring a deep draught of fresh air from the south.".

Las Niñas Vineyard
Chili, 1999

This commision is a wine industry located in the Colchagua valley, famous for its vinyards, 350 km. South from santiago. The program consists in a series of small laboratories, a control office, a pallet's cellar, a large inox barrels cellar and a smaller wooden barrels cellar. The work consists in a rectangular box which is made up of steel, wood and plexiglass. This volume communicates with a smaller one, made of concrete. The project has an important technical component, for the optimization of the productive process of wine, of which Klotz tried to distance as less as he can to make an architectural object without pretending being anything else than just a cellar. This is achieved by the selection of materials and how these may optimize the climatic efficiency needed. The building closes up to the north with a double facade that allows the air circulation by convection. The east and west façades are blind, the south façade is a 12 x 75m plexiglas surface. At night this façade turns into a large lamp to the exterior. The interior walls of the small concrete volume are covered with gabions to increase the mass of the walls in order to control the interior temperature. In this place the wine gets older in wood barrels.

Casa Reutter
Cachaga, Chili, 1999 

The Reutter House is a summer house located in a slope of pine trees next to the Cachagua Beach at 140 kms from Santiago. The project consists into two rectangular boxes floating on a wall, to elevate the living space and insert it in to the trees. The idea towards the landscape was to build a house in the trees, and for the inside, a house into the house ; the box containing the rooms and the bathrooms penetrates the living space box. There are no doors, but sliding walls, so that one may open completely the rooms into the living room, in others words, the small box into the large one. The third volume, built of reinforced concrete, passes through the principal box, representing the nucleus that contains the service bedroom and the laundry in the first floor, the kitchen and the tv room in the second floor and a study room in the third. To accentuate the horizontality, the access from the street is a 30 meters-long bridge, that goes literally through the pine trees. From the roof of the house, which is a big terrace facing the ocean, a steel-staircase leads to the covered terrace, entrance to the interior space. The Reutter house is an exercice of stability and tension, in an structural as well as in a practical point of view, pushing those relations to the limit.

 The project for urban furniture is a commision of a french company called JC Decaux, that asked Klotz to develop three bus stops, with their publicity block, as well as a shoe polisher. The bus stop has to provide several functions, from being a support for services to the citizen (telephone, citymap… ) and an indicator for the public transportation traffic. The study was particularly oriented to the mediterranean context, refered to the weather, density, and security. Klotz develop the idea of light elements, that can have their identity in the city, a clear signal for high speed, and, without perturbating the peatonal traffic, a minimal occupation of the common space with colors, shadow and light. The shoeshine is a metallic object containing all the accesories, fixed to the ground or used as a aluminium luggage. It opens itself for the use, the door transforms itself in a plate for the shoeshining and the user sits on its leather cushion, installed on the aluminium top.

Collège Altamira
Santiago, Chili, 2000 (en construction)

The altamira school was a competition to build 10 000 m2 for 1 400 students in Santiago. It is situated at the slopes of the andes mountains. The location is a rectangle of 60 x 200 mts. With an inclination of 20% by its larger side.The project has four buildings, located at each side of the site, leaving a central yard. That opens the views to the mountains and to the city, defining a eastern-western edge, with a concentration of trees to the hill and the schoolyard above the street. The larger spaces which are the gym and eating area, are in the center of the site, facing the street, so they can be used for public activities for the community. The structure of the central volume is a steel rotulated structure. The roof of these spaces is an inclinated surface that works as the school's yard. The four perimetral buildings are aimed to be the student classrooms. The structure of the four buildings is made of concrete pilars and floors without beams to offer a 100 % flexibility. The east and west façades are in concrete, the south façades are in wood and the north in aluminium, glass and colored panels.

Mathias Klotz Germain (1965)

1991 — Diplômé de l'Université Catholique du Chili
1991 — Création de l'Agence à Santiago du Chili

Enseignement

2000/1996 — Federico Santa Maria University, Valparaiso
1998/1996 — Central University, Santagio

Principaux projets et réalisations

2000 — "Collège Altamira" (en cours) ; "Parade" et "Lustra" petits équipements/projets
1999 — "Vino del Nuevo Mundo" (réalisé) ; "Maison Reutter" (réalisée)
1997 — "Pizarras Ibericas" (réalisé) ; "Maisons Palockz" et "Sandoval" (réalisées)
1996 — "Maisons Grudsky" et "Ubeda" (réalisées) ; "Hotel Terrantai" (réalisé) ; "Cyber-café" (réalisé) ; "Ruines de Huanchaca " (3ème prix)
1995 — "Maison Ugarte" (réalisée) ; "Maison Grez" (réalisée)
1994 — "Maisons Sadhu", "Müller et Lavados" (réalisées)
1993 — "Maisons Ducaud" et "Von Plate" (réalisées) ; "Restaurant Metro"; "Discothèque Oz Ritoque" (réalisée)
1992 — "Maison Rio Liucura" (réalisée) ; "Tienda Le Coq" (réalisée) ; "Discothèque Oz" (réalisée) ; "Acceso Casa 92" (réalisé)
1991 — "Maisons Klotz" et "Cummings" (réalisées)
1990 — "Maison Walker", "Maison du gardien et écuries Walker" Lago Panguipulli (réalisées)

Bibliographie sélective de Mathias Klotz

1998 — "Pacific Edge" Peter Zellner, Rizzoli, New York
1997 — GG Porfolio, éditions Gustavo Gili, Barcelone ; Abitare n°364
1996 — Abitare n°353