Firm Faces #2, Version 2

The office of Vienna-based Delugan Meissl (previously firm-faced here) gets the Waking Life treatment on their team page, their faces animated in front of pink backgrounds. The choice for this is most likely aesthetic, but the means of filtering their faces reduces the amount of information in a way that allows for multiple readings from a lack of clear definition. How this hypothesis relates to their work is not clear, as their buildings have always struck me as crisp and modern, if more playful than those descriptors would normally indicate.



The clearest relationship between the cartoon faces and built output, if there is one, is to the layering of some of their projects, like the Weinenberg High Rise's facade. Here a printed glass exterior covers a simple white box wrapped with balconies, with openings in the first giving the elevations a pixelated appearance. But rather than extending or continuing with that approach, I'd conclude that the faces are ultimately just playful, just as some of their buildings are. That's good enough for me.