GKD - Gebr. Kufferath AG company News and Trends items

Temples and dream beaches with turquoise-blue water make Thailand a sought-after destination for tourists from all over the world. The capital Bangkok, with a population of some nine million, is a city of contrasts with irresistible magic. In contrast to many other Asian megacities, however, the city has few contemporary architectural highlights. The German architect Ole...

The colorful spectrum of cultures, religions and peoples is what inspired South Africa's epithet as the rainbow nation. Almost 25 years ago, the republic sealed the end of apartheid with a new constitution and elected Nelson Mandela president. The rapid infrastructural and economic growth since then has permanently transformed people's perceptions of South Africa. Today,...

Bigger, more convenient, more spectacular: the new stadium of the top Spanish club Atlético Madrid is among the very elite of European soccer arenas. After six years in construction, the tradition-steeped club opened the doors of the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano in the north-east of the Spanish capital. A large screen on the western façade above the main entrance gets arr...

Great emphasis is placed on safety in Pasadena, a suburb of Houston, Texas. As America's oil stronghold and home to NASA's legendary Space Center, the region is famous for its particularly dangerous and hazardous working conditions. The Houston Area Safety Council (HASC) was therefore established back in 1990 on the initiative of local industrial operations as a non-prof...

The pioneer for holistic system solutions made of metal mesh for architecture, GKD – Gebr. Kufferath AG, is once again setting new quality standards: mesh façades made of CREATIVEWEAVE architectural mesh have received the general building approval of the German Institute for Structural Engineering (DIBt). This makes them the first mesh façades to comply with the Façades ...

Commissioned by 30 member states of the European Union, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) monitors the climate and weather. In light of climate change, the data it collects using complex satellite systems is becoming increasingly important. The growth of the organization associated with this is reflected in the continu...

In the heart of St Kilda, a suburb of the southern Australian city of Melbourne, one can find one of the region's most imposing buildings in the form of the mysterious and appealing Luna Apartments. For the facade of its extravagantly formed shell, the architects chose bronze-coloured anodised solar protection mesh from the technical weaving company GKD – GEBR. KUFFERATH...

Just a few miles from the metropolis of Moscow, Kuntsevo Plaza combines life, work, shopping and entertainment at a single location. With this project, the US architects from The Jerde Partnership, famous for their unusual concepts, continued to stand by their guiding principle of letting people find their own natural routes. This led to a multifunctional center, which a...

Since it opened up towards the West, China, the most densely populated country in the world, has not only been attracting western industrial companies but has also been changing the appearance of many of its major cities. An increasing number of buildings designed by international architects have appeared, heralding the dawn of a new age. In recent years, the Chinese gov...

Small and picturesque, yet prominent in the European Union (EU): over the centuries the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has repeatedly been at the center of far-reaching decisions because of its central location between Belgium to the north and west, Germany to the east and France to the south. As one of the six founding members of the European Community (EC), Luxembourg, cove...

As a non-profit establishment, Cook Children’s Health Care System in Fort Worth, Texas runs one of the largest children's hospitals in the south-west of the US. With its promise to grant every child in the region access to medical care, the establishment has been addressing a major challenge for more than 100 years. Medical administration operations are now all to be hou...

The headquarters of South African National Roads Agency Limited, also known as SANRAL, was completed in 2011 and is a prime example of sustainable architecture. By providing the metallic mesh that offers both decorative and functional properties, GKD – Gebr. Kufferath AG played a key role in the success of this project. The office building is located in Pretoria, capital...

Shimmering metal fabric covers the façade of the Chambre de métiers et de l’artisanat de la Moselle, the Chamber of Crafts in Metz, France. With this textile skin, KL Architects have chosen an ingenious solar protection system made of “Lago” stainless steel mesh from GKD – GEBR. KUFFERATH AG. Besides reliable regulation of solar energy input, its purist look was another ...

A glorious view of the Alps and the Lake Geneva make the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) technical university in Switzerland a truly charming proposition. The talent factory draws top students of engineering and architecture from across the globe, thereby making the campus situated to the west of Lausanne in Ecublens among the fastest-growing in the world...

Wicked tongues compare Putrajaya, the ultra-modern administrative centre in the southwest of Malaysia, to a Disneyland for civil servants. The planned city for 90,000 inhabitants was created in 1995 about 30 km south of the capital Kuala Lumpur. The sprawling satellite city, named after the first Prime Minister of the country, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra, forges nature and ...

Modern architecture – according to Munich's Lord Mayor Christian Ude – has a hard time in the white and blue metropolis. This scepticism also applies to the new main synagogue in the heart of Munich's historic district. The inauguration of the Jewish Community Center at St. Jakobplatz, right next to the Town Hall and the Church of Our Lady, is the highly symbolic result ...

Higher, more expensive, more spectacular. These are the apparent rules for successful building in the superdynamic states of the Middle East. More is not enough. Especially in the economic metropolis of the United Arab Emirates, Dubai, they not only think superlatives, but build them, too. Structures reach for the sky, land is created in the sea, rivers and lakes are pl...

The sky over Madrid is an endless blue and has an infectious brightness. This bustling city in the middle of the Iberian peninsula is a modern, creative metropolis with a medieval town centre which stands in picturesque contrast to the loud and hectic character of the surrounding city with its three million inhabitants. This is where the world-famous "El Prado" art museu...

Multi-storey car parks frequently have almost no image. As a means to an end, they offer parking spaces instead of aesthetics. Treated for a long time as the Cinderella of architecture, in many locations that are merely great lumps of concrete devoid of charm or soul and have been dumped into their surroundings with little thought or sensitivity. Even now it is still ver...

Málaga - "City of Paradise", as the Spanish Nobel prize winner Vicente Aleixandre called it – in Spain's wildly romantic southern region of Andalusia is a city of ultimate modernity, yet lavishly steeped in rich tradition. As the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, it has been an inspiration for many an artist: Salvador Dalí loved this magical city, as did the poets Hans Christ...

Faster, higher, further: since ancient times, the best athletes have been competing against one another to win much-coveted sporting titles. The dream of fame and being undefeated fascinates protagonists and spectators alike. Whether the Olympic Games, European or world championships – top athletes competing for medals, trophies and titles have made sport a global specta...

Madrid is on the threshold of heaven. This is what the inhabitants of the Spanish capital say when describing their city so rich in culture, art and atmosphere. The completion of one of the largest construction projects in Madrid’s history underlines henceforth the heavenly reputation of this metropolis. Liberated from the noise and smell of the busy city highway, which ...

The renowned Spanish quality of taking things easy is certainly a scarce commodity in Madrid. As the geographical, cultural and political centre of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain's vibrant capital is one of Europe's fastest growing major cities. About 6 million people live in the Greater Madrid area, 3.1 million of them in the city itself. By the 90s, this rapid growth rat...

The weightlessness of their textile-like structure and the sheer range of their functionality have established the woven metal meshes of the brand CREATIVE WEAVE as an aesthetic and trend-setting building material worldwide. Transparent or opaque as desired, the material functions as a reliable safety balustrading and is dependably resistant to fire and weathering. It ha...

As the stepchildren of architecture, multi-storey car parks have been fighting for attention and acceptance for years. However, local authorities and investors are now starting to realize the potential that multi-storey car parks hold as a location and economic factor. Modern building materials, intelligent concepts and appealing aesthetics can help convert what were onc...

Giant leaps are a Holmenkollen tradition: this famous mountain above Oslo hosted the first ski jump competition as early as 1892. The winning distance then was 21.5 metres. Today the ski jump record stands at 139.5 metres and the hill (Norwegian: kollen) named after the Norwegian medic Dr Holm is a shrine of Nordic winter sports. The years that have witnessed the develop...

His meteoric rise began at the end of the 1980s with the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris when, aged just 36, Dominique Perrault won a prestigious international design competition sponsored by the then President of France, Francois Mitterrand. As the dominant style element he used metal mesh manufactured by GKD – Gebr. Kufferath AG for the first time and develop...

As a red-light district and the "birthplace" of the Beatles, St. Pauli and Hamburg's Reeperbahn enjoy worldwide cult status. Tourists from all over the world, but also the inhabitants of Hamburg themselves, are spellbound by the attractions of this throbbing district with its unique blend of red-light milieu, alternative and traditional cultural venues, modern living and...

Broadway and business, nightlife and neon adverts – this is the pulsating heart of Times Square in New York, the city that never sleeps. Just 500 metres from this legendary spot is one of the best known and busiest bus stations in the world, the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Opened in 1950 and continually extended and modified over the past 60 years, it is today the numbe...

High performance sun protection makes a vital contribution to architecturally successful building shells. Targeted shading that also offers a high degree of transparency increases both energy efficiency and quality of stay for those inside the building. The key here is to combine maximum functionality with sophisticated aesthetics. Wire mesh material from GKD – Gebr. Kuf...

Slowly but surely, architecturally attractive parking space becomes the expression of a new self-image. The times of great lumps of concrete devoid of soul and tainted with a grubby image are gone. Bad lighting, smelly hallways and scary storeys are a thing of the past. Today, brightness, friendliness and an attractive appearance increasingly become a matter of course. C...

Sophisticated shapes, created in noble fabrics and elegant materials, have always been an expression of self assurance. In fashion, the crinoline is a timeless symbol of style and elegance, of discreet concealment and overt presentation. Perhaps it was this range of expressiveness that inspired the French architect Dominique Perrault in his design for the ceiling claddin...

Barcelona, that uniquely dynamic metropolis on the Mediterranean, with its 1.6 million inhabitants is not only the capital of the autonomous province of Catalonia but also Spain's second largest city. Avant-garde architecture, innovative design, unconventional art, fashion and music: Barcelona has a different – and faster – pace to most of Europe's other capitals. The ci...

As gateway to Africa, Libya has had an eventful history since its formation. Numerous wars and conquests, but also the controversial reforms by head of state Muammar al-Gaddafi, shaped the beautiful country at the Mediterranean, which is five times the size of Germany and has been in a self-inflicted slumber for decades. Since the end of the international isolation in 20...

Glamour, glitz, palm trees: No other city is reduced to the cliché as a mecca for the rich and beautiful like Miami. But at over 100 years of age, the city in the Sunshine State of Florida is much more than that: Commercial center of the Southeast, the biggest cruise ship harbour in the world and, last but not least, home to the famous American Airlines Arena. Located at...

Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, Strauß, Lehár or Franz von Suppé: Austria has music in its blood. The history of this country is steeped in an unparalleled musical richness. With his Magic Flute, Mozart created the first German grand opera, Strauss immortalised the Viennese waltz, and Haydn delighted the world with his famous oratorios. Countless sonatas, symphonies, string quart...