One of the surprises at the major retrospective of Herzog and de Meuron’s work shown in the Schaulager in the Emanuel Hoffmann-Stiftung in Basel in spring 2004 was a large dark red “sugar object” displayed on a table-top. It turned out to be a tub of hard, glass-clear molasses with a large number of stalagmites rising from it like a fountain, vaguely reminiscent of Henry van de Velde’s architectural forms or certain details in the nearby Goetheanum in Dornach. Making this object must have cost a considerable effort — the individual, often adventurously fragile forms were obviously produced by dripping and then raised to an upright position after cooling.