The Eero Saarinen-designed US Embassy in Oslo is set to be placed under historic preservation orders following the building’s sale by the US government.
The US embassy to Norway since 1959, the building will change hands once staff are moved into the new US embassy building at Huseby, which is expected to complete in early 2017.
Located across the street from the Norwegian Royal Palace and the Nobel Institute, the triangular embassy building was described by Saarinen as “a gentleman” in formal attire.
In its early days, the building was accessible to the public, and was known for its extensive music library containing jazz and rock-and-roll favorites. Later, as security concerns rose, the building was shut off from locals, earning it the nickname “Fortress America.”
Screenshot via U.S. Embassy in Oslo. ImageNew US Embassy at Huseby. Designed by EYP Architecture & Engineering
Screenshot via U.S. Embassy in Oslo. ImageNew US Embassy at Huseby. Designed by EYP Architecture & Engineering
Residents hope that following the sale, the building will be returned to its “Cultural House” roots. Other floated plans include a police station or office building.
“It’s only when the Americans actually sell the building that we legally can protect it,” Morten Stige, a department leader at Oslo’s Byantikvarentold Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) told the English-language Norwegian publication NewsInEnglish.no.
Screenshot via U.S. Embassy in Oslo. ImageNew US Embassy at Huseby. Designed by EYP Architecture & Engineering
“[The embassy] is one of the foremost examples of international architecture in Oslo from the post-war years. The building also has an historic function as an American embassy. Those two things together make it clearly subject to historic preservation.”
The new, 80,700 gross square foot embassy, designed by Albany, New York-based EYP Architecture & Engineering, will be located in nearby Huseby and will accommodate approximately 200 employees. The building has been designed to meet ambitious security and environmental standard.
From the architect. In a long building lot, the house is conceived as an answer to that and follows that proportion. The width – almost half the width of the terrain – turns the sides into areas of opportunity, so the more pronounced projections of the interior space occur in directions perpendicular to the parcel.
The social area of the home is defined as a “thorn” that is gaining privacy as one moves from the front to the back. This area is structured when it’s combine with the volumes that harbor more contained and / or private activities. Once the social area is segmented, a succession of subtle diagonal visual connections are created and show how the spaces interconnect each other and at the same time, the projections-expansions to the outside are settle.
The projections are accompanied by pavements that are defined according to the adjacent program inside the house and the kind of the activity that could be carried out in this one. The pavements characterize the outer space and generate diferent areas that favor the interaction between themselves and the virgin portions of the terrain.
The space-material logic that defines these expansions is the interaction of each space with one of the massive volumes to its back and a closing of curtain wall forward, which accentuates the flow towards the sides. Other types of spatial sequences appear when these volumes are perforated and allow visuals that cross transversally.
The contest proposal show some ambiguities that were the subject of revision in the adjustment process.
In this sense we understood that the project could take, among others, two well-differentiated courses. In the first one the boxes adopte an ethereal character being materialized with the minimal thicknesses and their presence doesen’t give evidence of permanent elements. The other way was completely opposite: increase the mass, this was the one we chose.
Now the boxes would be anchored to the floor, they would emerge from it. Accordingly, the roof is pulled up and rests on the boxes, since at the beginning it was an element that was between them. The boxes became carriers and the pillar and beam structure proposed in the competition was abandoned. We noticed that in that gesture we could make the façades the very image of the structure, as elemental as a dolmen. From here came the decision of build the walls with rustic bricks.
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The social space of the house is defined by three elements: the volumes of brick that came from the floor; The concrete roof which massive character go with the idea of giving shelter; The floor of gray monolithic and concrete that flows between the volumes and that confer the house a strong relation with the exterior. The private, service and annex areas were distributed in the different boxes, the white color of the interior of them maximizes the illumination capture through the square windows while intensify the passage of space-between to space-within.
The QL House is located in one of the most exclusive areas of Algarve, on the Portuguese southern coast, a singular presence in an essentially residential neighbourhood.
From where it was erected it is possible to see captivating surroundings: golf courses, residences, the estuary and, dominating the background, the Atlantic Ocean.
The QL House project was an exercise in balancing spaces and landscape integration. The articulation of two overlapping and perpendicular spaces generated not only a particular spacial dynamic, but also different visual relations between full and empty, light and dark – caused by the dynamic of shadows – between private areas, semi-private areas and the view of the surrounding landscape.
Two stories and a basement encapsulate a precise functional program: garden, swimming pool, sun room, living and dining room, bathrooms, a regular kitchen and a summer kitchen, four bedrooms, an office and space for a playroom.
Circulation takes place through a continuous stairway along the indoor garden, which illuminates all the indoor spaces in this home. This nuclear garden structures the direct interaction between the entire indoors and the outdoors, gifting all spaces of the QL House with the luxury of natural lighting.
Floor Plan
The spaces were designed to create constant and singular relations between the indoor and outdoor spaces, in a permanent and multifaceted dialogue.
The bedrooms, on the first floor, face the green surrounding landscape, and take advantage of the terrace on the roof of the living room and summer kitchen in order to create areas for contemplation on the top floor. The space occupied by the bedrooms extends in both directions beyond the bounds of the first floor, hovering over the empty space, in a serene and quiet balance.
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On one side, a balanced veranda greets the main entrance to the house, on the other side, a pergola provides shade for the living area by the pool and living room, making particularly hot summers more enjoyable.
The main entrance to the house is through a door of unusual dimensions, in line with the imposing scale – one of the singular features of this architectural piece.
White concrete walls formalize the spaces in the QL House, in a chromatic mimicry of the buildings in this region of Portugal – designed with a particularly hot climate in mind.
The natural cork lining, a traditional Portuguese material, is articulated in the connection between the space and the land. The bedrooms, on the other hand, feature slats and motorized metallic shutters in their lateral openings, which filter light without making it impossible to contemplate the surrounding landscape, surely one of the valuable assets of the QL House.
The project was structured primarily with the goal of valuing the relationship between the indoor and outdoor spaces, the creation of complicities between the user and the landscape, and the former with the created space. As built, the QL House exceeded expectations and once again endorses the work of Visioarq- Arquitetos.
For children especially, hospitals can be anxiety-inducing and overwhelming space. New media studio ENESS aims to change that experience with their installation LUMES, a light-emitting wood piece, the first of which is now on display at Cabrini Hospital in Malvern, Australia.
LUMES is designed to engage patients in a positive, calming environment. The interactive material straddles the worlds of art and technology, coming to life as people walk past. According to the designers, animals peek their heads out of grass that grows with movement, animated raindrops fall on passers-by, rockets launch and animated runners follow human movements—all in bright colors displayed on natural materials.
Courtesy of ENESS
“Our goal was to maximize the space with interactive experiences that children could intuitively use,” said Andrea Rindt, Nurse Director for Women and Children at Cabrini Hospital.
Next, ENESS hopes to expand LUMES, spreading its interactive whimsy to other programmatic spaces, such as hospitality and retail. By leveraging its specialties in lighting, software, interactive media, product design, sculpture, and architecture, ENESS intends to collaborate with interior designers to broaden LUMES’s material palette and integrate LUMES into new architectural concepts.
New year, new me! Or perhaps for architects, new Moleskine, new me? While a lot has happened in the world of architecture this year, it’s just as important to reflect on your own personal architectural practices. Whether 2017 ushers in the start or end of a degree, a new job, a new project, or just more architectural life as usual, there’s no better time to make a resolution or two. As we approach the calendar change, here are 22 ideas for how you could improve yourself in the new year.
1. Introduce friends to your favourite buildings around town.
2. Cut down on the “final_render,” “final_render_final,” “new_final_render” file naming.
3. Declutter your hard drive. Digital feng shui is important too.
4. Take up a new non-architectural hobby and see how it helps your architectural side (further possible suggestions: krav maga, pickling things, origami, banjo).
Awarding the top ecological projects of the year, d3 has announced this year’s winners of its Natural Systems competition. Established in 2009, the annual competition has grown into one of the most notable awards in speculative, performance-based design. The brief challenges architects, designers, engineers, and students to develop ideas for sustainable living by exploring natural processes. This year’s program was co-directed by Ji Young Kim of Shigeru Ban Architects and Gregory Marinic of the Syracuse University School of Design.
Read on to find out about the jury’s picks for the top three projects and seven special mentions.
First Prize: Hydrological Cluster / Anna Budnikova (Russia)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
The Hydrological Cluster is dedicated to one of the natural environment’s most global problems—water resource depletion and rising sea levels. Climatic disasters and anthropogenic impact cause a gradual depletion of water resources. Biomimicry is a modern response to global environmental problems.
Self-reproducing automata is a process of design that occurs after a theoretical investigation about the intercourses and the exclusions between dipoles—subject and object, natural and artificial, intention and randomness, design and not-design. The design tools that are chosen are non-dimensional points. The design shifts from the conceived object to the processes that materialize the object. The main principles that are finally chosen are those that condense the phenomenon of life (movement, metabolic exchanges, reproduction).
Third Prize: Delta Raefiguratoria / Jose Alberto Gonzalez Martin (Spain)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
The Ebro Delta, one of the most unique productive landscapes in the Mediterranean Sea, is sinking. The massive construction of reservoirs all over the Ebro River basin in the 20th century has caused the sand needed to sustain the Delta to stay in the mountains. DELTA Raefiguratoria (Delta del Ebro Low Tech Architecture Reconfiguration) is an architectural treatise from the past for the future. With a retrofuturistic language, DELTA Raefiguratoria is meant to be a manifesto for low-tech architecture: for more than two thousand years it has achieved everything we know so far, why not give it a chance in this high-tech world to keep building our future?
Special Mention – Building Performance: Hybrid Skytree / Teymour Benet (Spain)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Urban Strategy: Taking it to the Ex-Stream / Abi Haire, Ed Gant (UK)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Performative Landscape: Floating Polder System / Hyeeun Kim, Haerang Jung (Korea)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Alternative Typology: Wallmorphology / Ka Wai Cheung (Hong Kong)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Urban Adaptation: Vorte(x): Lightwell Symbiosis / Chenyu Pu, Mengxing Wang (China)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Oceanic Intervention: Hyperatoll / Shao Xutao, Wang Jingyi (China)
Courtesy of d3
Courtesy of d3
Special Mention – Landscape Urbanism: Migratory Landforms / Dana Cupkova, Colleen Clifford, Thomas Sterling (USA)
From the architect. The collective DIY-housing project Amstelloft consists of spacious loft-apartments. Inspired by dwellings in old schools, churches and warehouses: flexible space with double height which can be turned into living spaces ranging from open lofts to four-bedroom-apartments. The future inhabitants were intensely involved in the realization benefiting the pronounced posibilities and character of the design.
Living Like in Old Schools, Churches and Warehouses The living spaces have a height of 5,5 meters which allows every household to realize their own demands and dreams. The concrete structure can be filled with extra wooden floors which are easily adaptable when the interior no longer fits due to, for example, increased family size or a change of job.
Initiative, Design and Mentoring of Realization WE architecten took initiative to start this DIY-housing development. At information evenings a group of enthusiast future inhabitants was formed around the spacious living concept. The municipality awarded the initiative with a beautiful site with a fanstastic view on the river Amstel, running through the heart of the city of Amsterdam.
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Character-Filled Structure The arched facade openings enhance the experience of the double-high spaces and give the DIY-housing structure a binding and outspoken character. Large facade openings and voids making it possible to create deep and bright apartments since daylight can enter deep into the building. Making a compact building was important to realize the high sustainability ambitions.
Fully Engineered One important principle was the separation of the building structure and the interiors in the realization process. This gave the individual households full freedom within their living spaces. This deviation from the regular building process also required a thorough coordination with the municipality. During the design process the DIY-housing concept was fully engineered in all its aspects.
Embraced by the Inhabitants The DIY-housing concept ‘Living like in old schools, churches and warehouses’ has been fully embraced by our clients. This has resulted in a surprising variety of lively and spacious interiors.
Product Description. The materials enhance the concept of ‘Living like in old schools, churches and warehouses’. The buildings’ structure is meant robust en tough and the chosen materials age well. The number of materials is limited to create a modest and timeless facade. The arched facade openings are strenghtened with the brick detailling.
Courtesy of Flickr user Phil Whitehouse (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Locked within Rome’s labyrinthine maze of narrow streets stands one of the most renowned buildings in the history of architecture. Built at the height of the Roman Empire’s power and wealth, the Roman Pantheon has been both lauded and studied for both the immensity of its dome and its celestial geometry for over two millennia. During this time it has been the subject of countless imitations and references as the enduring architectural legacy of one of the world’s most influential epochs.
This plan drawing by Georg Dehio and Gustav von Bezold reveals the unexpected thickness of the rotunda walls. ImageCourtesy of Wikimedia user Fb78 under Public Domain
The Pantheon, which now stands on the Piazza della Rotonda, is in fact the third such structure to occupy the site. The original Pantheon was commissioned by Marcus Agrippa, the son-in-law of Emperor Caesar Augustus, and was dedicated in 27BCE. After a fire destroyed much of Agrippa’s original construction in 80AD, Emperor Domitian carried out a reconstruction effort (the exact extent of which remains unknown). However, when a lightning strike burned the Pantheon down yet again in 110, the structure which Emperor Hadrian put in its place was of an entirely new design.[1]
Under Hadrian’s reign in the early 2nd Century CE, the Roman Empire covered more territory than it ever would again. ImageCourtesy of Wikimedia user Andrein under CC BY-SA 3.0
The reign of Hadrian arguably represented the greatest ‘Golden Age’ of the Roman Empire. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the landlocked Caspian Sea in the east, the Empire’s territory encompassed southern and western Europe, northern Africa, and a sizable swath of western Asia – the furthest that its borders would ever reach. It was also the most economically prosperous period in Roman history, with unprecedented regional stability allowing trade to pass freely through the various provinces. The many cities of the Empire underwent expansive building programs, bringing public baths, forums, theaters, and circuses to citizens on three continents. In such an era of peace and prosperity, when all of Rome seemed to be under harmonious control, it was only fitting that a monument be built in the capital to represent this ideal state of affairs.[2]
The coffers in the Pantheon’s dome, aside from their aesthetic qualities, serve to reduce the weight of the dome on the support structure below. ImageCourtesy of Flickr user Michael Vadon under CC BY 2.0
Formally, the Pantheon is striking in its simplicity. It is—put simply—a large drum capped by a dome, with its north-facing entrance marked by a portico. Inside the drum is a single cavernous space, with natural light from a 9 meter-wide (30 foot) oculus spilling down onto alternating triangular and rounded altars that mark the perimeter of the room. The floor and walls of the interior are surfaced with fine stone sourced from across the Roman Empire, including granite and various colored marbles; the coffered ceiling is exposed concrete.[3] This dome was the largest in the world by a significant margin, a superlative it would retain until the construction of Brunelleschi’s engineering marvel at Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence in 1436, thirteen centuries later.[4]
Courtesy of Flickr user Michael Johnson (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
Enabling this seemingly simplistic geometry was an elaborate structural system, the culmination of decades of progress in Roman engineering technology. The 6 meter (20 foot) thick walls of the rotunda, while appearing monolithic from the outside, conceal a carefully-planned network of voids and arches that act as eight piers supporting the weight of the dome above. The dome itself was made possible by the Roman material innovation of concrete. Concrete vaults were used to great effect in a number of structures during the reign of Hadrian’s predecessor (and adoptive father) Trajan, laying the theoretical framework for the construction of the Pantheon’s dome. Here, unlike in the walls, the structural solution is plainly visible: the five rows of coffers, while aesthetically appealing, reduce the deadweight of the dome between its structural members, limiting the stress placed on the arches hidden within the walls of the rotunda.[5,6]
The interior of the Pantheon contains a perfectly spherical volume – a cosmic symbol which triumphantly asserted the authority and might of the Roman Empire. ImageDrawing by Francesco Piraneni. Via Wikimedia user Bkmd under Public Domain
The carefully premeditated planning of the rotunda stands in ironic contrast to the relatively disjointed portico. Rather than joining directly to the rotunda, the pediment connects to a rectangular transitional block, which features the outline of a pediment at a higher elevation than that which crowns the portico. This apparent misalignment led several architects to hypothesize over the centuries that the portico and rotunda were built at separate times by separate emperors, with one having been an awkwardly-proportioned addition to the other. Examination of the foundations and stamps on the bricks used in the structure, however, indicate the entire Pantheon was built as one cohesive project.[7]
This 1836 painting by Jakob Alt depicts the Pantheon with its Renaissance-era bell towers, additions which were widely scorned until their eventual removal. ImageCourtesy of Wikimedia user GianniG46 under public domain
The mismatch of the portico and rotunda is evidently the result of logistical issues in acquiring stone at the size specified by the Pantheon’s builders. A pediment at the height implied by the outline on the transitional block would require taller, thicker columns than those used in the temple as it is built; however, unlike those smaller columns, the hypothetical original design would conform neatly to the established proportions used in religious Roman architecture. The cornice line of the roof would also connect to the middle cornice line encircling the rotunda, whereas the existing roof does not seem to relate to any part of the structure. Despite the sheer financial power of Hadrian’s empire, however, adequate material could not be quarried for both the Pantheon and the simultaneously-constructed Trajan’s Temple, and the former was subjected to an ungainly compromise in order to expedite construction of the latter.[8]
Due to the mid-construction changes to the portico, the cornice line of the pediment does not match with that of the rotunda behind it. ImageCourtesy of Flickr user Michael Johnson under CC BY 2.0
The awkward proportions of the portico could not diminish the impact—or the meaning—of the vast space enclosed within the rotunda. The diameter of the rotunda’s interior is almost exactly the same as its height: 43.4 meters (142.4 feet). Combined with the hemispherical volume expressed within the dome, the space implies a perfect sphere.[9]
The cosmic implications of this geometry are clear: the sphere was an analogy for the heavens, all contained within the Pantheon’s concrete walls. At the highest point of the heavens (in this case, the oculus) shone the light of the sun, casting its beams on the various statues of planetary deities that occupied the niches in the walls as the day wore on. While the gods and heavens were honored in this symbolic design, however, it was the Roman Empire itself which was truly glorified. The cosmos embodied and enclosed by the Pantheon represented the Empire, its disparate lands and peoples held together by the celestial authority and perfection of Rome. Its name may imply religious consecration, but the Pantheon was truly a testament to the might and glory of a worldly government.[10]
Courtesy of Michael Vadon (licensed under CC BY 2.0)
As a symbol of the Empire, the Pantheon was subjected to a series of indignities as Rome began its slow decline over the following centuries. In the early 7th Century, the Emperor Constantius II of the Eastern Roman Empire visited Rome and officially gave the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV for use as a church; before doing so, however, he took the gilded bronze tiles which once covered the roof of the dome for his own use. Now known as the Church of St. Mary of the Martyrs, the Pantheon had its golden roof replaced by one of lead. Two centuries later, Pope Urban VIII ordered the removal of several large bronze beams from the portico for use in Bernini’s altar canopy at Saint Peter’s Basilica, as well as for cannons at the Castel Sant’Angelo (the fortified Roman residence of the Pope). As a consolation gesture, Urban commissioned a pair of bell towers to be added above the portico; these towers were generally considered ugly and out of place, however, and were removed in the 19th Century.[11]
From this angled perspective, careful observers can note the outline at the originally intended height of the pediment on the transitional block. ImageCourtesy of Flickr user Michael Vadon under CC BY 2.0
Perhaps thanks to its repurposing as a church the Pantheon is one of the best-preserved monuments of Ancient Rome. Its celebrated dome remains the largest in the world to be built from unreinforced concrete and, in spite of the addition of Christian altars and frescoes, its design remains largely the same as it did under Hadrian’s rule. Its form has served as the inspiration for an entire canon of buildings since the Renaissance, among them the Panthéon in Paris, the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, the library at the University of Virginia, and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.[12, 13, 14] Between its architectural legacy and its own endurance, the Pantheon stands as a lasting testament to the faded glories of the Roman Empire – a monument as eternal as the city in which it stands.
Courtesy of Flickr user lysander07 (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
References [1] Marder, Tod A., and Mark Wilson Jones. The Pantheon: from Antiquity to the Present. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2015. E-book. [2] Kostof, Spiro. A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. p217-219. [3] Platner, Samuel Ball, and Thomas Ashby. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1929. p382-386. [4] “Pantheon Rome.” Pantheon Paris. Accessed December 20, 2016. [access]. [5] Lancaster, Lynne C. Concrete Vaulted Construction in Imperial Rome: Innovations in Context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005. p97-98. [6] Cowan, Henry J., and Trevor Howells. A Guide to the World’s Greatest Buildings: Masterpieces of Architecture & Engineering. San Francisco, 2000: Fog City Press. p24. [7] Jones, Mark Wilson. Principles of Roman Architecture. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000. p200-202. [8] Jones, p204-210. [9] Stamper, John W. The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005. p196. [10] Kostof, p218. [11] Papandrea, James Leonard. Rome: A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Eternal City. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2012. p34-35. [12] “Pantheon Rome.” [13] King, Ross. Brunelleschi’s Dome. London: Chatto & Windu, 2000. [14] Fiederer, Luke. “AD Classics: University of Virginia / Thomas Jefferson.” ArchDaily. December 08, 2016. [access].
Location: Piazza della Rotonda, 00186 Roma, Italy
Commisioner: Emperor Hadrian
Project Year: 125
Photographs: Courtesy of Flickr user Phil Whitehouse (licensed under CC BY 2.0), Courtesy of Michael Vadon (licensed under CC BY 2.0), Courtesy of Flickr user Michael Johnson (licensed under CC BY 2.0), Courtesy of Wikimedia user Bkmd (Public Domain), Courtesy of Wikimedia user Andrein (licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0), Courtesy of Wikimedia user Fb78 (Public Domain), Courtesy of Courtesy of Wikimedia user GianniG46 (Public Domain), Courtesy of Flickr user lysander07 (licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Sky Central was designed to challenge conventional ideas of workspace; embracing and evolving the simplicity of the industrial shed, to define a new model for the industries fast-paced and evolving future.
The vision reflects the workings of the organisation with a campus connected by the assets that drive the Sky business forward: creativity and people. AL_A along with PLP and Hassell brought this vision to life with naturally lit, overlapping voids within deep floor plates to create high levels of visual connectivity.
Sky Group CEO, Jeremy Darroch said: “Our culture and our people are fundamental to Sky’s sustained success. Our people want to do their best and be their best, and we want to support them in doing so, creating an inclusive and creative workplace that facilitates the flow of brilliant ideas and creativity.”
Open and flexible spaces are designed in clusters of neighbourhoods to accommodate a new type of creative industry, where the traditional distinctions between creative, technical, production and corporate have been broken down. These have been replaced with an interwoven, fluid workspace that can be utilized by all of Sky Central’s different expertise and needs.
Ho-Yin Ng, Director at AL_A said:’ “Sky is proud of its beginnings on an industrial business park on the fringes of central London. AL_A worked with Sky to re-imagine a simple ‘shed’ typology as a means of bringing the broadcaster’s activities and people together under one roof in a series of modern and people-centric workplaces on its campus in Osterley.”
The architecture boasts a large triple height central atrium above the bustling 100-metre long Sky Street that runs the entire width of the ground floor. Sky Street acts as a connector for the whole building, bringing together touchdown workspaces as well as informal working elements alongside amenities ranging from restaurants and cafes to a supermarket and a 200-seat cinema. The whole building is a new holistic, inclusive way of working and living, as Director at AL_A, Ho-Yin Ng said it is “defining a new model for the industry’s fast-paced and evolving future”.
Project Team: Jan-Christoph Lindert (Associate, Project Manager), Nicholas Lyons (Associate, Project Architect), Stefan Goeddertz (Associate, Project Architect), Stephan Wedrich (Associate), Christian Riemenschneider (Associate), Carsten Happel (Associate), Kai Strehlke (Head Digital Technologies), Stephan Achermann, Sabine Althaber, Christiane Anding, Thomas Arnhardt, Petra Arnold, Tobias Becker, Johannes Beinhauer, Uta Beissert, Lina Belling, Andreas Benischke, Inga Benkendorf, Christine Binswanger (Partner), Johannes Bregel, Francesco Brenta, Jehann Brunk, Julia Katrin Buse, Ignacio Cabezas, Jean-Claude Cadalbert, Sergio Cobos Álvarez, Massimo Corradi, Guillaume Delemazure, Annika Delorette, Fabian Dieterle, Annette Donat, Patrick Ehrhardt, Carmen Eichenberger, Stephanie Eickelmann, Magdalena Agata Falska, Daniel Fernandez, Hans Focketyn, Birgit Föllmer, Bernhard Forthaus, Andreas Fries, Asko Fromm, Catherine Gay Menzel, Marco Gelsomini, Ulrich Grenz, Jan Grosch, Jana Grundmann, Hendrik Gruss, Luís Guzmán Grossberger, Christian Hahn, Yvonne Hahn, Naghmeh Haji Beik, David Hammer, Michael Hansmeyer, Nikolai Happ, Bernd Heidlindemann, Jutta Heinze, Magdalena Hellmann, Anne-Kathrin Hellermann, Mirco Hirsch, Volker Helm, Lars Höffgen, Robert Hösl (Partner), Philip Hogrebe, Ulrike Horn, Michael Iking, Ina Jansen, Nils Jarre, Jürgen Johner (Associate), Leweni Kalentzi, Andreas Kimmel, Anja Klein, Frank Klimek, Julia Kniess, Uwe Klintworth, Alexander Kolbinger, Benjamin Koren, Tomas Kraus, Jonas Kreis, Nicole Lambrich, Jens Lehmann, Matthias Lehmann, Monika Lietz, Felix Morczinek, Philipp Loeper, Thomas Lorenz, Christina Loweg, Florian Loweg, Femke Lübcke, Tim Lüdtke, Lilian Lyons, Klaus Marten, Jan Maasjosthusmann, Petrina Meier, Götz Menzel, Alexander Meyer, Simone Meyer, Henning Michelsen, Alexander Montero Herberth, Felix Morczinek, Jana Münsterteicher, Christiane Netz, Andreas Niessen, Monika Niggemeyer, Monica Ors Romagosa, Argel Padilla Figueroa, Benedikt Pedde, Sebastian Pellatz, Malte Petersen, Jorge Picas de Carvalho, Philipp Poppe, Alrun Porkert, Yanbin Qian, Robin Quaas, Leila Reese, Constance von Rège, Chantal Reichenbach, Thorge Reinke, Ina Riemann, Nina Rittmeier, Dimitra Riza, Miquel Rodríguez (Associate), Christoph Röttinger, Guido Roth, Henning Rothfuss, Peter Scherz, Sabine Schilling, Chasper Schmidlin, Alexandra Schmitz, Martin Schneider, Leo Schneidewind, Malte Schoemaker, Katrin Schwarz, Henning Severmann, Nadine Stecklina, Markus Stern, Sebastian Stich, Sophie Stöbe, Stephanie Stratmann, Ulf Sturm, Stefano Tagliacarne, Anke Thestorf, Katharina Thielmann, Kerstin Treiber, Florian Tschacher, Chih-Bin Tseng, Jan Ulbricht, Florian Voigt, Maximilian Vomhof, Christof Weber, Lise Wendler, Philipp Wetzel, Douwe Wieërs, Julius Wienholt, Julia Wildfeuer, Boris Wolf, Patrick Yong, Kai Zang, Xiang Zhou, Bettina Zimmermann, Christian Zöllner, Marco Zürn
Client: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, Germany; represented by ReGe Hamburg Project-Realisierungsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg, Germany
Between Hanseatic Hub and HafenCity The Elbphilharmonie on the Kaispeicher marks a location that most people in Hamburg know about but have never really noticed. It is now set to become a new centre of social, cultural and daily life for the people of Hamburg and for visitors from all over the world.
Too often a new cultural centre appears to cater to the privileged few. In order to make the new Philharmonic a genuinely public attraction, it is imperative to provide not only attractive architecture but also an attractive mix of urban uses. The building complex accommodates a philharmonic hall, a chamber music hall, restaurants, bars, a panorama terrace with views of Hamburg and the harbour, apartments, a hotel and parking facilities. These varied uses are combined in one building as they are in a city. And like a city, the two contradictory and superimposed architectures of the Kaispeicher and the Philharmonic ensure exciting, varied spatial sequences: on the one hand, the original and archaic feel of the Kaispeicher marked by its relationship to the harbour; on the other, the sumptuous, elegant world of the Philharmonic. In between, there is an expansive topography of public and private spaces, all differing in character and scale: the large terrace of the Kaispeicher, extending like a new public plaza, responds to the inwardly oriented world of the Philharmonic built above it.
The heart of the complex is the Elbphilharmonie itself. A space has emerged that foregrounds music listeners and music makers to such an extent that, together, they actually represent the architecture. The philharmonic building typology has undergone architectural reformulation that is exceptionally radical in its unprecedented emphasis on the proximity between artist and audience – almost like a football stadium.
Urban Architecture for Lovers of Culture The new philharmonic is not just a site for music; it is a full-fledged residential and cultural complex. The concert hall, seating 2100, and the chamber music hall for 550 listeners are embedded in between luxury flats and a five-star hotel with built-in services such as restaurants, a health and fitness centre, conference facilities. Long a mute monument of the post-war era that occasionally hosted fringe events, the Kaispeicher A has now been transformed into a vibrant, international centre for music lovers, a magnet for both tourists and the business world. The Elbphilharmonie will become a landmark of the city of Hamburg and a beacon for all of Germany. It will vitalize the neighbourhood of the burgeoning HafenCity, ensuring that it is not merely a satellite of the venerable Hanseatic city but a new urban district in its own right.
The Archaic Kaispeicher The Kaispeicher A, designed by Werner Kallmorgen, was constructed between 1963 and 1966 and used as a warehouse until close to the end of the last century. Originally built to bear the weight of thousands of heavy bags of cocoa beans, it now lends its solid construction to supporting the new Philharmonic. The structural potential and strength of the old building has been enlisted to bear the weight of the new mass resting on top of it.
Our interest in the warehouse lies not only in its unexploited structural potential but also in its architecture. The robust, almost aloof building provides a surprisingly ideal foundation for the new philharmonic hall. It seems to be part of the landscape and is not yet really part of the city, which has now finally pushed forward to this location. The harbour warehouses of the 19th century were designed to echo the vocabulary of the city’s historical façades: their windows, foundations, gables and various decorative elements are all in keeping with the architectural style of the time. Seen from the River Elbe, they were meant to blend in with the city’s skyline despite the fact that they were uninhabited storehouses that neither required nor invited the presence of light, air and sun.
But not the Kaispeicher A: it is a heavy, massive brick building like many other warehouses in the Hamburg harbour, but its archaic façades are abstract and aloof. The building’s regular grid of holes measuring 50 x 75 cm cannot be called windows; they are more structure than opening.
The New Glass Building The new building has been extruded from the shape of the Kaispeicher; it is identical in ground plan with the brick block of the older building, above which it rises. However, at the top and bottom, the new structure takes a different tack from the quiet, plain shape of the warehouse below: the undulating sweep of the roof rises from the lower eastern end to its full height of 108 metres at the Kaispitze (the tip of the peninsula). The Elbphilharmonie is a landmark visible from afar, lending an entirely new vertical accent to the horizontal layout that characterises the city of Hamburg. There is a greater sense of space here in this new urban location, generated by the expanse of the water and the industrial scale of the seagoing vessels.
The glass façade, consisting in part of curved panels, some of them carved open, transforms the new building, perched on top of the old one, into a gigantic, iridescent crystal, whose appearance keeps changing as it catches the reflections of the sky, the water and the city.
The bottom of the superstructure also has an expressive dynamic. Along its edges, the sky can be seen from the Plaza through vault-shaped openings, creating spectacular, theatrical views of both the River Elbe and downtown Hamburg. Further inside, deep vertical openings provide ever-changing visual relations between the Plaza and the foyers on different levels.
Entrance and Plaza The main entrance to the Kaispeicher complex lies to the east. An exceptionally long escalator leads up to the Plaza; it describes a slight curve so that it cannot be seen in full from one end to the other. It is a spatial experience in itself; it cuts straight through the entire Kaispeicher, passing a large panorama window with a balcony that affords a view of the harbour before continuing on up to the Plaza. The latter, sitting on top of the Kaispeicher and under the new building, is like a gigantic hinge between old and new. It is a new public space that offers a unique panorama. Restaurants, bars, ticket office and hotel lobby are located here, as well as access to the foyers of the new philharmonic.
The Elbphilharmonie What kind of a space will the philharmonic be? What acoustic and architectural concerns have gone into its construction? What tradition resonates in this hall in comparison to other new locations, say, in Tokyo and Los Angeles or the ur-model in Berlin. It soon became clear that the Hamburg Philharmonic would be different from that ur-model, the Scharoun Philharmonic. The premises alone – the radical givens of the location, namely the harbour and the existing warehouse – invite change. This is a project of the 21st century that would have been inconceivable before. What has been retained is the fundamental idea of the Philharmonic as a space where orchestra and conductor are located in the midst of the audience, as it were: here the architecture and the arrangement of the tiers take their cue from the logic of the acoustic and visual perception of music, performers and audience. But that logic leads to another conclusion. The tiers are more pervasive; tiers, walls and ceiling form a spatial unity. The people, that is the combination of audience and musicians, determine the space; the space seems to consist only of people. In this respect, it resembles the typology of the football stadium that we have developed in recent years, with the goal of allowing an almost interactive proximity between audience and players. We also studied archaic forms of theatre, like Shakespeare’s Globe, with a view to exploiting the vertical dimension. The complex geometry of the hall unites organic flow with incisive, near static shape. Walking, standing, sitting, seeing, being seen, listening… all the activities and needs of people in a concert hall are explicitly expressed in the architecture of the space. This space, rising vertically almost like a tent, offers room for 2100 people to congregate for the enjoyment of making and listening to music. The towering shape of the hall defines the static structure of the entire volume of the building and is correspondingly echoed in the silhouette of the building as a whole.
Sig Nordal 