Two new houses, together with two neat old buildings, form a "built-in solitaire" that expands the block town, but also asserts itself as an independent building. We were able to verify this intention of the architects a year ago. Also the effect of the ornamented window frames made of architectural bronze, which takes up the splendour of the hundred-year-old office buildings within the otherwise functional facades: Yes, we saw a restrained yet rich urban component. Today, after being occupied by several cantonal offices, it is also possible to assess the spatial continuum to which the four buildings merge inside. In the competition, which took place ten years ago, this was the crux of the matter: How do I connect the different levels of the buildings? How do I organize access to areas as diverse as the Road Traffic Office and the counters of the Migration Office? How do I ensure the safety of employees? The answer to all these questions was provided by a new staircase that replaces the two old ones. As a spatially open center, it creates orientation right up to the farthest aisle. Its lattice bars made of yellow galvanized steel shine golden. They enclose the atrium in the stairwell and separate the staircases of different lengths and the two glass lifts from the entrance room of the floors. The simple rotation of the steel strips refines the cheap material and allows the daylight from the roof opening to flow through all eight floors. Chrome-plated bird-like objects hang in the atrium and additionally reflect the light. The materialization of the other rooms is much more restrained. The architects confidently capture the "Wilhelminian temperament" of the houses: dark terrazzo, untreated oak for doors, windows and skirting boards, smoked oak for furniture and fixtures, dark linoleum on the office floors, frosted glass with ornament on the counters. Also with the walls of the entrance rooms below and the canteen at the top under the roof painted in dark shades. From the large roof terrace, the view extends over the whole of St. Gallen – but who leaves such rooms voluntarily?
Source: Hochparterre
Photos: Hanspeter Schiess for the Canton of St. Gallen
