Sandwiched between two buildings of different proportions, design and height, the new building was intended to occupy a mediating position. The new building had become necessary because the existing building was dilapidated and impossible to preserve. However, the façade was pretty, not to say funny: In the 1920s, the architects Curjel and Moser had taken on the task of cladding two buildings with a continuous façade. The base area was made of polished black natural stone and a curved gable. Götz Werner started his business in this building with the first dm drugstore.
The new building is not only intended to achieve a transition between the two scales of the neighbouring buildings, but also to remind us of the strangeness of the old house and the history associated with it. The height graduation is based on the superimposition of the horizontal lines of the adjacent building to the right and left. The arch shape of the large house is continued in a modified form, but not in the direct form. The vertical was folded in order to achieve a spatial view and thus a relief situation on the street side.
The entire façade facing the public space consists of very precisely manufactured precast concrete elements. These are colored in a light sand tone, because we wanted a transition to the former bank building, which was built of sandstone. The profiled arches are divided into individual, two-storey reinforced concrete elements. The executing company Hemmerlein has understood how to move these parts together with the prefabricated parts of the upper floors very precisely. This makes the façade appear almost jointless.
The façade of the upper floors is provided with perforated windows for reasons of urban design. Since continuous ribbon windows are actually better for lighting the upper floors, additional intermediate windows are made of glass that has preserved the colour of the concrete surface. The fact that these windows are translucent can only be seen in the evening hours, when the interior lighting backlights these panes.
Of course, architecturally speaking, the concrete façade was the most demanding part of the planning. However, the theme of concrete continues in the entrance hall and the stairwells. There, the staircases are also designed as prefabricated elements in white concrete. The shop operators as well as the tenants of the offices on the upper floors have also kept the concrete visible in places.
Source: LRO Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei GmbH & Co. KG
Photos: Lederer Ragnarsdóttir Oei
