Showing character and giving direction

As an icon of Modernism, every year the Werkbund estate in Stuttgart Weissenhof attracts guests from all over the globe. For its 100th birthday, the building exhibition ensemble from 1927 is now getting a versatile reception building that will set the tone for welcoming guests to the neighbourhood.

Future visitors travelling to the Weissenhof Estate in Killesberg will recognise their destination as soon as they look out the window. In a central location between the Art Academy and the quarters for state employees, a Cubist building with a matt sheen will guide the way to Le Corbusier’s semi-detached house and ten further standardised buildings from representatives of the ›Neues Bauen‹ (›New Objectivity‹ or ›New Building‹) movement. In order to reduce the burden on the listed residential area and provide guidance and information to those arriving in the area, an invitation was extended by the City of Stuttgart, committed citizens and IBA’27 in an open international tender for building contractors to create teams of designers and engineers to work closely together to develop the public building. The winning design connects with its heterogeneous environment in an open manner. Three two-storey buildings of varying size and made from clay brickwork are enclosed by a skin of profiled glass with photovoltaic elements integrated in the façade, forming a network of versatile spaces, intermediate areas and vistas. The structure is flush with the ground and can be accessed and seen into from all sides. This invites neighbours, passers-by and anyone with an interest to convene there. While the reception and the café with ceiling-height glazing open up to the urban space, the flexible-use exhibition areas offer curated views of the academy campus to the rear and the adjacent quarter for state employees and the Weissenhof Estate. A reversible structure made from natural and recycled materials using simple and climate-friendly construction technologies, the sustainable BIZ transports the demands of Modernism for innovative ways of building into the present day and is an example of how holistically designed buildings can make our cities liveable in the future, too.

Facts and Figures

Contact

Project initiator

Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart 
Jana Schulz
IBA-Koordination 
Jana.Schulz@stuttgart.de
www.stuttgart.de/iba27  

IBA’27 Project manager

Dr. Raquel Jaureguízar