Faculty Of Design Pforzheim
- locationPforzheim
- year2010
- clientHBA Pforzheim
- BGF1.250 m2
- BRI5.300 m3
Annex faculty building
The Faculty for Design at the University of Pforzheim is located in a listed Art Nouveau building of the former Grand Ducal School of Fine Arts at Holzgartenstrasse 36. The building, which dates from 1922, and which remained uncompleted even during the initial building project, is rounded off with an urban tower. The simple new building confidently complements the original Jugendstil structure.
The finely articulated façades of the existing building had to be developed further to connect them with the south-facing garden courtyard. The unity and weight of the street façades are integrated into the existing materiality of the old building with large-scale sandstone slabs. Small, square casement windows divide the severe punctuated façade.
The final level, facing the courtyard with a second delicate wire mesh layer, splits and mediates between the smooth, hard glass surface and the desired permeability of the rooms facing the courtyard. The new building translates these two sides of the architecture of the adjacent Jugendstil building into a new language with its relationship between severity and lightness, closedness and openness.
