Baden House

Klaus-Peter Gast

Description

The topography determines the characteristics and distribution of functions in this house Manfed Nagel designed in a small north German town. A sloping plot had become available on the edge of a former gravel pit and was released a building land. It was not subject to development regulations because of its particular topography; the architect was thus able to design freely. So among conventional, anonymous gable-roofed houses a cube in the language of classical Modernism emerged to celebrate the slope: a tower that makes living and working into a five-floor experience. Nagel places the living areas on the topmost level, which has the best view of the town and the lake. This key topmost level is linked with the entrance storey and the kitchen/dining area by an air space and a two-storey terrace incision into the body of the building. At the bottom a bridge links the building with its surroundings.

The incision with protruding balcony suggests magnanimity and opens up the interior space wide into the countryside through glazed areas. Here the planes combine in the vertical, so that a sophisticated interplay of spaces is created with air spaces, gallery and outward-thrusting balcony. The bedrooms are placed on the floor immediately below. The architect skilfully glosses over the five storeys: two dominant, calm apertures in the façade create an impression that there are two storeys only, both in the upper part of the building and also on the bottom two levels with the work zone and its air space linking up with the loggia on the garden level below. It is not least this contradictory quality that makes the building so attractive, and also reduces its height visually in a very pleasant way.