Description

The site occupies the northeast corner of the Belvedere Quarter closest to the city. The new commercial district is built on what was once part of the Südbahnhof, the city’s southern railway terminal and its extensive freight loading yards, which were closed to make way for Vienna’s new main railway station. On the southern side of the railway tracks that cross the site diagonally is the new Sonnenwend-Quarter while to the north, the site is bounded by the broad trunk road of the Wiedner Gürtel and to the east by Prinz-Eugen-Strasse with the park of the Schweizergarten extending behind it.

Two premises determined the form of the buildings: the entrance level should be predominantly open to the public and the offices for the group’s 5000 staff members should open onto the surrounding outside areas. The architects Henke Schreieck responded by creating a two-storey base out of which three slender, up to twelve-storey-high volumes rise that seem frozen in a turning motion. A total of 117,000 m² gross floor area are housed within these volumes that appear to arc and turn playfully but are, of course, meticulously planned. The ambivalence of their forms, neither perimeter block nor freestanding towers, ensures that all the offices within the glazed blocks enjoy a view of their surroundings. Two of the campus wings effortlessly guide visitors coming from the city or from the main railway station towards the main entrance.

In the centre of the campus is an atrium that is surprisingly open and airy thanks to the two adjoining open courtyards cut into the two-storey base and the delicate stairs and galleries that overlook it. From here one can catch a glance of the garden higher up on the roof of the base building and, in contrast to the initial plan, is accessible only to the campus staff. Designed by local landscape architects Maria Auböck and János Kárász, it represents a buffer between the broad expanse of the base and slender glass volumes that rise above it, and also as an extension of the Schweizergarten. The fusion of the open spaces within and beyond the campus creates an intentional sense of ambivalence that corresponds to its urban figure, which has no front or back. The interior design concept is equally compelling in its clarity. The use of wood in the facade of the building also lends the building a haptic quality. The frame structure made of larch is visible through the frameless glass surface and exudes a sense of warmth both inside and out without ever appearing artificial or unnatural, especially given the considerable size of the 40,000 m² of facade surface.

On the office floors, the workspace is so radically redefined that one would not guess one is in a bank. Aside from the lift and stair cores, the floors can be completely freely organised. The Berlin office of Kinzo developed a concept for the interiors that creates differently designed open work areas.

That this conceptual approach is equally compelling in reality shows once again that the abstract, in this case the building forms, and the traditional – in the choice and articulation of materials – can complement each other perfectly and taken together stimulate something that architecture only rarely achieves: movement.

Originally published in Bauwelt 26.2016, pp. 24-31, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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