Description

The Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) owns land in prime inner-city locations throughout Switzerland. In recent years, these have increasingly been developed, contributing to the densification of the urban areas around railway stations. The Meret Oppenheim High-Rise in Basel’s Gundeldingen district, known colloquially as the “Gundeli”, is another such project. The high-rise is part of the Südpark complex at the southern end of the elevated pedestrian “passarelle” at Basel railway station. In 2002 Herzog & de Meuron won the competition organised by the SBB with designs for two building plots. The first of these is the Atlas Foundation Retirement Home, which was completed in 2011.
The design concept for the Meret Oppenheim High-Rise, completed in 2016, is the product of stacking volumes of different sizes. The size and proportions of the different volumes respond to the respective needs of the programme and urban planning considerations and is intended to break down the scale of the 85 m high building. In addition, stacking the volumes produces a series of different terraces, levels, gaps and other indoor-outdoor spatial connections.
The high-rise houses a café and restaurant on the ground floor with five floors of office above, including the Basel studio of SRF Swiss Radio and Television. Floors 6 to 24 are given over to rental apartments which have their own separate means of access, independent of the office floors. On the 6th, 7th and 24th floors, the structure of stacked volumes results in large outdoor areas that serve as communal terraces for the surrounding apartments.
A system of storey-high folding and sliding shutters defines the buildings external appearance. Directly behind the shutters are balconies that, when the shutters are opened, add a sense of depth to all four sides of the building. The architects envisage that the changing pattern of open and closed shutters will erode the clarity of the precise assemblage of volumes, giving it what they describe as “a slightly fuzzy appearance”.

Originally published in Bauwelt 19.2017, pp. 44-45, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

---