Description

The offices of the district authority in Neustadt an der Waldnaab are in the historic Neue Schloss, a castle built for the Bohemian Lobkowitz nobility in 1684 by the Ticines master builder Antonio Porta next to the earlier Alte Schloss, built some 200 years previously. It defines the east edge of the town square and stands opposite the town hall and church on the other side. From the town square, however, one does not see that it is just one part of a planned H-shaped complex. Bruno Fioretti Marquez’s new extension to the east of the Neue Schloss therefore builds on a prior plan, and indeed it replaces an earlier building from 1972 that no longer met modern requirements, both spatially and technically.

The most dramatic view of the new extension is seen from Knorrstrasse as one approaches the town. The extension, in stark exposed concrete, picks up the height of the plinth of the Neue Schloss and traces the former course of the wall around the town while also recalling the ancillary outbuildings of the castle that once stood there. The original competition design had a regular pattern of punched windows, but the realised design opted instead for fewer but large openings that reinforce the massive character of the wall. The low height of the extension allows the castle to remain visible behind it as the welcoming signal. Turning left down the hill, the concrete wall acquires the height of a full building. The road is so steep that wall is three storeys high by the time one reaches the next corner. The wall also acquires a new character with larger, landscape-format timber windows. The concept of the extension, however, only becomes apparent on passing through the shortcut to the town square between the castle and new building: one suddenly sees a broad, amphitheatre-like courtyard that terraces down a further storey, and indeed has already been used as a venue for concerts.

Arranged around the courtyard are one hundred individual or two-person offices behind a regular grid of delicately articulated larch-wood windows, which recall the elegance of 1950s office buildings. The contrast between the interior and exterior is as marked as it is surprising, both in terms of materiality and openness and in scale. The floor plan has a single corridor running around the outer wall and is free of columns. The walls between the offices are placed directly on the screed and can be removed and reconfigured should needs change in future. The building has one further surprise in store, aside from the courtyard: The “town wall” on the very east edge of the extension is designed as a thick wall that houses not just the ancillary spaces but also a long, single-flight staircase that descends into the depths. Its top lighting and concrete shell create a powerful spatial impression more evocative of a sacred space or museum than the offices of the local authority.

Originally published in Bauwelt 8.2020, pp. 30-35, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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