Tower and bolt

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Tower and Riegel (also standing and lying tower ) was an architectural project ventilated by the architectural office Coop Himmelblau in the 1990s for the Mariahilfer Platzl in Vienna . The architecture of the unrealized project is assigned to deconstructivism .

Project idea and public discussion

The plan to set an urban accent on the funnel-shaped bulge of Mariahilfer Strasse in the area of ​​the intersection with the Gürtel near the Westbahnhof was gladly taken up by the media in the 1990s. Articles on the project “Tower and Riegel” were published in the entire Wiener Tagespresse on September 21, 1993, in the Kronenzeitung on June 21, 1994, in Der Standard on February 12, 1995, in Die Presse on January 10, 2000, and in Der Standard from January 15, 2001. This architectural punctuation on one of the city's distinctive traffic junctions was discussed for around a decade and made the name “Tower and Riegel” very well known in Vienna.

The project

On November 6, 1998, after long planning and discussion of the exact location , the Vienna City Council carried out the necessary rededication of the public property. The realization of “Tower and Riegel” at Mariahilfer Platzl was now within reach. There was unanimous approval for the project in the Mariahilf district council .

Coop Himmelblau planned an ensemble consisting of an approximately 70 m high, slender tower to which a roughly 80 m long, two-storey cube , the "bar", was to be attached. This structure was to be led across the square at a height of around four meters on supporting elements and accommodate catering facilities. Just like the “Riegel”, the “Tower” should also have a transparent facade. A complex lighting system inside the tower should also create a lighting effect on the square with different colored light depending on the time of day.

The failure

Various investors were named, but the project ultimately remained an undeveloped Vienna . The deconstructivist project ultimately failed due to funding. There would have been too little commercial exploitation opportunities for the investors (the advertising space would have been too expensive, the usable space too little). The planned construction company Porr founded the Turm und Riegel Gebäude Projektentwicklungs- und Verwertungsgesellschaft mbH with the building contractor Anton Kallinger-Prskawetz , but did not find enough sponsors for the project, the cost of which was recently given as eleven million euros.

At the end of 2004, the option to conclude a building rights contract between the City of Vienna and the property developer expired. In 2006 a new architectural competition for the Mariahilfer Platzl was launched. The investments by the city administration for the redesign of the approximately 4,000 square meter square were limited to 600,000 euros. On September 20, 2007, the renovation work began according to the much simpler design result of the competition - it provided for the erection of numerous red masts as outstanding elements - and on May 5, 2008 the newly designed square was opened.

Media coverage

In contrast to other Viennese tower and high-rise buildings such as the reading tower in the Museum Quarter , the project not only found international recognition, but also widespread approval across the political party landscape and the population. An essential condition for this, however, was private funding, which ultimately could not be raised:

  • COOP Himmelblau at "Mariahilfer Platzl". City hall correspondence Vienna, September 20, 1993, accessed on April 29, 2009 : “In order to do justice to the importance of this square, an architectural symbol should now be set here. The object planned by COOP Himmelblau and the architect Neumann was therefore primarily designed to be effective in terms of urban space. […] Tower and transom represent an important sign of orientation for the local urban area and are intended to promote the uniqueness of this area "
  • Mariahilf on course for the future: two glass towers as the new landmark of Mariahilf. City hall correspondence Vienna, November 6, 1995, accessed on April 29, 2009 : “A specific urban development project through which Mariahilf is to receive its own landmark is the glass tower on Mariahilfer Platzl. The landmark, designed by the architects COOP-Himmelblau / Neumann & Partner, consists of a standing and a lying tower and is to contain shops, a restaurant and a bar. The space is intended for a market as well as for events. The developer for this project is KAWOG, construction could start in 1996 "
  • New ideas for Mariahilfer Platzl. City hall correspondence Vienna, February 1, 1996, retrieved on April 29, 2009 : “Swoboda emphasized that the Mariahilfer Platzl location as an entrance gate to Mariahilfer Strasse, for which COOP-Himmelblau (Wolf PRIX, Helmut SWICZINSKY) and Heinz NEUMANN already have one There is a design suggestion that could be an optimal place for such a megastore of the future "
  • Judith Eiblmayr: Mariahilfer Blues. About the "conscious failure to design" and the "conscious punctuation" in the wrong place. Retrieved on April 29, 2009 : “Coop Himmelblau were commissioned to give the“ Platzl ”and thus actually the entire previously discussed area belt, Europaplatz etc. a specific character. Your project looks like that at the upper end, at the intersection of the belts, you put a huge tower with a square floor plan, which is primarily intended to be used as an advertising medium; only the top three floors could be used as a café bar. Positioned on this spot, the tower would be visible from afar from all directions and would make a striking urban statement. Following the course of Mariahilfer Straße towards the city center, there would be an inclined, three-storey block in which, in addition to subway and underground car park exits, shops and cafes are also housed. The resulting space between the tower, the transom and the houses of the "Platzl" should serve as a communicative public space with a small stand market "
  • Martha Karner: Mariahilfer Strasse is being redesigned. WirtschaftsBlatt , March 18, 2000, accessed on April 29, 2009 : “In late autumn, construction will start on the tower and bar project planned by the architects Coop Himmelblau several years ago. The futuristic steel and glass construction will be realized at Mariahilfer Platzl (across from Westbahnhof) "
  • FPÖ wants to build a bridge between “Mariahilfer Platzl” and Westbahnhof. City hall correspondence Vienna, July 7, 2002, accessed on April 29, 2009 : "In order to realize this project, it is necessary to start a planning project that has been in existence for more than 10 years (Turm & Riegel project by COOP-Himmelb (l) au) to be revised and to be supplemented by a bridge construction that leads over the Sechshauser belt to the Westbahnhof. "

literature

  • A lighthouse for city pirates. The lying and the standing tower, Vienna . In: Architektur Aktuell . 27/1993, No. 163/164, 1993, ISSN  0570-6602 , pp. 46-48.
  • Liesbeth Waechter-Böhm: Is Vienna going international? Vienna remains Vienna . In: Stadtbauwelt - special issue of the building world . 85/1995, No. 24, 1995, ISSN  0005-6855 , pp. 1346-1353.
  • Tower and bolt on Mariahilfer Platz in Vienna, Austria In: Neuer Städtebau. Train stations, squares, residential and commercial areas. New urban development . Kärmer, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 978-3-7828-3178-9 , p. 24f.
  • Frank Werner: Covering + Exposing. The architecture by Coop Himmelb (l) au . Birkhäuser, Basel 2000, ISBN 978-3-7643-6075-7 .
  • Vienna Architecture Talks . Ed. Municipal Department 18, Urban Development and Planning. Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-902015-13-6 .
  • Frank Kaltenbach: Will Vienna stay Vienna? - Urban redevelopment for the 21st century . In: Detail 41/2001, No. 6, 2001, ISSN  0011-9571 , pp. 1020-1025.
  • Dirk Baecker: The city needs new promenades . In: Topos . 2002, No. 41, ISSN  0942-752X , pp. 46-50.
  • Peter Noever, Jeffrey Kipnis, Sylvia Lavin: Coop Himmelb (l) au. Beyond the blue . Prestel, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-7913-3962-7 .
  • Andrea Nussbaum: Coop Himmelb (l) au: “Beyond the Blue” Building in the real world . In: Architektur Aktuell . 2008, No. 1/2, ISSN  0570-6602 , pp. 12-14.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wien-heute.at: New ideas for Mariahilfer Platzl urgently sought
  2. ↑ Competition announcement of July 17, 2006 (PDF file; 178 kB)
  3. ↑ web23.at: Zahnstocherplatzl  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Photos)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.web23.at  
  4. ↑ ORF Vienna: Mariahilfer Platzl officially opened (picture)

Web links

  • Meeting of the Vienna City Council. City hall correspondence Vienna, December 11, 2000, accessed on April 29, 2009 : "Necessary contracts for the" Tower and Bar Project "in Mariahilf are pending resolution"