OLD & NEW
CAFETERIA IN THE ZEUGHAUS RUIN
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FROM OBSTACLE TO CONNECTING LINK
At the beginning of the 1970s, the The matter-of-fact manner in city planned to construct two vowhich the city of Kassel went cational schools on the Zeughaus about demolishing the extersite. For one of them, the Max nal walls of its war-damaged, Eyth School, two-thirds of the historical armory—known as the long, rectangular building was Zeughaus—is appalling from todemolished. After the compleday’s perspective : Photos from tion of both schools, four-story 1972 show an excavator ripping A NEW CAFETERIA IN KASSEL’S ZEUGHAUS RUIN classroom blocks were attached into the meter-thick walls—it KASSEL BUILDING DEPARTMENT, to the corner section of the ruis hard to believe that, not all PROF. HANS-JOACHIM NEUKÄTER in on two sides. “ They probably that long ago, the demolition of would have liked to tear down the a Renaissance building was still entire ruin,” comments architect the order of the day. Hans-Joachim Neukäter, in retOn March 1, 1582, Landgrave rospect, about the decision to Wilhelm IV laid the four cornerstones of the Zeughaus, in which the city’s arsenal of weapons retain a portion. “Actually, the ruin was even more disruptive at that was housed. “ The building, whose considerable dimensions are point. It blocked the connection between the two wings!” highlighted in older descriptions, shall be on plan a rectangle of However, awareness of the city’s architectural heritage had grown. 96.80 meters long and 21.80 meters wide, ” according to a his- In 1991, Kassel citizens founded an association with the goal of preserving the ruin and giving it a new use. Association members torical source. freed the overgrown inner area of debris and financed the refurbishment of the external PROJECT DATA LONGITUDINAL SECTION THROUGH THE OLD ARMORY AND THE CAFETERIA with the floors of the vocational school on the right walls with donations. In order to achieve per- Client Kassel municipal administration costs EUR 1.14 M manent use of the building, Hans-Joachim Construction Usable floor area 257 m2 Neukäter, director of the municipal build- GFA 305 m2 ing department, presented a design that Feature The new building is glazed received unanimous consent and was ulti- all around ; the shell construction to 80% of the total built mately realized : A cafeteria, missing from corresponds volume. the school until now, was to be integrated Completion 12 / 2008 into the ruin. The newly created space is at Project management / team Claus the disposal of the vocational students and Wienecke, Margitta Heidenreich Location Artilleriestraße / corner of is also available for public events. Zeughausstraße, D–34125 Kassel The architect describes his concept as folYear of construction 1582 lows : “ Inside and outside correspond to old and new. The outside is sturdy, the inside 1000 2010 10 m is fragile. This gave birth to the idea of in- Conversion 2008 tegrating a glass object into the ruin, one 2010 that does not restrict the space or make it 2000 2 Construction costs Price per m smaller, and does not compete with the imFLOOR PLAN AND FUNCTIONAL ZONES OF THE CAFETERIA 4,436 € posing appearance of the remaining outer 1.14 M € 15,000 walls. Three horizontal layers characterize 10,000 the design concept : Level 1 of the cafeteria ( ground floor ), which lies half a meter 5,000 I above the former floor, the set-back mezG 0 zanine level above, and the roof slab. Level 1 and the mezzanine level connect the two H classroom wings, accommodate their differences in height, and are G enveloped solely by a transparent glass and steel construction. ” Neukäter consciously chose a mezzanine instead of a second full E F story so the inserted new building remains as light as possible and permits, from nearly every point, a view of the fieldstone masonry B C D of the external walls—which he perceives as the real shell of the building. The architect folded the thermal envelope at the top of the building to the inside, again with the goal of interrupting the view of the external walls as little as possible. The few direct points of contact between the masonry ruins and the new building have been A detailed meticulously. The unbuilt-upon part of the ruin above the 10 m cafeteria terrace is now once again accessible. Structurally, the building’s foundation slab rests on grillage supported by bored piles. The historical floor, made of large format, 15 cm A West building D Terrace G Equipment room B Storage E Kitchen H Electric room thick sandstone slabs, lies 60 cm below the terrazzo floor of the C Cafeteria F Zeughaus ruin I South building new building—the present ground floor—and remains untouched. Integrated underfloor heating makes additional heating elements In the Second World War, Kassel was the target of aerial attacks superfluous. The number of columns carrying the reinforced conby the Allies ; following bombing in 1943, the Zeughaus was gutted crete slabs for the mezzanine and the roof has been reduced to a by fire—only its external walls remained. In the following decades, minimum. The exterior enclosure is formed by triple glazing supthe shell deteriorated and became overgrown. Alongside plans to ported by a delicately profiled post-and-rail construction. reconstruct the building as Kassel’s museum of local history, for The cafeteria and the ruin complement each other while maintainsome time consideration was given to using it as a parking garage. ing their own identities. That’s the way the landmark preservation office also saw it, giving the design concept its full support. FPJ Ultimately, though, none of the plans were pursued further.
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25.8.2010 18:19:07