The office building ‘SCALA’ at Stuttgart’s ‘Kleiner Schlossplatz’ is an element of the urbanistic reorganisation of the city between Kanzleistrasse and Bolzstrasse. The new building forms an ensemble with the new Museum of Art and the Königsbau Passage. It is divided into two parts, which precisely shape the square with their clear forms: Firstly, a six-storey slim rectangular volume at the Fürstenstrasse, secondly a five-storey triangular volume between Theodor-Heuss-Strasse and Friedrichstrasse, reaching partly under the first volume. The angled shape of the floor plan defines the eastern street space, which leads the pedestrians directly to the Schlossplatz, passing the Museum of Art on the way.
The clear urbanistic composition contains a complex inner structure: the building was put up on an existing traffic tunnel and the underground parts of the new museum of art. These areas, where the museum and the office building overlap, making a combination of different uses: Therefore it is possible to use the triangular volume of the SCALA for the museum’s administration, workshops and storerooms, having the benefits of separating different functions without lacking a direct connection to the exhibition spaces. The overlap was used in the building’s structure as well: the high reinforced concrete planes serve as exhibition walls in the underground floors of the museum and at the same time structurally bear the weight of the six-storey office building.
The façade is entirely transparent on the ground floor, which contains spaces for retail trade. On the upper storeys it is made of natural stone, structured through differently arranged window formats based on a grid of 1.4 meters. Because of the open design of the floor plans, the inner space can be divided flexibly into different units.The corner of the building is accentuated by a four-storey horizontal glass façade which marks the northern access to the square. Several arcades, which follow the existing urban axis, form important connections between the surrounding parts of the city.
| SCALA Office Building Stuttgart (D) building costs approx. 15 million EUR start of construction 2003 completion 2005 floor area 14,500 sqm
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