Seven workshops - UNStudio, FOA, Neutelings Riedijk, NL Architects, Zaha Hadid, Wiel Arets and Erik van Egeraat - took part in the competition for a new cultural and social center, which should appear near the central square of Grothemarkt.
The townspeople could vote for this or that option in person at the exhibition of projects or via the Internet online. In total, 21.5 thousand residents of the 180-thousand city (that is, more than 10% of the total number of citizens, or even a large part, if we count only adults), exercised their right to vote. In all groups of the population - and in general in the final vote count - the Amsterdam bureau NL Architects won with the support of 25.1% of voters. The second and third places were also taken by Dutch workshops - Erik van Egeraat (22.9%) and Neutelings Riedijk (18.6%).
The task of the competition was to create a space for communication and meetings, an information and entertainment center for citizens - "Groningen Forum". The construction site will be the inner part of the block on the eastern side of the central city square. The building was supposed to be 33-45 meters high. The contestants were asked to focus on the Pompidou Center in Paris, but the organizers demanded "even greater explosive power" from their projects.
The winners, NL Architects, see the future "Forum" as a slender, elongated volume. Two new city squares will appear on the front sides at its foot. The center of the building will be the atrium, the glass walls of which will “cut through” its main facades; it will open the way for sunlight to the interior of the building and connect the individual functional areas. According to the architects, its broken forms should become a new symbol of the city, and the atrium itself should receive the status of a kind of "vertical square".
