Wiesbaden is one of the few historic cities in Germany, the buildings of which were not damaged during the Second World War, due to which the appearance of its central districts is still dominated by classicist buildings of the mid-19th century. This authentic architectural environment makes Wiesbaden attractive both for tourists and for business development: there are a lot of offices, hotels, various cafes and restaurants in the city center. Naturally, the demand for parking spaces in this area is also high - since the mid-1970s, multi-level parking lots have been built on the border of the historical and modern buildings, that is, in fact, along the perimeter of the “heart” of the city. One of these complexes, located on Kulinstrasse, became the subject of an architectural competition announced at the end of last year. Its participants had to develop a project for the reconstruction of a multi-storey building and not only supplement it with new commercial functions, but also think over the solution of the facades, which would help to organically fit the volume into the existing development. The international jury found the project of BHSF Architects and Claus en Kaan Architecten the most satisfying to these requirements.
The parking lot, designed for 400 cars, is a multi-storey semi-ramp garage, that is, the difference in floor elevations in its adjacent sections is half a floor. Such a constructive scheme is optimal, if necessary, to fit the most capacious parking lot into a plot of limited area, and the authors of the project "squeezed" out of it, as they say, to the maximum. In total, there are two such sections: in one, almost square plan, the actual spiral of the ramp and a small number of parking spaces are located, and the second is completely reserved for car storage. And if the smaller section is oriented along Kulinstrasse, then the larger volume is deployed perpendicular to it and develops into the interior of the site. There is a small garden in the backyard of the complex, which can be accessed from both Kulinstrasse and the Schutzenhofstrasse parallel to it.
On the ground floor of the parking, the services of which can be used by both employees of nearby offices and tourists, there are shops - specialized automobile and everyday use. This floor has panoramic glazing, and the pylons reproduce the solemn classical rhythm of the nearest neighbors of the new building. The upper levels of the complex are designed in a completely different way. They are clad in anodized aluminum panels, each with perforation. The holes of different diameters - from three millimeters to centimeter - create the effect of an air veil, behind which the structure of the parking lot and the outlines of cars are vaguely guessed. Such a solution, according to the architects, on the one hand, emphasizes the modernity of the building and its delicacy in relation to the immediate environment, and on the other hand, ensures the continuity of generations: the reconstructed parking lot was built in the 1970s, and BHSF Architects and Claus en Kaan Architecten did not become abandon the expressive brevity of modernism, but only developed this theme.
A. M.
