The castle over the Neckar River is one of the most popular attractions in Germany: every year it is visited by a million tourists. With such activity, the construction of a visitor center has become an urgent need; Dudler won the competition for his project in 2009.
The building is located at the main entrance to the castle; the inconvenient shape of the site forced the architect to make the building narrow and elongated in length. Outside, the walls are faced with local red sandstone (the castle was also built from it); its rough surface and masked seams between the blocks give the impression of a monolith. The thickness of the walls reminds of the fortifications: the slopes of the window openings exceed 2 m in depth. But such a solution is not only a spectacular formal device: stairs and various niches are hidden in the thickness of the outer walls: for shelves, showcases, and seats. As a result, the premises of the center themselves remained vacant, which is also important due to the large flow of visitors.
The interior, in contrast to the austere exterior, is "smoothed": walls and ceilings covered with white plaster, gray terrazzo floors, doors and furniture made of cherry wood.
The route through the visitor center has been made as simple as possible: a lobby, a museum and educational area, a rooftop terrace overlooking the castle, an external staircase leading along the rear facade - and tourists can follow their destination - to the castle complex.
Heidelberg Castle was founded in the 13th century, but its surviving parts belong to the best monuments of the German Renaissance and early Baroque. The complex itself, which was partially destroyed more than once during the Thirty Years' War and later, was finally abandoned in the 18th century.
N. F.
