LRO (Lederer + Ragnardsdottir + Oei) won the competition in 2009, the old Hospitalhof building was dismantled in 2010, and in February 2012 construction began on a new one. At a press conference dedicated to the event, Arnaud Lederer, one of the three LRO partners, noted that "the greatest challenges for architects are economic-free zones where the church or culture is represented." At the end of April 2014, the grand opening of a new cultural and educational center took place, but that's not all: the next stage of the project is ahead: the renovation of the building of the church itself. It will start in mid-2015.
The main idea of the architects of the new Hospitalhof was to organically combine a large auditorium and many smaller rooms for different purposes under one roof. The Hospitalhof (hospital courtyard) is so called because of its location in the courtyard of the Hospital Church and contains the offices of the local community of Evangelical Christians (130 workplaces), the main hall, premises for educational programs, seminars, talks, exhibitions and others. cultural events; and a cafeteria.
The courtyard of the Hospital Church in Stuttgart has existed for five hundred years: once there was a Dominican monastery, the counts of the Württemberg house organized knightly tournaments here, and after the Reformation there was a hospital. The large three-nave church of the monastery was built in the 2nd half of the 15th century, but at the end of World War II it was almost completely destroyed: only its choir and tower remained (they make up the modern church building), as well as part of the nave wall, now carefully complemented by the building LRO. This wall with high lancet windows has grown into the side facade of the new Hospitalhof, leaving the viewer able to judge the scale of the lost building.
The original Hospitalhof was built next to the church in 1961 by the architect Wolf Irion. It was "a very good example of the post-war architecture of Stuttgart", as the authors of the new building say about it, but it had to be dismantled due to its dilapidated state and the impossibility of bringing it into line with modern fire safety standards.
The LRO building has an L-shaped plan and consists of two zones, as it has two categories of "users": employees and visitors to the cultural and educational center. There are also two inputs.
The building, where the administration offices and classrooms are located, is 3-storey, while its facade is decorated with five rows of windows. The basement windows on the left side of the facade are small and square, on the right - high triangular with rounded corners and transverse binding lines. The windows of the upper floors have the usual rectangular shape, but white canopies are located above their openings, reminiscent of the rag awnings of Italian palazzo - a tribute to the warm climate of the land of Baden-Württemberg.
The facades, laid out of light bricks, according to the authors, express the idea of the “man-made” building and tactfully fit into the development of the quarter: there are many brick walls in the district. Familiar, traditional materials are also used inside the building. The interiors of classrooms and offices are as laconic as the facades: gray stone and red linoleum on the floor, plastered walls. Stairs with smooth lines of snow-white railings are reminiscent of Corbusier's interiors.
But here and there there are color and textured accents: golden wood appears in the frame of the glass doors of the entrances, and a copper insert-sign with the name of the center is installed in the corner of the building.
The northwestern façade, hiding the main hall behind it, bears a powerful plastic accent: the rows of round windows remind of the Roman tomb of the baker Eurystacus. They are equipped with rounded concrete canopies, which are effectively shifted to the right relative to the vertical axis.
Sunlight enters the main hall through the glass roof, but the ceiling here is formed by a translucent suspended structure made of wooden slats, which follows the change in the height of the room, smoothly descending towards the stage. The backdrop of the stage - the aforementioned wall with round windows - is sheathed in wood, while the windows are covered with butterfly shutters, which allows both to illuminate the stage with daylight of varying intensity, and to completely darken the hall.
The two buildings of the new building are connected by a gallery in the basement, reminiscent of the old cloisters of the monastery, from where you can go to the courtyard. It was created where the central nave of the Hospital Church used to be located, and exactly in the places where its pylons once stood, the architects planted young trees. Between these living "columns", outdoor services can be held in summer.
The implementation of the new Hospitalhof building cost 7.9 million euros. The authors of the project emphasize the benefits of the chosen architectural solution: the "closed" exterior and traditional materials instead of popular glass and metal made the construction and operation of the building much cheaper.
