Four buildings with offices, apartments and shops on the ground floors are located in the heart of the medieval university town of Jena in Thuringia. It is known as the birthplace of Karl Zeiss and his famous company, which still plays an important role in the life of the entire city. Nevertheless, they are solved in the signature angular-futuristic manner of Jurgen Mayer, who has his own views on the ways of interaction of modern architecture with the historical environment. The project started back in 2008 (we wrote about it in the article "On the scale of the old city") and cost the customer, the housing cooperative Carl Zeiss, 16 million euros.
The complex shapes of the volumes from 5 to 7 floors and a total area of 9555 m2 are precisely inscribed in the existing quarter in their dimensions and form a small courtyard, which fully corresponds to the spirit of the old city. The architects placed a parking lot under it. The side slopes of the upper part of the volumes, although asymmetrical, are also designed to maintain a visual connection with the surrounding buildings. You can enter the buildings directly from the courtyard level, and two of the buildings on the second floor level and above are connected by a passage, forming a narrow passage outside the territory. All this helped to create a very chamber-like environment, more than adequate to the place.
Nevertheless, the whole complex is deliberately modern and frankly alien to the historical city. Roof slopes, for example, are supported by sloping walls at the bottom of buildings. They form a harsh and complex space of the courtyard and passageways, not too readable from afar, but obvious from up close. And the white, plastered facades of the buildings (also seemingly quite a traditional solution) are broken by dark gray aluminum inserts in the form of irregular hexagons. These complex geometric “shadows” accentuate the window and door openings and then “crawl” onto the paving of the courtyard, forming small green areas with built-in benches.
