An 85-meter tower with apartments, studios and technical equipment for Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), Switzerland's largest German-speaking media holding, has emerged south of Basel Station. This site is owned by SBB, the Swiss Federal Railways, one of the country's largest landowners. Back in 2002, following the results of the competition, they attracted the architects Herzog & de Meuron to design the Südpark complex nearby, and now the turn has come to the territory on the other side of the powerful "bridge" - the passage according to the Cruz y Ortiz project, thrown across the paths from the station to the southern part cities.
The silver-gray "Meret Oppenheim high-rise building" is named after the artist, a prominent representative of surrealism, as it stands on the street named after her. But this summer, next to the tower opened and
Oppenheim Square with a fountain, also designed by Herzog & de Meuron: a more "personal" gesture of respect for the author of the Fur Tea Appliance.
To the north of the tower are the railway station tracks, to the south there is an area of dense medium- and low-rise buildings. Its significant volume is specially divided into several smaller ones, which, in turn, are crushed further. The surfaces of the facades are enlivened by a variety of platforms and terraces, both private and public. The apartments are protected from the sun by folding and sliding screens that hide balconies. Thus, the facades have depth and the ability to constantly change: it is enough for this or that tenant to open or close the "blinds".
The Meret Oppenheim Hochhaus on the ground floor contains a café and restaurant to liven up the street front. Above are the five floors of the SRF media holding, and then there are 153 apartments ranging from one to five bedrooms. The total area of the building is over 30 thousand m2.
