Karlsruhe is an ideal city of the 18th century in terms of layout: a circle divided into 32 sectors, and in the center is the ruler's palace. In this respect, it is also an absolutist city, where it is immediately clear to whom all power belongs. The architects of MVRDV proposed in their project an alternative to such monocentricity, placing on the via triumphalis, which runs from the palace, a "triumphal road", as in Ancient Rome - a floating mirror volume of a public forum and a hotel, on the roof of which a garden is laid out - as divided into sectors as itself Karlsruhe. The panorama of the city will open from the garden no worse than from the windows of the palace, and the mirrored "bottom" of the building will reflect the views of those who were too lazy to get up and stayed on the ground.
This structure, which both the authors and the press compare with a UFO, is the main difference between the Rotterdam bureau project and Max Dudler, who shared the first place with them: you can see its version
here and here. The city authorities considered their proposals to be close enough to "overlap" and eventually create a "framework" for competition tasks for specific objects.
If we return to the MVRDV project, then it is conceived as balancing the contrast of the northern and southern parts of the original city plan: the north is parks and forests, the south is dense buildings. The Ettlinger Tor district, which was the subject of the completed competition, is stretched along the central axis from the castle to the south, its center is the square of the same name, where the city gate once stood.
It is above it that they plan to hang a mirrored forum, and the adjacent quarters will be occupied with four-storey, low - like in the north - buildings, but vast, with gardens on the roofs connected by bridges and stairs. This is how the architects will bring the “northern” greenery to the southern half of Karlsruhe. All existing trees will be preserved: for this purpose, indents from the red line are provided. Reinforced landscaping will help cool the city during the warmer months.
Additional streets and numerous courtyards will provide a comfortable environment, and the front square in front of the late modernist Baden Theater, which is not at all ceremonial in architecture, will be preserved.
But the authors of the masterplan also remember the density that provides liveliness to the centers of historic cities: they propose a series of positions for the construction of residential high-rise buildings. In their opinion, the tower of the district government can also be turned into a multi-apartment building, which can freely move to a new low-rise headquarters or even to the top of the mirror forum, taking the place of a garden.
