PUBLIC SQUARE AND GARAGE COURTHOUSE ST.PÖLTEN

Competition 1st Prize, general planning commission

Location: St.Pölten, Austria

Program: Public space, Garage

Status: Completion 2010

Size: 1.729 m2 garage + square

Budget: 8 M € (including building)

Client: BIG Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H., Bundesministerium für Justiz

Architecture: Christian Kronaus, Erhard An-He Kinzelbach

Team: Sigrid Müller-Welt, Lukas Staudinger, Manuela Wind, Jakub Smagacz

General planner: ARGE Vasko+Partner Engineers and Kronaus Kinzelbach Architects

Consultants: Virtual DynamiX/ Michael Lisner (Visualisation), Ing. Purker (Fire code consultant), Prof. Würger (Soil consultant)

The courthouse St. Pölten (Lower-Austria) asked for a building extension to house the higher regional court, district court and the state proscecutor’s office. In addition, it required a redesign of the representative public square in front of the historic courthouse building with a new parking garage underneath.

The historic courthouse is a landmarked building with three floors. A key challenge in the design of the extension was to find a solution that would respect the historical context and coherently connect old and new while, at the same time, treating the new building as a structure in its own right, rather than as a mere annex. The mediation between old and new was expected to function not only in formal terms but also on a spatial and organizational level. In particular, it was necessary to develop a system that would efficiently connect the three storeys in the courthouse building with the five storeys in the new building while, at the same time, mediating between the different ceiling heights.

The new design of the square in front of the historic building was meant to replace a previously hardly used forecourt, offering the city a new, attractive and programmed public space of urban quality and intensity.

PERFORMATIVE URBAN FIELD:

The square in front of the historic courthouse doubles as the roof of the parking garage underneath and can thus be interpreted as the fifth facade. The zoning of this fifth facade is based on a projection of the historic facade, and materializes on the square through a grid of urban furniture. The pieces are of various heights according to their differing uses as benches, planters, and ventilation elements. The formerly determined forecourt with parking spaces transforms into a less determined and open field of urban furnitures that cater to more different uses and modes of appropriation. This renders the space as a lively, activated and differentiated urban public space as a place to stay, while it does not compromise on the given requirements for circulation and accessibilty.