RUDOLPHSPLATZ REMODELING MARBURG, DE 2011
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Restricted urban design ideas competition. Team: D.Figa,O. Chatzopoulou. Collaboration: K.Katsika
2nd Prize
The Rudolphsplatz is an important node between the Lahn river and the historic core of Marburg, surrounded by emblematic structures like the gothic University, the Herrenmühle, and the old Weiden-häuser Bridge. Today the site is cut off from its surrounding by a major traffic crossing and is accessible just by a dark underground passage.
The task of the competition was the remodeling/ rearrangement of the square and its immediate surrounding with the aim to enable and improve the overall accessibility on foot, to enrich the functions reusing the existing historical buildings and to reestablish the particular significance of the Rudolphsplatz for the city of Marburg.
The participants were asked to evaluate, whether the upgrading of the urban space could be achieved by exclusively landscape design operations or with additional building mass.
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In our proposal, a striking, tall building -the new public library of Marburg- aims to reassemble the broken urban fabric and to shape, to redefine the square as a public hub. The tower is standing at the point where the historic bridge is dipping into the urban fabric, at the main axis leading to the old city core. The volume gets into dialogue with its surrounding, creating visual and literal connections: with the dramatic structure of the gothic University, with the historical bridge, the river, and the cityscape. Its shape arises from the development and transformation of the geometry of the medieval roofscape of Marburg.
The square, connected now essentially with the river, expands to a long linear promenade along the shore. The existing historical building at its left is restored, reused and extended, creating an urban front at the river. Through the rearrangement of the vehicular circulation and slight corrections at street level, the square is fully accessible above ground and the city is connected again with the shore and the water.