BEIC
TYPOLOGY: Cultural
COUNTRY: Italy
CITY: Milan
YEAR: (final design 2005)
COMPETITION: Invited Competition 2001, 1st Prize
GFA: 83.000 sqm
CLIENT: Fondazione BEIC, Milan
COLABORATORS: ati BEIC Milan: BOLLES+WILSON with ahw Ingenieure and alterstudio partners
PHOTOS MODEL: © Tomasz Sameck
MEDIA: 900.000 books, 150.000 audio-visual media, 3.500 user seats
The BEIC is in the state of becoming. It already exists on the agendas of countless participating planners, librarians, expertly shepherding clients, politicians, Milanese and other future users. As the planning steadily marches through preliminare, definitivo and on to esecutivo phases, expectations multiply (optimism is contagious) and the physical character, the individuality, the unique spaces of this exceptional endeavour come ever more sharply into focus. Despite the grand scale the building conjures a certain intimacy for individual users. It invents an entirely new constellation of the ‘house of knowledge’, where digital ephemerality cohabits with our old friend the book. The emerging BEIC remains true to the concept that won the architectural competition. Within this architectural and organisational framework countless refinements have been invented (terracotta facade, the bar-chart-acoustically-absorptive interior panelling) and significant opportunities like the earthquake resistant wave-like ceilings have been identified and integrated.
Urban Concept – The site is linear, as is the remembered trajectory of the Stazione Vittoria. The BEIC’s two doors address the east (the centre of Milan, Viale Umbria) and the west (new subway exit, Viale Mugello and the new sport and recreation landscape beyond). An east-west pedestrian walkway runs not parallel to but through the BEIC – urban networking.
A 36 m high Urban Landmark – A vessel of culture and information, invitation, frame and enabler to multiple passages and trajectories. Entrance ramps fold surrounding pavements up to the +5.00 piazza, entrances and lobby. Reading arms extend out from the main volume.
Windows like that to the main elevator lobby on axis with the Via Vertoiba, tie through framed views the interior back into the urban context.
The terraces of the various departments frame a communicative forum, a landscape of knowledge. Reading salons nestled into the sidewalls of the frame or balcony edge desks offer a wide variety of working atmospheres. Warm acoustically absorptive materials provide the required library ambience.
Program – A 5 m high socle contains all functions outside the controlled library – Conference, Teaching Centre, Media Forum, Childrens Library with garden, carparks. The walkthrough Lobby gives a visual orientation to all departments galleried above. It flows into the entrance, general information and reference zones. Reading Rooms are on the north side, Users Own in the east arm, connecting to youth areas. Departments are on three upper balconies, with variable stores and connected via ramps in the reading arms – a flowing together. Workshops, offices and administration are in the 3 storey arm along the Via Monte Ortigara.
CITADEL + THRINON HENGELO NL. 2005
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: The Netherlands
CITY: Hengelo
YEAR: 2005
GFA: 25.000 sqm
PARTNER: Bureau Boukunde, Rotterdam
PHOTOS: © BOLLES+WILSON
While paying our last respects to the soon to be demolished V&D department store in Hengelo we revisited our 2005 housing ensemble around the corner.
CITADEL + THRINON
(formally known as THIEMSLAND)
BOLLES+WILSON 1998–2005
Generous balconies in the three Citadel buildings overlook the expansive park.
Balcony planting signals happy occupants (blocks J + I)
Like all BOLLES+WILSON projects, the (then called) Thiemsland choreography
began with a hand sketch
Landscaping Hotel NY
TYPOLOGY: Landscape
COUNTRY: The Netherlands
CITY: Rotterdam – Kop van Zuid
YEAR: 2006
CLIENT: City of Rotterdam (dS+U), Hotel New York partner
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters
The former embarkation point for emigration to the New World – a ‘Holland/America’ theme. Two landscapes (intimate Dutch gardens and a prairie-like American event- space) are divided by a conceptual border. Large scale text (like a Steinberg drawing) is inlayed in the pavement. To date the Dutch side including the Hotel Terrace, Maaskant Pavilion, vent Funnels, playground and intimate Dutch gardens is complete. despite regular dockings of American warships the narrative landscape on the American side of the Dutch-Amerika border remains unexecuted.
Bernhardstrasse
TYPOLOGY: Residential
COUNTRY: Germany
CITY: Münster
YEAR: 1997
GFA: 4.950 sqm
CLIENT: LVM Versicherungen
PHOTOS: © Christian Richters
A knitting together of street lines and block interior in a modest scaled residential district. The theme is more Vitruvius’ comoditas than grand or explicit architectural narrative. Street lines, precise boundaries between public and private realms are anchored with a solid dark, oil-fired, almost industrial and implicitly north German brick plinth. In contrast the upper floors in white plaster transcend this intentional massivity through their material and geometric abstraction. The two layers dovetailed together framing private terraces and necessary setbacks.
The 26 apartments are vertically ordered. Small units suitable for elderly occupants or studio apartments with garden below, the larger first floor apartments have generous balconies while the upper two floors are organised as maisonettes. An urbane facilitating of daily life is in the interiors and layout achieved with a reduced material palette – wood, stone, plaster.
Red Bar in the Sky
TYPOLOGY: Public
COUNTRY: Albania
CITY: Korça
YEAR: 2014
CLIENT: Municipality of Korça
PHOTOS: © Andronira Burda, Daniel Dervishi, Nico Peleshi, Roman Mensing
In time for Christmas 2014 the city of Korça in Albania realized BOLLES+WILSON’s design for a campanile – the Red Bar in the Sky. It focuses the Theatre Square, the concluding phase of the B+W 2009 masterplan (International Competition 1st prize). The campanile which functions as a lookout tower for Korcians to appreciate the delicate grain of their city is located at the end of the central pedestrian boulevard ‘Shën Gjergji’ (landscaping by B+W). Opened in winter the Red Bar in the Sky was accompanied by an ice skating rink installed by Greek skating specialists.
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Related project:
Masterplan Korça City Centre, 2009, 1st prize
