zkm_oma, rem koolhaas
DESCRIPTION
Rem Koolhaas-OMA project for ZKM cultural center in Karlsruhe, Germany.TRANSCRIPT
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) OMAKarlsruhe, Germany1989 (competition)
Centre for art and media technology
The centre for art and media technology is located on the border of the baroque town of Karlsruhe. On one side are the train tracks on the other the ramps of the motorway. The entrance at the city side (on the other side of the tracks) is connected to the periphery side by a tunnel. The tunnel is also used by the station circulation and along the tunnel a wall of glass seperates the different usersThe programmatic parts are organized vertically. From the bottom upwards the structure transforms from machine to building. Through the four elevations the building presents itself differently. The school is located east of the ‘tower’. It is connected to the museum by a corridor parallel to the tracks. Although the school was a main part of the program brief it is almost never shown in publications.OMA won the competition but the building was not realized because of, in OMA’s point of view, the slowness of architecture. The projects feasibility could not cope with the unstable political and economic forces of 1989 Germany (break down of Berlin wall).
1
level 121 m main entrance, foyer, theatre scale 1/200
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie and Bahnhof Situation scale 1/2500
level 137 m media museum scale 1/500
level 140 m ateliers scale 1/500
level 116 m bahnhof entrance, laboratoria scale 1/500
The architectural idea
The architectural theme of this design is a response to a series of relationships between the existing city and the implications of the site and program. The classical city of Karlsruhe in itself contradicts the presence of a futuristic center of art and technology; while the railway station building is oreinted toward the city center, the ZKM is oreinted toward the periphery.Part of the program accomodates research for the artists, while the other part is devoted to the public; the museum for modern art offers a spectrum of exhibition possibilities, ranging from traditional to experimental. The formulation of these contradictions is the goal of this design. Early efforts where directed towards treating the project as independed from the railway station. However each attempt to separate the museum from the station left only a small strip of land wedged between the street and parking garage. Building only on this strip would bind the architects to a pepitiition of the existing railway layout. The design follows the opposite concept; maximal integration of the station and ZKM. As in the two dimesioal baroque city layout, a third dimension is given. The ZKM design is based on the X,Y and Z axes. Axis represents and oragnizes one or more polarities: Centre-periphery, classical-futuristic and public private.
Motive to build
The aims for the new ZKM were:- to make sure that the new art and technology is as accessible as possible for the public, scientists and artists to work on.
- to provide possibilities between these three fi elds to create interdisciplinary projects (Gesamtkunstwerk)
- to teach in the fi elds of art en media technology (the idea was to create a Bauhaus-like organization)
- to exhibit the results of the history and future of art and media technology.
- to create an atmosphere where media technology can mix with traditional (performance) arts.
- to have spaces where special techniques can be developed.
The programmatic and internal structure of the building should be in such a way that people from different disciplines can meet, and through those interactions the building creates a strong synthesis between art and media technology.
museum school
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) OMAKarlsruhe, Germany1989 (competition) 2
City of the captive globe, from Delirious New York
level 144 m exhibition scale 1/500
level 153 m auditorium & library/meditheque scale 1/500
level 165 m exhibition, restaurant scale 1/500
level 156 m exhibition scale 1/500
Ideology of the architect
The architect is not specifi cally concerned with art and teaching. Merely he issues the aspects of large programs. His idea is carried foreward in his theories on big buildings and cities. This becomes clear in his theory on Bigness: ‘Beyond a certain critical mass each structure becomes a monument, or at least raises that expectation through its size alone, even if the sum or the nature of the individual activities it accommodates does not deserve a monumental expression. This category of monument presents a radical, morally traumatic break with the conventions of symbolism: its physical manifestation does not represent an abstract ideal, an institution of exceptional importance, a three-dimensional, readable articulation of a social hierarchy, a memorial; it merely is itself and through sheer volume cannot avoid being a symbol – an empty one, available for meaning as a billboard is for advertisement. It is a solipsism, celebrating only the fact of its disproportionate existence, the shamelessness of its own process of creation. This monument of the twentieth century is the Automonument, and its purest manifestation is the Skyscraper.’However, this modern Automonument has a contradictory character: ‘that of being monument – a condition that suggests permanence, solidity and serenity – and at the same time, that of accommodating, with maximum effi ciency , the “change which is life”, which is, by defi nition, anti-monumental.’ In order to resolve this paradox, the architecture of the American skyscraper developed a strategy that Koolhaas metaphorically refers to as ‘lobotomy’:
a kind of ‘surgery’ designed to keep the treatment of the interior and the exterior, the façade and the programme, strictly separate. At the point where architects were abandoning the traditional moral principle of the ‘honest façade’ – one that refl ects what lies behind it – they discovered a freedom of design such as they had never known. The form of the building became autonomous and self-referential. This strategy also ensured that the programmes within the building could change without affecting the exterior.Koolhaas used these principles as the starting point for his Paris library (TGB) and Karlsruhe media centre (ZKM) projects, both of which were completed around 1989. Both were situated on the edge of the city, and incorporated an immense and varied programme. Both designs consisted of a monolithic block in its simplest volumetric form: a cube. This is not a reference either to existing typologies for public buildings or to the morphology of the urban environment.Accordingly, Koolhaas makes no mention whatsoever of the representative capacity of the architecture, much less the representation of collectivity. In his view, the only way architecture can continue to be manifested in today’s urban culture is in the large, monolithic buildings themselves – islands in the city, into which all the architecture withdraws and, at the same time, is concentrated. These monoliths are ‘the last bastion of architecture ... landmarks in a post-architectural landscape’. This ‘archipelago’ conception of the city can be seen in Koolhaas’s 1972 project for The City of the Captive Globe.
entrance fl oor school scale 1/1000
fi rst fl oor school scale 1/1000
third fl oor school, courtyard scale 1/1000
second fl oor school, courtyard scale 1/1000
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) OMAKarlsruhe, Germany1989 (competition) 3
730 m2
1370 m2
4820 m2
280 m2
440 m2
940 m2
520 m2
1570 m2
1030 m2
5350 m2
foyer
public
theatre/auditorium
museum/exposition
cafe/restaurant
library/mediatheque
depot offi ces laboratory/atelier
parking outside /roofterrace
other
Program
fl exible / fi xed spaces
Circulation
Explanation of the diagrams
The main programmatic parts are stacked in the center of the building. Around this center is the lay out of circulation and offi ces.The routing spirals its way up the building. Sometimes it is just a ramp or escalator. At other points the circulation space widens to provide opportunities to have informal meetings. And then the routing stops to carry on through a programmatic part of the building (media museum, auditorium, exhibition space). By these means the circulation is not just necessary space but becomes a characteristic element of the building.The private and public spaces have their own territory. At some points they are connected by the routing or because one space ‘invades’ the others territory.To provide big structure-free spaces the construction of the center of the building consists of two vertical concrete slaps connected by big vierendeel-beems. The areas laying inside these vierendeel-beams are characterized by these structural elements to form a contrast to the large free spaces.The school is connected to the tower by a corridor parallel to the tracks. This area is also used as a study landscape. Perpendicular to the corridor are spaces in front of the ateliers providing oppotunities for conversation and informal meetings.
collective = student
private-collective = research
private = employee
public = visitors
fi xed workspace
service space
informal meeting or fl exible space
Horizontal circulation
Entrance
free horizontal circulation
private
vertical circulation
Public private
circulation
circulation
main programme
offi c
es
offi c
es
offi c
es
app circulation
roof museum
museum contemporary art
museum contemporary art
auditorium / library
museum contemporary art
media museum
media theatre / foyer
laboratoria foyer train stationmedia museum
seminar
media workshops
sources:
S,M,L,XLO.M.A., Rem Koolhaas and Bruce Mau1995
El Croquis (53+79)Rem Koolhaas 1987 1998 (monography)
Delirious New YorkRem Koolhaas1978
Bauwwelt 48, 1989Heinrich KlotzZentrum fur kunst undmedientechnologie karlsruhe
research by:
Ton DekkersJoop Tobben
Programmatic arrangement
main entrance
to theschool
city entrance
school building
level 137 m foyer, theatre
level 140 m ateliers level 116 m laboratory
level 144 m exhibition
level 153 m auditorium, mediatheque
level 156 m exhibition
level 137 m media museum level 163 m exhibition
level 165 m restaurant
level 165 m roof terace
level 116 m video display level 140 m ateliers & media museum level 153 m auditorium & mediatheque school building ateliers & informal meeting